How much does it cost to charge an electric car at home, at work and on the road?
The cost to charge your electric car depends on whether you’re charging at home or away from home.
In summary:
- If you charge mostly at home the cost of charging is about 10% of your usual fuel bill. Charging mostly on public charge points costs about 65% of your usual fuel bill.
- A full charge at home costs as little as 60p for a hybrid, £2 for a small electric car or £5 for a large electric car.
- Access these savings by switching to a home energy tariff designed for electric car drivers and use a smart charge point to schedule your home charging for the cheap overnight period.
- Charging a small electric car at the ‘Rapid’ charging stations like those found at motorway service stations will cost £5 to £15 to fill up (depending on the network’s pricing).
- Rapid charging a large electric car will cost £15 to £35.
Comparing to your petrol or diesel bill
Charging an electric car at home is 80% – 90% cheaper per year than refuelling with petrol or diesel. The full 90% saving is achieved by switching to an EV tariff* at home and using a smart charge point to schedule your charge for the cheap overnight period.
If you can’t charge at home and will be using the public charging networks you can still reduce your annual fuel bill by around 35%.
*Energy suppliers often offer special tariffs designed for electric car drivers, known as ‘EV Tariffs’ . When charging mostly at home these tariffs can save you over £200 per year compared to charging on a standard energy tariff. Compare estimates tailored to your home, car and charging style today.
Cost to charge at home
To maximise home charging savings you will want to switch to an EV tariff and make sure you’re scheduling your charge to happen in the off-peak hours of that tariff.
The off-peak period typically starts at around midnight and runs until around 7am or earlier.
A home charge for a small car (like a Nissan Leaf) will cost around:
- On a special home energy tariff with an off-peak period
- £2 per charge
- £100 per year (for a driver doing 8,000 miles per year)
- On a typical energy tariff without an off-peak period
- £7 per charge
- £350 per year (for a driver doing 8,000 miles per year)
A home charge for a large car (like a Tesla Model X) will cost around:
- On a special home energy tariff with an off-peak period
- £5 per charge
- £130 per year (for a driver doing 8,000 miles per year)
- On a typical energy tariff without an off-peak period
- £18 per charge
- £470 per year (for a driver doing 8,000 miles per year)
Cost to charge away from home
There are a few places to charge your car away from home:
- At Rapid charge stations
- At work
- At other destinations (like shopping centres, hotels and multi-storey car parks)
Rapid charging
Rapid charge points, which charge your car around 10 times faster than a home charge point, are dotted across the country at over 12,000 locations (see them on Zap-Map).
The pricing to charge varies from one network to the next.
It will cost around £5 to charge a small car on the cheapest network or £15 to charge a large car. On other networks it can cost around £15 to charge a small car and £35 to charge a large car.
Zap-Map provide a guide to the price of each network.
At work
The cost to charge at work completely depends on whether or not your company decides to pass through the cost or offer charging for free.
You might be lucky and get free charging from your employer.
At other destinations
Charge points can be found at shopping centres, hotels, multi-storey car parks and all sorts of other destinations all over the country.
These can often charge at the same speed as your home charge point – a lot slower than the Rapid chargers but still worth plugging into while you do your shopping, have a meal or stay somewhere overnight.
The pricing for these is highly variable. Ranging from hotels and restaurants offering free charging to guests through to paid charging from the same networks that offer Rapid charging at other destinations.
If you have any questions about the cost of electric car charging give us a call on 0808 164 1045 or email us at hello@wp.rightcharge.co.uk.