PG&E Costs with Tesla?

[HardHitter]

Hi All,

Considering a Tesla and just trying to forecast my PG&E cost. Wife and I live in a fairly standard town house in the Bay Area (2 bed/2.5 bath 3 story 1700 sq ft). We are currently on a Tiered plan and historically, our average bill is $120-$130/mo. which I find is high as we don't use the AC and/or heater or is this typical?

Anyway, just wanted to see what your average cost was before and after Tesla. I would expect to have to charge the Tesla most likely every other day and if possible, plug it in right before I go to bed (9-10 PM) and then unplug before I take off for work (7 or 8ish).

Any insight would be very helpful!

 

[cwerdna]

I'm in PG&E land. You're going to need to provide way more specifics if you want something within the ballpark.

Which power plan are you on? (e.g. I'm on E-6 which is closed to new customers.) Rate Plan Options are the current choices. PG&E's rate plans are byzantine and PG&E is expensive (hence the name Pacific Gouge & Extort). If you switch to a TOU plan like EV2-A (Making sense of the rates), you will be hosed in terms of cost outside off-peak hours. See pages 2 and 3 of https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2 (Sch).pdf.

How many kWh are you using in a month?

What's your baseline allowance? See the table at Baseline Allowance (under Determine Your Baseline Allowance). Or, just give the the code (probably X due to 95126) and which column applies to you. You put 95126, which puts you in San Jose. Does your place have nat gas heating or is it all electric?

"Averages" mean nothing. How many miles/day do you plan to drive? What % city vs. highway?

FWIW, I have no Tesla but drive have been driving an EV as my primary vehicle since end of July 2013. My PG&E bill is virtually unchanged due since I almost never charge at home. I've probably put under 30 kWh in total at home into both my EVs this year, so far. Almost all of my charging is via free L2 charging by my generous employer. I sometimes use a bit of free public L2 and DC fast charging, a LOT less than year than years past.

 

[HardHitter]

I am on a Tiered Rate Plan E-1.

- My last 6 kWh use are:
July - 463
August - 462
September - 469
October - 526
November - 398
December - 397

- Baseline territory shows "X"
- I have natural gas heating

As far as commute goes, I'll be going from San Jose to Alameda which is around 80 miles round trip. 75 are highway miles on 880 and then 5 miles would be city. I anticipate to do this 2-3 times a week.

 

[ecarfan]

As far as commute goes, I'll be going from San Jose to Alameda which is around 80 miles round trip. 75 are highway miles on 880 and then 5 miles would be city. I anticipate to do this 2-3 times a week.

Once you establish how many miles you are going to drive per month, then you need to determine what percent of your charging will be done at home at night on the kWh rate you will be paying. Then determine your likely kW/mi energy usage figure for whatever Tesla model you plan to buy (you just said “a Tesla” in your first post). Once you have that data you can figure out how many kWh/month you will be putting into the car.

In my opinion: don’t overthink this. You are going to be spending way less on electricity compared to the gasoline you used to buy before you got a Tesla!

 

[Sherlo]

I am on a Tiered Rate Plan E-1.

- My last 6 kWh use are:
July - 463
August - 462
September - 469
October - 526
November - 398
December - 397

- Baseline territory shows "X"
- I have natural gas heating

As far as commute goes, I'll be going from San Jose to Alameda which is around 80 miles round trip. 75 are highway miles on 880 and then 5 miles would be city. I anticipate to do this 2-3 times a week.

I agree with the comment above not to overthink think it. Because you also might consider switching to a PGE EV plan. My buddy with PGE bought a model 3 in March and asked me the same question before purchasing. I gave him the same advice as @ecarfan.

After a few months of Tesla ownership suggest you use the PGE rate plan comparison tool to see if you are on the best plan for your new usage.

 

[israndy]

And you don't need to plug in at 9-10 pm to get the better rates on electricity, you plug in when you park. The car can be set to start charging when the rates are lowest, and a new feature, it can be set to FINISH charging at the time you expect to be leaving. So unlike this morning where my car battery is cold soaked from overnight and has diminished regenerative braking and a shorter range, if it had just finished charging it would be warmed up and ready to go. But I am retired so I have nowhere to go.

 

[MD JD]

I will give you an idea re how much it changes.

I don't have a 220v plug at home. Roughly 1 supercharge per week. Rest of the time I charge with 110v at home to top off.

I drive about 27K miles per year.

Edit: My home is not under the umbrella of PGE and there is no peak vs. Off-peak rate difference.

 

[cwerdna]

Then determine your likely kW/mi energy usage figure for whatever Tesla model you plan to buy (you just said “a Tesla” in your first post).

You mean watt-hours/mile or kWh/mile? (Many (most?) non-Teslas use the inverse: miles/kWh.) The rest of your unit usage was correct.

Since nobody's stepped up (it was extremely late last night for me and I had things to do today), I'll take a stab at some numbers.

E-1 schedule is at page 1 of https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf.

From the table at Baseline Allowance, E-1 basic electric (applicable for the OP) baseline is currently for area X 10.3 kWh/day for "summer" and 10.5 kWh/day for "winter". So, for a 30 day billing month, his baseline is 309 kWh/month for "summer" and 315 kWh/month for "winter".

For every one of his months, he's hitting tier 2 (101% to 400%) of baseline that currently costs 28.92 cents/kWh.

Let's assume he only achieves 3 miles/kWh including charging loses and the various vampire/phantom losses. We could use a range of 3 to 4 miles/kWh. It will depend on his habits (how fast he drives, heater usage, usage of stuff like sentry mode, cabin overheat protection, etc.). So, 80 miles * 3 days/week = 240 miles each week. Let's assume 4 weeks, so 960 miles/month.

960 miles at 3 miles/kWh --> 320 kWh.

For each kWh within tier 2, he'll currently pay $0.28920/kWh. That * 320 kWh = $92.544, which is how much his bill would go up by, using these assumptions. That comes out to about 9.64 cents/mile.

The real killer is if he hits tier 3 (400% of baseline). Each kWh beyond the 400% mark costs 50.667 cents. If one achieves 3 miles/kWh, then it'd be 16.889 cents/mile.

I don't know what current Supercharger pricing is in his area, but I suspect it might be cheaper to SC than to pay 50.667 cents/kWh.

In my opinion: don’t overthink this. You are going to be spending way less on electricity compared to the gasoline you used to buy before you got a Tesla!

If his other car is an Audi R8 (mentioned in another post of his), yes. That's not a fuel miser.

If he's driving a fuel efficient car, no. I had an 06 Prius for over 13 years. If I only achieved 40 mpg (easy with my commute) and gas were $4/gal (it's not that high now), that's only 10 cents/mile. 9.64 vs. 10 isn't a huge savings. A more realistic 44 mpg of what I'd get in the past w/o too many short drives and say $3.30/gal --> 7.5 cents/mile.

And, if I got pushed into tier 3, it'd be much cheaper to but gas in my former Prius than to pay Pacific Gouge & Extort.

Fortunately, I have free L2 charging at work and have some free (albeit busy) L2 charging options near home.

PG&E has numerous TOU plans but they each have different time bands and rates for peak, partial peak and off-peak. It's very difficult to calculate and the plan may/may not work for the OP (e.g. energy usage at home might be high during expensive times, negating off-peak savings).

 

[CSFTN]

Hi All,

Considering a Tesla and just trying to forecast my PG&E cost. Wife and I live in a fairly standard town house in the Bay Area (2 bed/2.5 bath 3 story 1700 sq ft). We are currently on a Tiered plan and historically, our average bill is $120-$130/mo. which I find is high as we don't use the AC and/or heater or is this typical?

Anyway, just wanted to see what your average cost was before and after Tesla. I would expect to have to charge the Tesla most likely every other day and if possible, plug it in right before I go to bed (9-10 PM) and then unplug before I take off for work (7 or 8ish).

Any insight would be very helpful!

Not in PG&E land, but an owner for 4 years and a lurker since 2012. Very roughly speaking one can expect their electricity bill to go up by 40% as much as their gas bill goes down.

And btw you don't need to plug in at 9 PM; the car can be set to not take electricity until whatever time you want. Plug in when you arrive, charge on middle of the night off peak ...

 

[cwerdna]

Not in PG&E land, but an owner for 4 years and a lurker since 2012. Very roughly speaking one can expect their electricity bill to go up by 40% as much as their gas bill goes down.

Sure, that's possible in a cheap electricity area. One guy I know who's had Leafs since the beginning lives in WA state w/cheap electricity, so he keeps talking about how much cheaper it is to drive electric than gas. Sure, it's true for him and his utility but not for PG&E when compared with an efficient ICEV.

See my earlier example.

Can you post/point to the URL of your electric schedule? I bet you it's WAY lower than PG&E. Care to post one of or your most expensive electric bill this year in terms of kWh used and total electric charges (including taxes and fees)? I wouldn't be surprised if your average rate is below the lowest tier of E-1 of 22.981 cents/kWh.

 

[HardHitter]

You mean watt-hours/mile or kWh/mile? (Many (most?) non-Teslas use the inverse: miles/kWh.) The rest of your unit usage was correct.

Since nobody's stepped up (it was extremely late last night for me and I had things to do today), I'll take a stab at some numbers.

E-1 schedule is at page 1 of https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf.

From the table at Baseline Allowance, E-1 basic electric (applicable for the OP) baseline is currently for area X 10.3 kWh/day for "summer" and 10.5 kWh/day for "winter". So, for a 30 day billing month, his baseline is 309 kWh/month for "summer" and 315 kWh/month for "winter".

For every one of his months, he's hitting tier 2 (101% to 400%) of baseline that currently costs 28.92 cents/kWh.

Let's assume he only achieves 3 miles/kWh including charging loses and the various vampire/phantom losses. We could use a range of 3 to 4 miles/kWh. It will depend on his habits (how fast he drives, heater usage, usage of stuff like sentry mode, cabin overheat protection, etc.). So, 80 miles * 3 days/week = 240 miles each week. Let's assume 4 weeks, so 960 miles/month.

960 miles at 3 miles/kWh --> 320 kWh.

For each kWh within tier 2, he'll currently pay $0.28920/kWh. That * 320 kWh = $92.544, which is how much his bill would go up by, using these assumptions. That comes out to about 9.64 cents/mile.

The real killer is if he hits tier 3 (400% of baseline). Each kWh beyond the 400% mark costs 50.667 cents. If one achieves 3 miles/kWh, then it'd be 16.889 cents/mile.

I don't know what current Supercharger pricing is in his area, but I suspect it might be cheaper to SC than to pay 50.667 cents/kWh.

If his other car is an Audi R8 (mentioned in another post of his), yes. That's not a fuel miser.

If he's driving a fuel efficient car, no. I had an 06 Prius for over 13 years. If I only achieved 40 mpg (easy with my commute) and gas were $4/gal (it's not that high now), that's only 10 cents/mile. 9.64 vs. 10 isn't a huge savings. A more realistic 44 mpg of what I'd get in the past w/o too many short drives and say $3.30/gal --> 7.5 cents/mile.

And, if I got pushed into tier 3, it'd be much cheaper to but gas in my former Prius than to pay Pacific Gouge & Extort.

Fortunately, I have free L2 charging at work and have some free (albeit busy) L2 charging options near home.

PG&E has numerous TOU plans but they each have different time bands and rates for peak, partial peak and off-peak. It's very difficult to calculate and the plan may/may not work for the OP (e.g. energy usage at home might be high during expensive times, negating off-peak savings).

Really really really appreciate you going into this math. This is the kind of stuff/analysis I do before purchasing. As you mentioned, if I were to have to drive my R8 on that commute, a Tesla 100% makes sense with not only the MPG a V10 R8 gets, but also the depreciation per mile on the R8 is likely a lot larger than a Tesla I would assume.

However, alternative option is, as you mentioned, getting a used and cheaper $20K hybrid such as Fusion, Volt, Prius, 200H, etc. Sure it isn't going to have the tech/speed of a Performance Model 3, but you can't expect that when comparing a $20K vs $65K car.

In short, my worry is with PG&E and will I actually see a savings between decrease in gas but offset by PG&E. At the moment, wife and I spend around $150-$160/mo on gas, however that is the wife as a stay at home mom and my old job, which was working from home. So in short, we barely drove anywhere. I would gas up the R8 once a month at around $60-$65 and my wife would make up the rest, typically gassing up 2-3 times a month at around $35-$40.

I live in Santa Clara/San Jose, so I have two supercharging stations close to me (Santana Row and one in Coleman shopping center) which are both 120kW.

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
No prob. Take a look at Rate Plan Options. I don't like the format there. I'd rather look for the tarrif pages at Tariffs. Expand electric rate schedules and look for residential non-CARE rates which aren't closed to new customers (e.g. E-6 is closed).

You'll want to look at the total rates. Don't worry about the unbundling crap. You can't avoid paying parts of it.

Baseline table is at the 2nd tab of Baseline Allowance.

If someone is going to be at home in the day, some of the TOU plans (for cheaper charging at night) may not work at all for you due to the high rates during "peak" and "partial peak", esp. if that means running AC during the summer. (I have no central AC and there's nobody home when I'm at work.)

 

[Evoforce]

Really really really appreciate you going into this math. This is the kind of stuff/analysis I do before purchasing. As you mentioned, if I were to have to drive my R8 on that commute, a Tesla 100% makes sense with not only the MPG a V10 R8 gets, but also the depreciation per mile on the R8 is likely a lot larger than a Tesla I would assume.

However, alternative option is, as you mentioned, getting a used and cheaper $20K hybrid such as Fusion, Volt, Prius, 200H, etc. Sure it isn't going to have the tech/speed of a Performance Model 3, but you can't expect that when comparing a $20K vs $65K car.

In short, my worry is with PG&E and will I actually see a savings between decrease in gas but offset by PG&E. At the moment, wife and I spend around $150-$160/mo on gas, however that is the wife as a stay at home mom and my old job, which was working from home. So in short, we barely drove anywhere. I would gas up the R8 once a month at around $60-$65 and my wife would make up the rest, typically gassing up 2-3 times a month at around $35-$40.

I live in Santa Clara/San Jose, so I have two supercharging stations close to me (Santana Row and one in Coleman shopping center) which are both 120kW.

Just don't screw yourself and get something lesser than a Tesla...

 

[HardHitter]

Can someone check my assumptions below?

Estimated miles a week: 310
Model 3 Performance Range: 310
Estimated Range Efficiency: 80%
Actual Model 3 Performance Range: 248 miles (310 miles * .80)
Charges per week: 1.25 (310 miles a week / 248 miles efficiency range)
kWh per full charge: 75 kWh
Total kWh use a week: 93.75 kWh (1.25 charges * 75 kWh)
Total kWh a month: 375 kWh (93.75 kWh a week * 4 weeks)

According to PG&E's E1 Residential plan:

Baseline Usage: $0.022981 (allowance is 9.9 kWh/day)
101% - 400% of Baseline: $0.28920
High Usage Over 400% of Baseline: $0.50667

My last 6 month average kWh use is 453 kWh.

Baseline Usage: 297 kWh @ $0.022981 = $66.46
101% - 400% of Baseline: 156 kWh @ $0.28920 = $43.93
Additional Tesla Cost: 375 kWh @ $0.28920 = $105.60

Total kWh Use: 828 kWh / mo
High Use Over 400% of Baseline: 1,188 kWh / mo
Margin before breaking into High Use tier: 360 kWh

Now assuming the above is accurate, if I wanted to find a premium ICE car for comparison, with a gas cost assumption of $3.39/gallon for premium gas, I would need to find an ICE car to get at least 40 mpg combined rating.

 

[SMAlset]

We're on some new PG&E plan effective November. I'll see if I have a current bill to look at showing a full month yet. I have a LR AWD model (I charge to 90% when I do charge--don't charge every night). The plan we're on now has off peak from Midnight to 3pm which is when I will charge my car at home. Generally I'm set for overnight charging but this morning took advantage of an 8am-2:30pm charge period so that's kind of nice to be able to do that. I'm sure PG&E reworked numbers giving us more non-peak hours but probably charge more per kWh now than they did before so still works out on their end with more profit over everyone's accounts. We haven't really had the opportunity to sit down and review the new billing effects yet. But it kind of doesn't matter as they eliminated the older plan we were on with more restricted hours (ie. non-peak was 11pm-7am) and the residental non-ev plan would run us more. Plan to get solar and battery pack at some point.

 

[miimura]

We're on some new PG&E plan effective November. I'll see if I have a current bill to look at showing a full month yet. I have a LR AWD model (I charge to 90% when I do charge--don't charge every night). The plan we're on now has off peak from Midnight to 3pm which is when I will charge my car at home. Generally I'm set for overnight charging but this morning took advantage of an 8am-2:30pm charge period so that's kind of nice to be able to do that. I'm sure PG&E reworked numbers giving us more non-peak hours but probably charge more per kWh now than they did before so still works out on their end with more profit over everyone's accounts. We haven't really had the opportunity to sit down and review the new billing effects yet. But it kind of doesn't matter as they eliminated the older plan we were on with more restricted hours (ie. non-peak was 11pm-7am) and the residental non-ev plan would run us more. Plan to get solar and battery pack at some point.

IMHO, the new plan is designed to shortchange solar customers. I'm sure there is significant overlap between EV and solar customers and the original EV rates were too favorable to solar customers. They have basically reduced the value of solar generation between 7am and 3pm from Part-Peak to Off-Peak. The $/kWh values for each time period are not significantly different between the original EV plan and the new EV2 plan. So, discounting the cost of power from 7am - 3pm for non-solar customers does not have much impact. Most people don't use that much power in those hours. However, one could save money by pre-cooling the house by running the A/C at a low set point from noon to 3pm and let it coast through much of the Summer afternoons when power is expensive.

 

[CSFTN]

Sure, that's possible in a cheap electricity area. One guy I know who's had Leafs since the beginning lives in WA state w/cheap electricity, so he keeps talking about how much cheaper it is to drive electric than gas. Sure, it's true for him and his utility but not for PG&E when compared with an efficient ICEV.

See my earlier example.

Can you post/point to the URL of your electric schedule? I bet you it's WAY lower than PG&E. Care to post one of or your most expensive electric bill this year in terms of kWh used and total electric charges (including taxes and fees)? I wouldn't be surprised if your average rate is below the lowest tier of E-1 of 22.981 cents/kWh.

It is way lower. My cost is ~ 1/4 of gas
Off peak off season $0.069/kwH peak off season $0.119/kWh off peak summer $0.089 peak summer $0.159
and I comparing to a 20 mpg premium fuel vehicle so perhaps not universally applicable.