# What's it cost to charge an electric car **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 17, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315 "2012-11-17T16:11:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pacific420](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Pacific420](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pacific420)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/1 "2012-11-17T16:11:37Z")
**I’m curious, all the talk about electric cars, sure you’re not paying for gas but what does it add to your electric bill to charge them up?** ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/2 "2012-11-17T16:20:28Z")
It’s a far more complicated answer than you might think. Electricity doesn’t cost the same everywhere, or even in the same place at different times of day. It also changes with scale: if you use more, you pay less per unit, unlike gasoline which is the same price for the 15th gallon as the first. There’s a good article here about the issues: [http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/the-true-cost-of-powering-an-electric-car.html](http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/the-true-cost-of-powering-an-electric-car.html) ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/3 "2012-11-17T16:25:45Z")
Depends on the vehicle, just like with gas cars. Use the Ford Focus BEV though. It needs 32 kWh/100 miles. Figure the typical 1000 miles a month (12K/yr) and you use 320 kWh a month. What is your electricity rate? If you charge at night and have real time pricing it could be under 4 cents/kWh but most use 10 cents/kWh as the standard. [Fueleconomy.gov](http://Fueleconomy.gov) use 12 cents. So per month about $32. Bottom line using [fueleconomy.gov](http://fueleconomy.gov) calculations is annual electricity costs of anywhere from $550 to 850 depending on the vehicle assuming 12 cents/kWh and 15K miles driven a year. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/4 "2012-11-17T16:29:24Z")
I’ve been following a discussion about leasing a Nissan LEAF on another message board and here is an example someone posted: > [@](#): > > The cost to operate the Leaf will depend on your local electricity costs. That can vary a lot. > It has a 24 kWh battery. National average cost for electricity is 11 cents per kWh. So on average it costs about $2.64 to charge the battery. Then you get say 70 miles out of that. That comes out to about 3.8 cents per mile. I checked my last electric bill and I’m right at the national average. However, some utilities, such as mine, offer a program where you can pay a little higher during peak usage, but get a 50% discount during non-peak times such as overnight, when is the time you’d most often be charging your car. So for much of the time you’d be able to cut that 3.8 cents in half. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/5 "2012-11-17T16:38:06Z")
My current rate is 4.621 cents/kWh btw, so my on order C-Max Energi will cost me about 30 cents a day to charge for its 20 to 21 miles of grid power (which more than covers my daily commute). Your electricity rates may vary. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/6 "2012-11-17T16:44:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > My current rate is 4.621 cents/kWh btw… That’s incredibly low. Is that an off-hours rate or do you have some special circumstances? Is the source of your electricity a municipal grid? Hydro? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/7 "2012-11-17T17:25:11Z")
Just what our village negotiated with Integrys as an aggregation price. ---
**Author:** ![Pacific420](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Pacific420](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pacific420)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car/641315/8 "2012-11-17T20:05:10Z")
Read Whynots link and appreciate all your replies/info