Since you purchased your C40 and XC40 - how has your utility bill been?

1177 Views 22 Replies 16 Participants Last post by Irishamerican, 7 h ago

BigVikC40Dadda

Discussion Starter · 23 d ago

Hi everyone -

As of today my monthly utility bill is $214, after 18 months of driving my C40. I have a 240V;50A Level 2 charging outlet, but I don’t have those wall mounted chargers, where I can see and gauge my monthly EV rates? I spent $800 to get this charging outlet put in my garage, and I usually charge at nights almost daily.

How is your monthly home, apartment, condo, townhome utility bill been? Same before EV buy, increased after EV buy or decreased after EV buy? Curious to know your thoughts and analysis.

I know many jurisdictions are offering incentives to charge at night with lower charging rates.

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1moreRobot

· #2 · 23 d ago

We use about $2 worth of electricity each day to replenish the battery for the ~54 miles my husband drives to get to and from work. He's on call a couple weekends a month (in which case he works all 7 days), so I'll say on average he works 6 days a week. Throw in a couple trips around town and to Costco and whatnot, and I'd say our electric bill has gone up $50–75 a month, depending on extracurricular driving.

We are on a time-of-use plan, in which we get a little discount between midnight and 6AM, when the car charges. However, we pay through the nose on weekdays between 2–6 PM —something like triple the normal rate. I've set the AC to go into a super eco mode for those 4 hours (I have it give a chilly blast from 1–2 to get the house ready to ride it out). Was worried last summer how that was going to work, but it fortunately we have a new construction house that is very well insulated, and it stays quite comfortable until the AC kicks back on in the evening.

Reactions: 1

bogiesan

· #3 · 23 d ago

This is a truly difficult comparison to make. Power rates vary widely across the country. Family sizes, conservation habits, efficiency of appliances and insulation, prevailing weather, use of air conditioning, &c all contribute to a complex matrix of monthly power/energy bills.

Idaho Power Company has among the lower residential rates in the USA; 1000kWh costs the consumer roughly $116.00. Next door to us in Casper WY the same consumption will cost $105 while San Diego CA can be as high as $450 for the same energy. I have gas heat and water heating so my electrical bill is less than $100/month, averaged over a year. Idaho Power does not have an EV rate or tiered rates. That is, there is no discount for off-peak charging. My monthly consumption has not changed my bill much, maybe $6/month, but it won't show up until my annualized consumption is averaged in December. And my power rates are going up 10-18% in six months or so.

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BigDaddyEureka

· #4 · 23 d ago

Here, when my wife and I are both running electric cars (usually in the spring, summer and fall) there's a definite hit in the utilities.

I'll pay it every day.

Did a calculation compared to using my 20 MPG truck (used mostly for farm purposes) and it costs 10% of running that. Not 10% LESS mind you...just 10% of the cost of running the gasoline truck. That's not including maintenance and such...in which case the truck loses even harder.

Here in Illinois, USA our electric rates are all that great either. I'm sure the differential is even worse when the electric power cost is lower and the gasoline price is higher...

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DcinBC

· #5 · 23 d ago

Highest month was January at $43 Canadian, lowest $21 at .14KW/h. My utility switches the ChargePoint unit on at 11pm weekdays, 7pm weekends (I can override if needed), and proposed rate adjustment will drop rate to about .09KW/h overnight in a year. I put about 1000km/month on car, mostly in town. Utility is 100% hydro electric on the Island. Gas by comparison for my wife’s 03 Eurovan is $1.945/l, so an average fill up like today was $110. If it goes above $2.50 like last summer, try $150 to go about 500km. The Volvo by comparison costs a bit over $12 on home charging, and about $30 on public fast chargers here to go the same distance. The Land Rover I had before cost roughly $500 a month!

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Macachia

· #6 · 22 d ago

I have a special meter with my electrical supplier at 0.1298cents of a euro per 1kw.

I calculate around 20euros a month in usage. Compared to 40 to 50euros a week in fuel when I had an ice car. Best purchase ever

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DcinBC

· #7 · 22 d ago (Edited)

Macachia said:
I have a special meter with my electrical supplier at 0.1298cents of a euro per 1kw.

I calculate around 20euros a month in usage. Compared to 40 to 50euros a week in fuel when I had an ice car. Best purchase ever

I really have to wonder about tariffs in the UK. I can understand that my hydro electricity rates in Western Canada are relatively cheap, but I’m amazed that mostly foreign-owned UK utilities are allowed to charge what they do (I was born and raised there) while Malta, where we lived for a few years while Dad was in the Navy, is so reasonable. I guess the oil and gas industry is pleased that Britain will find EVs too expensive to run.

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Daizyujin

· #8 · 22 d ago

We installed a ChargePoint Home Flex as part of the local utility's EV charging program, where the rate is $0.028/kWh when charging between 12AM~6AM. The charges are separated out on the bill so I can see that we're paying between $60~$80/month with around 2,000 miles driven each month for the C40. There are a lot of other charges above the EV rate (fuel surcharges, taxes, etc) so that's why it's much higher than it seems like it should be based on the rate.

Reactions: 2

BigVikC40Dadda

Discussion Starter · #9 · 22 d ago

Daizyujin said:
We installed a ChargePoint Home Flex as part of the local utility's EV charging program, where the rate is $0.028/kWh when charging between 12AM~6AM. The charges are separated out on the bill so I can see that we're paying between $60~$80/month with around 2,000 miles driven each month for the C40. There are a lot of other charges above the EV rate (fuel surcharges, taxes, etc) so that's why it's much higher than it seems like it should be based on the rate.

I love the fact your utility bill shows the breakdown of the EV charging. I don’t have that level of detail as yet. I’d like to get to that, and likely call our local utility provider to see what programs they are currently offering. They were offering one for the Nissan Leaf, if you got one, but it seems like many years ago.

AshleyTrailrunner

· #10 · 22 d ago

We have solar panels, and we send electricity back to the grid. So our monthly bill is a steady $24.80, the basic fee we have to pay in order to be connected to the electrical grid.

I had expected that after buying an electric car, we would be using a lot more electricity, and sending less to the grid. It is a little less, but still we are producing more electricity than we use.

We just got our car in March, and so we haven't been through a full summer of air conditioning or a whole winter of heating -- and we use an electrically powered heat pump for both -- so I am guessing during those higher use months, we might actually use all the electricity we generate, have to draw from the grid, and pay for usage. But so far, so good!

Reactions: 4

1moreRobot

· #11 · 22 d ago

AshleyTrailrunner said:
We have solar panels, and we send electricity back to the grid. So our monthly bill is a steady $24.80, the basic fee we have to pay in order to be connected to the electrical grid.

I had expected that after buying an electric car, we would be using a lot more electricity, and sending less to the grid. It is a little less, but still we are producing more electricity than we use.

We just got our car in March, and so we haven't been through a full summer of air conditioning or a whole winter of heating -- and we use an electrically powered heat pump for both -- so I am guessing during those higher use months, we might actually use all the electricity we generate, have to draw from the grid, and pay for usage. But so far, so good!

Is your house considered a net zero structure?

We are building one this summer in Maine and are curious about some of the claims (mostly that we'll always be producing more electricity than we draw in all seasons).

BigDaddyEureka

· #12 · 22 d ago

BigVikC40Dadda said:
I love the fact your utility bill shows the breakdown of the EV charging. I don’t have that level of detail as yet. I’d like to get to that, and likely call our local utility provider to see what programs they are currently offering. They were offering one for the Nissan Leaf, if you got one, but it seems like many years ago.

FWIW the ChargePoint home charger we use has a feature where you enter the rate you pay and then it calculates the cost of energy for each day / week / month / year. Kinda handy!

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wrenz

· #13 · 22 d ago

I've only had my C40 for 6 months - 4 of those in summer. At the moment I have a $1,200 credit with my electricity provider due exporting my excess solar generation. So I didn't have any out of pocket to charge my car during summer. The public charger I use is tied to my home electricity provider account. The few times I have used the public charger the cost has been taken from my credit. So also no out of pocket yet.

Winter is coming and I'm using the reduced solar generation for the house and grid power at night to charge the car. I'm curious how long it will take to use up my credit.

To fill the car from 0-100% would probably cost $28 at night rates. To fill my ICE (Hyundai Santa Fe) took about $130.

I'm happy with my situation - solar & EV

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AshleyTrailrunner

· #14 · 21 d ago

1moreRobot said:
Is your house considered a net zero structure?

This is probably more detail than you want, but since you asked the question and are building a house, here you go...

We put solar panels on our house in 2018, at a time when we did not have an electric car, and we also did not have a heat pump (We didn't have any air conditioning, and we used a gas powered furnace to heat the house).

Our electrical utility limits all residential solar installations to 120% of the customer's average monthly consumption over the previous year. So, since it is just two of us at home, and we watch our consumption of electricity, our electrical consumption was pretty low when we applied to install solar... Meaning we were relatively limited in the number of solar panels we were allowed to install on the house.

In those first few years of solar generation, we sent a lot of electricity back to the grid, even in very snowy months when the panels were blocked from producing for days at a time.

In the years since, we have installed a heat pump (which is powered by electricity) and in March we bought the electric Volvo. So now, our electrical consumption has gone up, but we haven't added any solar panels (yet). During sunny months, we expect that we will continue to send electricity to the grid. During months of lower solar production (and higher consumption of electricity from heating the house with the heat pump) we anticipate having to pay for extra electricity that we consume.

I anticipate that over the course of a year, we will probably be net zero (that the sunny months will balance out the winter months) but it's possible that at this point we will actually be consuming some electricity from the grid over the course of a year.

Your utility may have different rules, of course. But if you are asked to submit paperwork regarding your electrical consumption in order to get your panels approved, make sure to include the car as part of that equation, so that you will be approved for enough panels to cover its needs.

Probably more information than you needed, but that's our story. ;-)

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Jesse347

· #15 · 18 d ago

We have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus at home which gives us fantastic visibility for energy consumption and cost. I’ve included a screenshot from the app that shows the usage and cost breakdown for the whole month. We can even view individual charging sessions or break it down by year or week. (This is charging info for our two EVs). In total our electric bill never exceeds $210-230 a month. Half of our costs are for charging the cars.

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BigVikC40Dadda

Discussion Starter · #16 · 18 d ago

Jesse347 said:
We have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus at home which gives us fantastic visibility for energy consumption and cost. I’ve included a screenshot from the app that shows the usage and cost breakdown for the whole month. We can even view individual charging sessions or break it down by year or week. (This is charging info for our two EVs). In total our electric bill never exceeds $210-230 a month. Half of our costs are for charging the cars.

View attachment 6472

Superior charging metrics! 🔥

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scarce.ap

· #17 · 12 d ago

This graph shows the annual (May to May) electricity usage (purple) and return from the solar panels (green) for the past 4 years. (ignore the first year since the solar panels were only fitted towards the end of that year). So consumption went up by roughly 2000 kWh from 2020 to 2021 when I started charging at home (my P8 was delivered in January 2021). That covers around 8-10000 km @ around 20 -21 kWh/100 km. The rest of my travels were covered by fast chargers.

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BvH

· #18 · 10 d ago

We also have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus (amazing piece of kit) here is an overview of our charging use since January of this year.

One thing to note ... the app allows you to put a kWh price in yourself and I put in €0,07/kWh because at the start of the year we could have a couple of cents added to our kWh cost due to a government thing and high electricity prices.

In actuality that never came to pass and our cost is €0,03/kWh so we didn't spend €112 ... but closer to €48! ... and to add to that ... so far in 2023 we've driven about 7500 km ...

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napncrash

· #19 · 10 d ago

I'm in NJ, USA, and I spend approximately six cents per mile charged.

So, hypothetically, I could charge from 0% to 100% for somewhere around $13.50.

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Mark the Stoic

· #20 · 8 d ago

I’m using a program in South Florida which is all inclusive, as follows:

No up front costs to the resident
Florida Power and Light provides electrician to install wiring, breakers/switches and Level 2 charger in garage
L2 charger is linked to utility company (FP&L), and also Wi-Fi controlled with app by resident
$38/month fixed cost to resident
10 year term contract
monthly rate guaranteed not to increase during contract term
unlimited off peak charging included in monthly fee
peak charging activity charged at peak rates on the monthly invoice
off peak hours during summer are 9pm to noon during the week, and all hours during weekend; major holidays are also included as off peak
winter off peak hours are midnight to 9am during the week, and all hours during weekend; major holidays are also included as off peak

So, all the charging I need for $38 per month for the next 10 years, as long as I charge during off peak hours, which are plenty long enough to permit full battery charging any evening, and certainly both weekend days.

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