Giving him a gold trophy was a pretty clear answer to all these questions.

Yeah, that’s a fair point. I was considering how weather impacts sunlight at the panels more than latitude. California is quite varied nonetheless.

You want me to cite an authoritative source for what? I’m just reporting my actual experience. You can cross check it against public utility rates and car efficiency if you want.

My EV is a Tesla Model 3. I average about 2.8 miles per KWh. I see claims of 4-5, but that’s not real world for my car. Best I’ve gotten is just over 3 while driving like a granny. My gas car is a Lexus hybrid, and I can get 40mpg if I drive it easy or on the highway, but I average 35 overall.

Public chargers are $0.40 - $0.65 per KWh. EVs get around 2.8 miles per KWh. If you use .50c, that’s 17.8 cents per mile.
Gas is around $5.75 to $6.75 per US gallon, and my gas car gets about 35mpg. If you use $6.00, that’s 17.1 cents per mile.

If you hunt around for the cheapest public chargers at the cheapest times (like midnight to 5am), you’re still paying about 30 cents per KWh, so 10.8 cents per mile, which is a bit cheaper than gas (but comes at the expense of your time). In any case, it’s not 2-3x cheaper, and certainly not anywhere close to your kinda crazy assumption of $10 per KWh. Maybe I’m doing the math wrong, but I don’t think so.

Maintenance on the EV has been a lot lower, so there’s a savings there.

Unless it’s particularly expensive to install there.

It is famously expensive here.

In comparison, California has way less seasonal variability in production

It depends on where in California the installation is. We have regions that get significant sun year round, and others that are under a coastal marine/stratus cloud layer for long periods of time. We also have alpine areas that have seasonal weather like you’re describing, but relatively fewer people live in those areas.

Upside… the surfing is still good when its cloudy. :-)

Meanwhile here in California we have inflated electricity prices so much that fueling costs are almost equal. EVs edge out gas cars a little, but not by that much.