> plus the cost of wear on the onboard storage system (battery, etc.)
That falls under vehicle maintenance and does not play into the cost of fuel.
> it only means the cost of energy for a vehicle is equal to the cost of the same energy on the electric grid
Yes, I was exaggerating but it is already pretty cheap. If memory serves, it is about $0.08/kWh in the US or $6.80 to charge Tesla's largest battery pack which is way cheaper than $40-60 per gasoline tank. And if you extrapolate a little, that cost is going to go down by the time electric vehicles are mature because the literal energy cost should be less and electric vehicles should be more efficient. But maybe I am wrong about that, only time will tell.
> > > plus the cost of wear on the onboard storage system (battery, etc.)
> That falls under vehicle maintenance and does not play into the cost of fuel.
Whenever you talk about "fuel" with an electric vehicle, you are doing so by loose analogy; the battery electrolytes are the closest thing to "fuel" in an electric vehicle. I suppose one could quibble over the degree to which the battery is analogous to the "fuel tank" vs. part of the "fuel", the main point, in any case, is that even the electricity isn't even approximately zero cost.
> Yes, I was exaggerating but it is already pretty cheap. If memory serves, it is about $0.08/kWh
Which is equivalent (by GGE [1]) to $2.67/gallon of gasoline, which, while lower than current gasoline prices, is so by less than factor of 2, so its an incremental improvement improvement, not the kind of orders-of-magnitude implied by "essentially zero", even allowing for a bit of artistic exaggeration.
Unless I'm mistaken you're glossing over the fact that electric motors are significantly more efficient than combustion engines. An electric motor doesn't turn more than half of all the energy in the batteries into heat.
That falls under vehicle maintenance and does not play into the cost of fuel.
> it only means the cost of energy for a vehicle is equal to the cost of the same energy on the electric grid
Yes, I was exaggerating but it is already pretty cheap. If memory serves, it is about $0.08/kWh in the US or $6.80 to charge Tesla's largest battery pack which is way cheaper than $40-60 per gasoline tank. And if you extrapolate a little, that cost is going to go down by the time electric vehicles are mature because the literal energy cost should be less and electric vehicles should be more efficient. But maybe I am wrong about that, only time will tell.