PG&E bill significantly higher, is it my Model 3?

[atsingh]

Hi all,

First time poster here so forgive me if this was discussed recently and I didn't see it, but I searched the threads and found some much older discussions so thought I would start it up again.

I recently purchased a Tesla Model 3 dual motor which arrived on June 21st, 2021. My bill has gone up almost $500 or more in the previous two billing cycles and I am wondering if it has anything to do with charging at home. We already had a NEMA 14-50 charger at home which I purchased an adapter for as our homes previous owner had a Model S. I have charged it at home maybe 3 times total since purchasing it. I called PG&E last week and switched my rate to the EV rate so I am hoping that makes a difference.

We moved from San Francisco to Los Gatos (suburb near San Jose) and our home has three floors and A/C and it arguably has been very hot but we aren't crazy with our A/C and so I don't think our home usage is enough to account for all of the bill especially since we've been running it the same (or better now) since moving in May. That being said, when I called PG&E and delved into the bill a bit more, there wasn't much insight provided to me apart from to try to limit our usage to "off peak hours" for things like washing dishes, clothes, A/C, etc. which I found less than helpful.

My question to the group is....is this expected until you get the EV rate? Does getting the EV rate make a difference? If my bills continue to be this high then it makes no sense to have an EV even with gas prices where they are in California and I am feeling duped having bought an electric car!

Happy to provide any details if someone has questions. Appreciate any help. Thank you in advance!

 

[Sophias_dad]

A model 3, when emptied to 20% and then refilled to 80%, will take ~48kwh of energy. Multiply that by three for your three fillups... 150kwh.

Lets assume that 150kwh was only in one of your two $500 increased billing cycles... that's a touch more than $3/kwh.

So NO, you can't blame your 3, evrate or no. You need to do some real research about where your power is going, and how you are getting billed for it.

 

[BeeBeeTee]

I can’t speak for PG&E but my local utility bill her in Orlando went up by by app $20 each month after installing a Nema 15-50 and charging the car about once per week. $500 sounds outrageous

 

[Sophias_dad]

I guess some questions to be asked are:

Do you know what you are paying per kwh? Are you on some funky rate plan? Is your bill separated into generation and distribution charges? If so, make sure you count both combined as the cost of electricity you are using.
Do you know how many kwh you are using now?
Has the kwh/month increased significantly in the past few months?
Has the $/kwh increased in those same months?


Ever considered a clip on electric meter, or other electric meter, so you can get a live reading of the power used in your home? Can you go read your meter on your own daily at the same time each day for several days?

 

[skriefal]

The car's display will tell you the number of KWh added after each charging session. The actual "drawn" KWh may be a bit higher than this (5 - 10% ?), but the displayed number should be close enough for cost estimations especially when using a 240v outlet.

Agreed with the others that your car hasn't used $1000 of electricity during the last 2 months. Even if those 3 charges were from 0% to 100% you'd be looking at about $23 total spread over the 2 month period. Maybe double that if Sentry is enabled 24x7 while the car remains plugged in. That's at Utah rates. CA may be more - but not that much more!

 

[WhiteWi]

Two Teslas here charging both at least once a week, two AC units, pool pump. My August bill was 180 bucks. I am in Georgia.

 

[UncertainTimes]

Someone be mining crypto in your house

 

[ZilWin]

Look at your rate plan. I don't know how Cali does it but where I am there is a HUGE difference in peak vs. off peak rates if you are on a Time Of Use TOU plan. I mean like $0.50/kW vs $0.05/kW. I remained on a flat rate plan ($0.10/kW) when I went to my NEM agreement with my solar.
I hope you are not comparing what you paid at your old home vs. what you are paying in your new home as that will not necessarily correlate.

 

[RayK]

@atsingh Look at your electric bills and find out what rate plan you were are on before changing to the EV or EV2 rate. Also check to see what Baseline Territory (P-Z) you are in. Then go to PG&E's Tariffs web page, click the Electric Rate Schedules section, find your old rate plan and download it, along with the EV/EV2 schedule. That will give you a starting point in figuring out what you are being charged for.

Tariffs

Home

www.pge.com

Baseline Allowance

Pge Baseline Allowance information, including how to calculate your PG&E Baseline Allowance.

www.pge.com

We have been running our A/C almost non-stop every day for the past couple of months (I'm in Almaden Valley). Bills have gone up about $50/month as compared to pre-summer. I have solar which offsets this somewhat but I also am not charging my car at home.

 

[queenamydala]

On the PG&E site you can drill down directly to see your usage by the hour. If you're on the EVA2 rate (or have just gone on it) remember it takes a while for it to take effect. Like one full billing cycle.

We have our M3 set to start charging at 12:15AM so it starts at off-peak hours. For the driving we do, I only need 1-2 hours a night of charging (HPWC if that makes any difference).

The EV2A rates make it pretty easy to do stuff during off-peak hours since they are from Midnight to 3PM.

Our PG&E bill has actually gone down since we got our Tesla because we've been more cognizant of using electricity during off-peak hours (run dishwasher/washer at night, cut way down on AC use, swapped out all lights in the house to LED even though most already were).

 

[KenC]

Surely, your utility gives you some ability to check your electric usage by the hour. If it does, you should be able to figure out when you're using all that power, and thus figure out what the source is.

 

[RayK]

PG&E does offer such tools:

Energy Usage & Tips

How to reduce energy usage in the workplace and how to reduce energy usage at home.

www.pge.com

And don't call me Shirley.

 

[Gasaraki]

Hi all,

First time poster here so forgive me if this was discussed recently and I didn't see it, but I searched the threads and found some much older discussions so thought I would start it up again.

I recently purchased a Tesla Model 3 dual motor which arrived on June 21st, 2021. My bill has gone up almost $500 or more in the previous two billing cycles and I am wondering if it has anything to do with charging at home. We already had a NEMA 14-50 charger at home which I purchased an adapter for as our homes previous owner had a Model S. I have charged it at home maybe 3 times total since purchasing it. I called PG&E last week and switched my rate to the EV rate so I am hoping that makes a difference.

We moved from San Francisco to Los Gatos (suburb near San Jose) and our home has three floors and A/C and it arguably has been very hot but we aren't crazy with our A/C and so I don't think our home usage is enough to account for all of the bill especially since we've been running it the same (or better now) since moving in May. That being said, when I called PG&E and delved into the bill a bit more, there wasn't much insight provided to me apart from to try to limit our usage to "off peak hours" for things like washing dishes, clothes, A/C, etc. which I found less than helpful.

My question to the group is....is this expected until you get the EV rate? Does getting the EV rate make a difference? If my bills continue to be this high then it makes no sense to have an EV even with gas prices where they are in California and I am feeling duped having bought an electric car!

Happy to provide any details if someone has questions. Appreciate any help. Thank you in advance!

You moved. How can you even compare to the old place? Even without the EV you probably moved to a house that's less efficient with electricity.

 

[Sophias_dad]

You might want to consider one of many realtime energy monitors.

I have an very old one from EnergyCloud®, but it looks like they have a much better option now.

I also have a very old one from home - Efergy, and as one might expect, it looks like they have much better options now.

There are a ton of others some of which give individual circuit-level usage, but they tend to get expensive and I have yet to find one that can cover as many circuits as my house has. Not sure I'd want to pay for one like that anyway.

 

[Sorny]

You moved. How can you even compare to the old place? Even without the EV you probably moved to a house that's less efficient with electricity.

Seriously... I had to just shake my head when I read stuff like that...

Yeah, move to a bigger house and wonder why electric bill is higher. Gee, I wonder what possible correlation could be drawn from that? Nope, has to be the car, a different house would have zero impact...

 

[5150]

We moved from San Francisco to Los Gatos (suburb near San Jose) and our home has three floors and A/C and it arguably has been very hot but we aren't crazy with our A/C and so I don't think our home usage is enough to account for all of the bill especially since we've been running it the same (or better now) since moving in May. That being said, when I called PG&E and delved into the bill a bit more, there wasn't much insight provided to me apart from to try to limit our usage to "off peak hours" for things like washing dishes, clothes, A/C, etc. which I found less than helpful.

You moving from colder SF (where it is always winter) to Los Gatos, and a 3 story house, and PG&E not seeing anything (like the spike times while charging) would really point to the big(ger) house, warmer Los Gatos (and hotter than normal), with much more A/C use. Three floors is killer for A/C if trying to keep upper floors cool. Hopefully, you'll be able to see a breakdown by times, hourly or less, of your usage.

 

[smatthew]

If you're on an PGE EV plan, then running your AC after 4pm is approximately 3-4x more expensive than running it before 3pm. If it's a hot day I run my air conditioner from 10am-3pm set at 72 degrees. Even on days over 100, the house stays very comfortable for the rest of the day.

And make sure your car doesn't start charging until midnight, otherwise you're paying that 4x price to charge your car.

 

[jjrandorin]

My question to the group is....is this expected until you get the EV rate? Does getting the EV rate make a difference? If my bills continue to be this high then it makes no sense to have an EV even with gas prices where they are in California and I am feeling duped having bought an electric car!

No, thats not "expected" and its likely not just your vehicle (although if you are on a regular tiered rate, you are probably in the highest tier).

As a few other people already said, your post boils down to "I bought a new house thats 3 stories high, in a hotter area, and my Electric bills are higher and I dont understand why, it has to be all my model 3, right?"

Log into the utility and look at your usage, you will likely easily see your EV usage due to the spike of electricity usage.

"what you paid before at your other home" is not relevant AT ALL. Also "I feel duped at having bought an electric car!" is a pretty clickbait style statement. Rather than climb up on my soapbox, I will just say that most people save quite a bit unless you compare apples to kiwi fruit or something in relationship to vehicles, or compare charging during peak Electricity rates to driving a 45-50 MPH econobox.

 

[Spalding]

Los Gatos can be hot - electric use for A/C will skyrocket in summer, unavoidably. That said, electric cars use a huge amount of energy when charged - that's unavoidable too. Balance it against the cost of gasoline for comparable mileage.

BUT, you absolutely have to switch to a time of day electric plan. PG&E offers a variety of them. The one I use through So. Cal. Edison reduces rates by 75% over peak hours, making my total electric usage for the car about $40/month (rough average). Switch your 3's recharging program to only charge during the lowest rate, off-peak hours and your bill will plummet.

 

[atsingh]

Thanks all for the replies. Just to be clear, yes I obviously knew our PG&E would be more than in SF, I approximated (back of the napkin math) about 3 to 3.5x given the size of our old place and new place (old place did have A/C which we did run at night). I just think the continued increase in charges over the course of only four months without much change in our usage habits in the new home seemed odd and I was suspicious of the tesla but knew it shouldn't be the only factor and now know from your replies and also looking more in detail at the kWh after charging it shouldn't be the variable causing the increase.

Anyway, appreciate everyone's input into how to monitor/evaluate the costs and how to dive more deeply into our bill which I am continuing to do. Working hard to only use appliances and A/C during non peak hours and seeing how that pans out for a few months.

Hope all of you keep well and stay safe.

-Amit