I'm paying double for my electricity bill since last month, am I doing something wrong?

[SD_Engnr]

I have consumer's energy right now and it says for the month of December I've used 825 kWh, cost per day is $3.89, and kWh per day is 26. I've also took delivery of my car since last month. I know the electricity bill has to go up but not by $100 lol.

I do charge it by plugging it in every chance I get but I heard something about certain hours to charge for it to be cheaper?

I've driven about 1000 miles so far.

You drove around 1000 miles, and your bill went up around $100. That's around $0.10 per mile of fuel. Not bad, and is probably cheaper than the ICE car you replaced.

As it was already said, if you are on a TOU plan, make sure to do most or all of your charging during this time.

I'm still surprised that people are surprised when they get their first electricity bill and see that it has doubled. It's certainly not difficult math.

 

[JBare]

Unfortunately no TOU with NOVEC here in VA. Over the last year I've paid $0.139/kWh. Ive had the car for 1 month and plug in every night after roughly 75 miles used per week day. I was expecting ~$50/mo in electric increase so we'll see how that guestimate goes over the next few months.

 

[Oldschool496]

Unfortunately no TOU with NOVEC here in VA. Over the last year I've paid $0.139/kWh. Ive had the car for 1 month and plug in every night after roughly 75 miles used per week day. I was expecting ~$50/mo in electric increase so we'll see how that guestimate goes over the next few months.

Some in California are paying .22-.23 or .30 per kWh if you under 15 cents anywhere, your doing really good.

 

[JBare]

Definitely not complaining after averaging $280/mo in gas on my old F150!

After looking closer it appears I get a cheaper rate the more I use.... Or maybe just a coincidence as those are summer months.

 

[SD_Engnr]

Some in California are paying .22-.23 or .30 per kWh if you under 15 cents anywhere, your doing really good.

Yeah, that $0.15/kWh is a great rate. My average before solar, and before my Model 3 was right at $0.25/kWh (including all fees etc). This was because we were a low use household and managed to always stay in Tier 1.

Now, I'm in TOU, have solar + PW2, a P3D+, and a plug-in hybrid, and I don't exactly know what my cost per kWh are...

I'll wait for the "true up" bill from my energy provider in April, and then do the slightly harder math to determine my actual cost per kWh.

 

[1deepthink]

How much do you drive a month to equate the month to 100 in electric bill?

I drive a bit over 1k a month and i pay about 50 bucks here in utah.

Yea, our power is cheap in Utah - the majority of mine at $0.117 all in with taxes and fees ($0.107 without)...
but it's dirty "About two-thirds of Utah's net electricity generation came from coal in 2016..." Utah - State Energy Profile Analysis - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

 

[Oldschool496]

Yea, our power is cheap in Utah - the majority of mine at $0.117 all in with taxes and fees ($0.107 without)...
but it's dirty "About two-thirds of Utah's net electricity generation came from coal in 2016..." Utah - State Energy Profile Analysis - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

12 cents her in FL plus taxes, all mostly NG, dirty but not coal dirty.

 

[DB-Cooper]

As others have said, if you have tiered pricing, an electric car may not be as economically advantageous as one would think. I live in City of Austin, we're on a power co-op with tiered pricing. The first tiers are subsidized heavily, the higher tiers are very expensive. This has been my main reason for not getting a Tesla earlier. You have to factor that a Tesla is a non-necessity electrical device, as non-necessity, it should be considered with a cost-basis of the highest tier. I ultimately justified buying a Tesla because City of Austin has a reasonable amount of chargers and a city program that allows unlimited use of ChargePoint for $4 / month. My wife's parking garage has dozens of charge points, so effectively I don't need to charge at home except for convenience or topping off. I also installed solar to offset my power usage.

Long story short, you need to read your bill carefully. Even if your power usage doesn't double, your bill very likely will due to tiering. Example City of Austin tiers are as follows:

Base Electricity Rate/Fees/Taxes for any usage = 4.9 cents per kWh

0-500 kWh @ 7.7 cents per kWh
501-1000 kWh @ 10.7 cents per kWh
1001-1500 kWh @ 12.7 cents per kWh
1501-2500 kWh @ 14.2 cents per kWh
2500+ kWh @ 15.7 cents per kWh
NOTE: like US Federal taxes, you pay the price per bracket as you climb up for just that portion of the range.

So here are a couple example cases:
500 kWh monthly usage = $44 / month
1000 kWh monthly usage = $74 / month
1500 kWh monthly usage = $113 / month
2000 kWh monthly usage = $160 / month
2500 kWh monthly usage = $207 / month

So if your car takes you from 800 to 1600 kWh, your bill jumps from $61 / month to $122 / month or double your bill. If you go from 1600 kWh to 3200 kWh, you go from $122 to $283. So depending on what tier the car bumps you into, you could actually more than double your bill.

If you can get another company (in a deregulated power district) you should absolutely seek a provider that has Time of Use allowances and charge the car in the middle of the night.

 

[SageBrush]

That's around $0.10 per mile of fuel.

Very unlikely. since (s)he pays 15 cents a kWh

 

[SSedan]

Too many California folks here.
In the Midwest all your TOU, tiers, miles arguments are missing the elephant in the room.
My utility is I believe $.12 regular and $.08/.18 on TOU not worthwhile. Tiers are probably not in play either.
Pack heating is in play in MI now which is likely the culprit.

 

[ceekz]

If you are an Apple user, check out Stats. It links to your Tesla account so you have to be comfortable granting access. You enter your cost of electricity per kW, and it calculates your cost per mile after you charge. Also tracks vampire drain, and efficiency compared to other app users. The developer is a forum member. Fee is a flat rate, no monthly charges.

One thing about CA is they are big on clean energy. I have solar and TOU rates, plus my local utility has a special EV rate for off-peak charging. I pay just over 7 per kWh (roughly 2 cents per mile), but that will disappear when I add battery storage and more panels because some of the rates aren't grandfathered when the system is upgraded.

 

[Dmagyar]

Will be interesting now that PG&E is in the hot seat regarding the California wildfires this last season, what sparked my interest was the mention of breaking the utility up and/or making it publicly owned. My tou rate e-6 goes away in a few years other than that and at the lowest I’m at $.17/kWh which at 250-270 miles per kWh is 4-4.5 cents per mile, liking that.

 

[ZoomDoggie]

Well, depending on where you live this could be easily just the fact it's now cold. My electric bill and gas bill swap which is largest depending on the time of year. We use the electricity for the AC and natural gas for the heat (old house/radiators).

I can just as easily say 'Oh look, my electricity bill has gone down. Clearly it's because of my Tesla'. But not really as correlation does not prove causation. What you need to do is compare bills after controlling for all the other electric usage and cost (ie did your utility happen to raise rates? what other draws on electricity are there?).

 

[ngogas]

@1deepthink in Utah they also have a tier pricing if you elect to do that. Depending how you use your energy, it could be even lower then .11 cents.

 

[1deepthink]

@1deepthink in Utah they also have a tier pricing if you elect to do that. Depending how you use your energy, it could be even lower then .11 cents.

Thanks for the tip! Sadly in my house the washing machine, dishwasher and furnace or a/c seems to be in perpetual motion. The only course for me is solar and power wall. Time to go water the money tree !

 

[Big Dog]

How is your gasoline bill doing?

 

[SunCharged]

I have consumer's energy right now and it says for the month of December I've used 825 kWh, cost per day is $3.89, and kWh per day is 26. I've also took delivery of my car since last month. I know the electricity bill has to go up but not by $100 lol.

I do charge it by plugging it in every chance I get but I heard something about certain hours to charge for it to be cheaper?

Consumer Energy has a TOU (time of use) plan. It’s worth it to sign up and easy to do. It’ll make a much bigger difference impact in the summer months as opposed to right now.

 

[SSedan]

How is your gasoline bill doing?

This misses the point that people are told they will save huge amounts on "fuel" cost driving electric but we are not told that those of us in cold climates will see the car energy use double or more come winter. That takes a big bite out of "savings" that are one of the big angles used to get people to spend $50k+ on these cars.

 

[SageBrush]

This misses the point that people are told they will save huge amounts on "fuel" cost driving electric but we are not told that those of us in cold climates will see the car energy use double or more come winter. That takes a big bite out of "savings" that are one of the big angles used to get people to spend $50k+ on these cars.

There is certainly truth in your point but I live in a cold climate and do not see "huge" increases in Wh/mile. I would not expect Tesla to spend too much effort in publicizing what is a ymmv.

 

[ebmcs03]

Some in California are paying .22-.23 or .30 per kWh if you under 15 cents anywhere, your doing really good.

Seriously. I wish I can get $0.15 a kw.

So Cal ediosn. Is crazy expensive. Tier 2 is like $0.27 and tier 3 is $0.34! Any charging puts the whole house in tire 3 rates. Sucks.