Electric cars…how much do they really cost in electricity?
With electricity prices increasing lately, how much does it now cost to run a typical fully electric car if you only charge at home? WCAG volunteer Karl shows us the answer based on his experiences.
From the trip computer in our car, we have used 4386 kWh of electricity to drive 18262 miles. This equates to a little over 4 miles per kilo Watt hour (kWh) with 1 kWh being a unit of electricity that we buy from our energy providers. The price of electricity varies between energy provider and tariffs. Generally it is cheaper (and greener) to charge off peak at night, so let’s look at that in detail with 3 popular off peak tariffs.
The Octopus GO tariff is 5p per unit off peak.
Bulb Vari-Fair economy 7 tariff is 13.7p per unit off peak.
EON economy 7 tariff is 20.5p per unit off peak.
For Octopus 4386 x 0.05 = £220
For Bulb 4386 x 0.137 = £600
For EON 4386 x 0.205 = £900
So depending on the provider used and at todays prices, running a typical electric car for approximately 18000 miles costs between £220 and £900, including VAT.
If you did not have an off peak tariff and were paying for electricity at the national maximum price cap which is currently 35p per unit this would rise to £1535.
Let’s compare to a range of petrol cars at £1.45/litre (£6.58 per gallon) for the same 18000 miles.
A super mini averaging 50 mpg = £2400 in petrol
A hatchback averaging 35 mpg = £3400
An SUV averaging 20 mpg = £6000
So you can see the running costs of an electric car are currently significantly lower than a petrol car. Plus of course fully electric cars currently enjoy zero road tax, zero or minimal servicing and do not pollute our village. Do consider one when you next change your car.