Increase in home electric bills

[jgoode]

Greetings!

I live in Chicago and have been driving a 2021 M3 Long Range since beginning of last June. I am part of a 6 unit condo association and had the NEMA 30amp outlet installed, utilizing the association's common electricity panel, since using my personal unit's source was not logistically possible. Based upon the (somewhat limited) research I did before purchasing, I have been paying my association an extra $30/month in assessments to cover the estimated increase in common electrical costs. Since June, I've driven it a little over 9K miles, with probably a little closer to 8K of those miles directly related to home charging. Our treasurer just did a month by month analysis of our association's common electrical bills, pre vs. post EV charging. Per his analysis (he's an engineer...), the monthly increase in billing directly related to EV charging was between $60 and $107 (MUCH higher than $30/mo) for the months that I was consistently charging at home.

I'm not great at figuring this stuff out, but wondering if anyone can chime in if this seems like a reasonable increase in electrical costs, with all else being more or less equal?

 

[jjrandorin]

In order for those here who enjoy digging into this stuff to help you, you will need to provide some more information. At a minimum you likely need to provide the electricity rate being charged per kWh, and how far you drove each month.

Since the treasurer has already "figured all that out" you should ask them for a breakdown of where those numbers come from to get "$60 to $107 cost directly related to EV charging". The treasurer already figured it out, so what you are asking is to corroborate those numbers. Get them from the treasurer and post them here and I am sure someone can help you determine that.

I am not one who digs into that, but we do have some here who are good at it, but the above would help them help you figure it out. Otherwise there isnt any way to determine that with any real validity other than guessing (at your local kWh rate, how much you charged, etc).

 

[Big Earl]

In addition to needed more information about your condo’s electricity billing, we need to know about your personal usage habits.

The car uses energy beyond what’s required for propulsion, plus there are conversion losses (typically 15%) associated with charging. If, for example, you run Sentry Mode 24/7, your monthly usage will increase by 180 kWh per month, which is approximately 540 additional miles of driving. The same goes for preconditioning the cabin and battery.

Please provide the following additional information:

• a copy of the condo electricity bill or at least a link to the specific rate plan from your utility
• a screenshot of your “Charging Stats” screen from your Tesla app
• a summary of your additional energy consumption beyond what you use to drive
• a screenshot of your trips screen showing recent and long term Wh/mi statistics

 

[jeremymc7]

Based on the limited information presented it looks like they looked at the bill before the charger was installed and the bill after.

That doesn’t account for any number of other variance that likely also changed.

Not to mention your charger should be on a separate meter. And if it’s only for your use it should also have a lock for when you’re not using it.

For someone’l that’s acting as treasurer they don’t seem to have a lot of financial or analytical experience. Or they don’t care and took the quick and dirty approach.

You can not charge for a month and see if it’s still higher than before chargers was installed which would prove they took the wrong approach in their “analysis” if you can call it that.

The other thing here things like do you have sentry mode on while parked and what about cabin overheat protection on? Those will use power but not count against your mileage. You’re car will be sucking down power all day and night that it’s parked.

Likewise when do you charge? Are you using scheduled charging? I only charge between 10PM and 8AM (any day of the week) when rates are a FRACTION of what they are weekend day hours or especially weekday day hours.

 

[Big Earl]

I’m scrolling through the 700+ page ComEd rate guide, and on page 280 or so are some sample bills. If your condo common power is on a commercial rate plan, it’s likely that they’re paying demand charges in addition to consumption charges.

https://www.comed.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/MyAccount/MyBillUsage/CurrentRates/Ratebook.pdf

Your 30 amp circuit would add 5 kW of demand, adding $33 (if the demand charge is $6.59/kW as shown on the sample) to the monthly bill, even before any energy consumption is accounted for. If you use 250 kWh, you’re probably looking at another $25 - $40 on top of the demand charge. If you’re using 400 kWh per month, you’re looking at an additional $40 to $55 on top of the demand charge.

Just one example of how complex this can be, and how you could be significantly underpaying your share of the bill.

 

[PianoAl]

Have you checked your charge stats on the app?

 

[jeremymc7]

I can’t really give specific examples. But my electric bill doubled moving to the Tesla from my previous ICE and that’s with charging off off peak, no sentry but with overhead on. That said my electric bill was always less than my average comparable neighbors; at least according to my SCE summary. Post Tesla purchase I’m now towards the top of high users.

Electric bill used to be around $75-100, depending. Now it’s around $150-250, depending.

 

[ShawnA]

Hi @jgoode ,

Welcome to TMC !!!

I hope you are enjoying your car.
You are adding many miles...

A "no calculation" method to be sure your
charges are accurate would be to add a sub-meter
to your new circuit.
This should capture all of the power added to your
car as well as that power lost to the various processes.
Something similar to the item below would work.
$115 plus installation which would be more if it is
outside - exposed to the weather as opposed
to installed inside shielded from the weather...

https://smile.amazon.com/DAE-DEM730P-Electric-Submeter-Internal/dp/B01NBOYMJA/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=lRXLX&pf_rd_p=bbb6bbd8-d236-47cb-b42f-734cb0cacc1f&pf_rd_r=3ECXMV964V7PG9Q47RET&pd_rd_r=e9b590a8-47a8-4fe9-bcc5-0a1f2bb8c049&pd_rd_wg=iJmjx&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mi

Good Luck,

Shawn

 

[father_of_6]

Seems like you're paying commercial rates, so that's less than ideal. Sounds like it's still cheaper than what you'd be paying for gas.

 

[E.Potter]

daaaaaaaaaamn ....my rate here in NC is .10....I pay an extra 60-65 dollars a month...where I was paying about $350 a month on gas....and my solar panels are being installed in a week so I may pay less than that soon...sorry your rate is double mine dude....time to move!!!

 

[jrweiss98020]

Greetings!

I have been paying my association an extra $30/month in assessments to cover the estimated increase in common electrical costs. Since June, I've driven it a little over 9K miles, with probably a little closer to 8K of those miles directly related to home charging. Our treasurer just did a month by month analysis of our association's common electrical bills, pre vs. post EV charging. Per his analysis (he's an engineer...), the monthly increase in billing directly related to EV charging was between $60 and $107 (MUCH higher than $30/mo) for the months that I was consistently charging at home.

I'm not great at figuring this stuff out, but wondering if anyone can chime in if this seems like a reasonable increase in electrical costs, with all else being more or less equal?

In round numbers, expect 4 mi per kWh, or about 2000 kWh for the 8,000 mi you used. At 10¢/kWh (my rate), that's $200, or $20/mo for the past 10 months. Adjust for your electric rates as necessary.

 

[Big Earl]

In round numbers, expect 4 mi per kWh, or about 2000 kWh for the 8,000 mi you used. At 10¢/kWh (my rate), that's $200, or $20/mo for the past 10 months. Adjust for your electric rates as necessary.

I think 4 miles per kWh from the wall is optimistic in all but the most ideal weather and driving conditions. Budget for 3 miles per kWh when calculating your electricity bill. I'm also curious about your power rate - may parents are on PSE and pay closer to $0.14/kWh all-in (generation, transmission, taxes and other additional charges). That works out to $37/mo rather than $20/mo.

 

[Big Earl]

@jgoode: it would be great if you could follow up on your situation.

 

[jjrandorin]

@jgoode: it would be great if you could follow up on your situation.

(not moderation content - not representing TMC, TMC moderators, or jjrandorin the moderator. Opinion only represents jjrandorin the regular poster)


When there are posts on certain "hot button" type topics (and "cost to charge a tesla" falls somewhat into that category), from a new account as their first or second post, I usually take a look at if they decide to even come back and check the thread they started. Someone who doesnt even bother to log back in to see if people responded to their posts, to me, means the they were not interested in the response.

Since they are not interested in the response, I feel they were not really asking a real question, even if the question is a real one. I see this is simply an attempt to "get conversation going" or what I would call "trolling lite". It doesnt break rules specifically, the question is a valid one, but if they dont even come back to check the thread, then its not a real post to me.

In this case:

One post, account created sunday, last seen on sunday, which means they didnt even log back in after 2-3 days to check the thread that they started.... which to me shows a distinct lack of interest in the question asked (and thus not worth paying much attention to, for me).

 

[roblab]

daaaaaaaaaamn ....my rate here in NC is .10....I pay an extra 60-65 dollars a month...where I was paying about $350 a month on gas....and my solar panels are being installed in a week so I may pay less than that soon...sorry your rate is double mine dude....time to move!!!

Even in CA, my rate is only $.14/kwh. Still WAY less than any gas car.

 

[Big Earl]

I totally agree, @jjrandorin

In this case and others, I've noticed that people have expectations of charging cost that are based on flawed assumptions (calculating electricity costs without accounting for all of the various fees, and taking the car's displayed Wh/mi at face value). Since this comes up pretty regularly, I felt compelled to use @jgoode's post as an example to illustrate the nuance involved in the calculating true cost.

Hopefully someone found that informative, even if @jgoode only did a drive-by.

 

[White Shadow]

I'm still curious to learn more about this situation.

I was watching a video on the Ioniq 5 the other day and noticed that the guy in the video paid about $19 to charge his car from 10% to 80% on an Electrify America fast charger. I know this isn't exactly relevant to this particular discussion, but it made me (as someone interested in EVs,, but not someone who owns one yet) do some basic math and come to the realization that $19 worth of fast charging on the Ioniq 5 doesn't really get me many more miles of driving than $19 worth of gas, even at today's high prices on an ICE car.

And yes, I realize that charging at home will be a lot less expensive, but it still was a bit surprising to see a $19 price tag for essentially what amounted to about 180 miles of range in good conditions.

 

[one2many]

Wow another math question. lets see
10,000 miles a year and 240w/mile = 2.4k kwh
now .24 cents/kwh = $576 per year or $48 a month
My BMW ran about $600 per month
Get solar its $0 per month.
What beer at happy hour, never mind

 

[RayK]

I'm still curious to learn more about this situation.

I was watching a video on the Ioniq 5 the other day and noticed that the guy in the video paid about $19 to charge his car from 10% to 80% on an Electrify America fast charger. I know this isn't exactly relevant to this particular discussion, but it made me (as someone interested in EVs,, but not someone who owns one yet) do some basic math and come to the realization that $19 worth of fast charging on the Ioniq 5 doesn't really get me many more miles of driving than $19 worth of gas, even at today's high prices on an ICE car.

And yes, I realize that charging at home will be a lot less expensive, but it still was a bit surprising to see a $19 price tag for essentially what amounted to about 180 miles of range in good conditions.

Assuming you are talking about $3.50/gal for gas, $19 at 180 miles would mean the ICE is getting just over 33MPG, yes? EA is probably charging around $0.43/kWh which, my guess, is about 3X residential rates in NJ. Which is why using fast charging, EA or Superchargers, which have a similar pricing structure, is not meant for day-to-day use. I choose to use a CHAdeMO adapter at a local ChargePoint DCFC because it charges $0.19/kWh, cheaper than my residential rate here in San Jose. The lowest cost Supercharger rate near me is $0.24/kWh, which is still less than my home rate.

 

[Sandiegodoug]

Solar definitely the way to go if you have a sfh
and plenty of sun. Just got my bill, over produced by 450kwh. Checked app, 3 used 497kwh. And by the way, we’ve been paying over 6 for gasoline.