How much does it cost to charge a Electric car?
This is a question I often get when I speak about electric vehicles. How much will it cost me to “fill” up? The question is really a comparison of how much will I save over a traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE aka a gasoline powered car). The cost of charging an electric car will depend on the type of electric car, your location, and if you’re a residential or commercial customer.
Here is the best way I found to make that comparison;
- Size of the Battery of the car you are own or plan on purchasing
- Average Electrical Price (kwh) of where you plan to charge you car
- How many miles you plan on driving on a daily/weekly/monthly basis
For instance, I like to use the very popular and affordable Nissan Leaf with the High Capacity Battery .
- Battery Size 60 kwh ( takes 60 kwh to a full charge)
- Average electric price is .13 cents kwh in my area (Price of Delivery and Supplier charge)
- 40 Miles a day for a week lets say 200 miles
The cost of the charge would be approximately $7.80 or the about 2.6 gallons of gas Unleaded at $3.00/gal. (60x.13 = $7.80 ) Average range on a Nissan Leaf is about 220 miles. As long as you are planning on going to a charger at home. You should only have to charge about once a week in this scenario.
If I were to compare that to a Nissan Versa car lets do the math.
- Gas Tank 10.8 Gallons
- Average price per gallon in New York $ 3.00 (at the time of writing)
- 30 mpg Average
The cost would be $32.40 to have tank filled up. Now if we travelled the same distance of 200 Miles. The cost would be $19.20 compared to a cost of full charge on a EV of $7.80!
If you compare the numbers $11.40 more to drive a ICE car vs a EV.
The cost of charging an electric car will depend on the type of electric car, your location, and if you’re a residential or commercial customer.
Electric cars are becoming more popular because they are cheaper to own and maintain than gas-powered cars; they have lower emissions; they have better performance; and they are accelerating more quickly than gas-powered cars. As you can see, the higher the gasoline rates continue to rise, the cost of having a traditional ICE car versus a EV… start to make sense.