Prospective electric car owners gotta know, “Will my electric bill go through the roof when I charge at home?” After all, you’re plugging a battery literally the size of a Volkswagen into your house, so it must make the electric meter spin like when Clark Griswold plugged in a million strands of Christmas lights, right?
Well, an EV can become one of the power-hungriest things attached to your house, but don’t forget that your gasoline budget will probably go down at least as much, and possibly considerably more. How much extra an electric vehicle will increase your electric bill depends on many factors, but fear not: It’s easily determined and likely won’t result in the doubling or tripling of the average electric bill.
Related: 5 Things That Could Slow Your EV’s Home Charging Speeds
How Much Does It Cost to Charge an EV at Home?
To get a rough estimate of how much an electric car will increase your monthly electric bill, you need to know the following:
- Number of miles driven per month
- Efficiency of the EV measured in kilowatt-hour per mile, found on gov
- Local cost per kWh, measured in cents
Even then, cost will vary based on other factors, but we can get you in the ballpark. Electricity consumption is measured in kWh, as opposed to gallons of gasoline in a traditional car. A kWh is a quantity you should be familiar with if you’ve ever looked at your home electric bill. To get an accurate cost per kWh, take the overall cost of electricity on your last bill and divide by kWh used, which will take into consideration all fees and charges that come with delivering electricity to your home. The end number should look something like $0.1375, or 13.75 cents per kWh, which is the last reported national residential average from December 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration. To account for month-to-month changes in the electric rate or other billing variations like metering or fees, you might want to do the same calculation for a few different monthly electric bills to get a more accurate average.