Real Charge Cost
Calculator

EV Charging Cost Calculator

What charging costs depends on your electricity rate, and rates vary by more than three to one across the US.

New to this? A kilowatt-hour — kWh — is the gallon of electricity: the unit your power company bills you by. Everything below is priced in it.

The boxes start with example numbers. Replace them with yours — the rate on your own bill is the only one that matters.

Your electricity
¢ / kWh

It's on your bill, often called the energy charge — add any delivery charges billed per kWh, or the result will look too good. No bill handy? Leave the US average of 18¢ in place for a rough answer and come back with your real rate later.

Your driving
kWh / 100 mi

How much electricity the car needs to go 100 miles — the EPA combined figure, on the window sticker and at fueleconomy.gov. The 34 cars on this site are rated between 23 and 64, and unlike MPG, lower is better.30 kWh/100mi is about 3.3 miles per kWh on a dashboard, or 112 MPGe.

miles / year

Not sure? Leave the 12,000 in place — it's a round number we use for illustration, not a measured average — and put your own in when you know it.

Advanced: charging efficiency
%

Leave this at 100% if you used the EPA figure above — the EPA already measures at the wall socket, so charging losses are inside it. Use the figure as published. Change this only if your number came from your car's own trip computer, which measures at the battery instead.

The gas car you'd be driving instead
MPG
$ / gallon

Your numbers

Charging comes out $972 cheaper a year than filling the gas car — roughly $81 a month back in your pocket.

Cost per mile$0.054
Per 100 miles$5.40
Charging, per year$648
Gas, per year$1,620