Please help me figure out my charging costs

[Sunny5280]

Rather than throw your hands up in defeat, or object to those who object to that reaction, how about offering @mojojojo_1 some suggestions?

There's no defeat. I am not trying to be snarky here...it costs what it costs to operate his vehicle. Period.

As for advice I gave him the only advice he has control over: Charge at a lower rate if such an option is available. What other options does he have reasonable control over (i.e. I don't consider recommending he move as a reasonable alternative)?

 

[SaintMickey®]

So, I just went to the website of the power provider for the San Diego area. They offer a special TOU rate for EV drivers of $0.09 per kWh from midnight to 6:00 AM. There is also a $16.00 per month service charge for that plan.

Something is wrong with that picture. Does not make sense. The OP may need to do some more homework.

Quite honestly (and maybe I'm paranoid) but I am not telling Georgia Power I have a "electric vehicle" to get their "lower rate at night". What I've heard from others is EVERYTHING in life "nothing is free". Your over all rate seems to go up in the day time to get this. Not sure if they charge a "fee" but one of $16.00 would at this point be more than it's costing us to charge for the month.

 

[jjrandorin]

So, I just went to the website of the power provider for the San Diego area. They offer a special TOU rate for EV drivers of $0.09 per kWh from midnight to 6:00 AM. There is also a $16.00 per month service charge for that plan.

Something is wrong with that picture. Does not make sense. The OP may need to do some more homework.

They do offer a TOU plan, and we have zero idea if the OP signed up for it (Probably not). That can usually help with electricity costs.... unless you are not able to shift electric usage, and use a lot of power during the rest of the time. For example, that plan you mentioned has a 9 cent charge for "super off peak" pricing, for charging your car, but pretty much all other times outside of midnight to 6am and 10 am to 2pm is 31 cents.

That TOU plan is not going to help this OP though because they are charging off 120v vs per their information.

You will notice that the times On peak are carefully crafted to be when you might actually be using power (off peak stops at 6am when you likely are getting up to go to work, and starts back up again at 10am, then ends again at 2pm).

@srs5694

We could... if the OP had actually provided more information. I changed the thread title from the "clickbait style, alarmist" thread title it was, to something much more conducive to discussion, partially in the hope that they might get some feedback. The original thread title would have brought a different type of response, IMO.

The OP is also comparing apples to kumquats, because its been hotter out here (as it always is) august and september.

Shrug... In a nutshell, the post is "My electric bill is higher! (even though there are other variables I am not taking into account). They spent some time doing math to get gas equivalents that may or may not be correct, they could have put that same time into looking at what rate plans they might want to be on to limit charging costs, and why it would make sense for them to get a 240v charger installed so they can charge fully during the off peak rate times.

CA is one of those places where, because of TOU charges, and high electric costs, it absolutely makes sense to get fast enough charging to completely charge your car in a 6 hour window, from 12 midnight to 6am. They should start there, rather than posting about 15 dollars a gallon gas equivalent costs.

 

[arghx7]

all this random math about gasoline should be taken out of the discussion.

Cost per mile for fuel/electricity is a useful metric to compare with an ICE car but all this weird stuff about $15 per gallon makes no sense. An ICE car has a large fuel reserve (stored energy in gas tank) with poor efficiency, while a Tesla has a small fuel reserve (stored energy in battery) with good efficiency.

I think on TeslaFi it was showing I had 80% charging efficiency on a level 1 15 amp/120V charging and about 95% when I switched to a 240V charger. So one oversimplified way to think about it is that for every dollar spent on electricity OP is losing probably 15 cents on the inefficiency of 120V charging alone, not even counting time of use rates etc. In reality the slow charge rate and a time of use plan means you're getting killed drawing a little over 1 kilowatt during peak times when you should be getting 8ish kilowatts during off peak rates with a 240V outlet.

 

[jjgg]

I suggest OP start to collect detailed charging data, using either a paid subscription like TeslaFi, or (if OP is tech-savvy enough) use the free, self-hosted teslamate. Either way, they will help gather each charge time and duration, energy used and added to the battery and calculate the efficiency. This will give you clues if the additional electricity cost is from the EV charging or something else.

 

[SaintMickey®]

Used the a/c in the house a little last night but charged the our SLR 3 from 18% to 100% last night. Bill went up $4.00 from previous. So so far $3 or $4 to charge over night.

 

[JimShaw]

Get solar

I live in So. California. I pay SCE once a year for electrical used and that is in September. I just paid my and that was $85.03 for the entire year of electrical use which includes my M3

 

[FARKLE!]

Dumb question...but if you've charged just at home on a Time of Use plan, or at least mostly from home, can't you just take the total Kwh used since you got the car, and multiply by your rate? It you're on a tier plan, it may not be as accurate...

Am I oversimplifying?

 

[dc121gw]

Your over all rate seems to go up in the day time to get this.

I've had the Georgia tiered EV plan for 2.5 years. Your rate goes up a lot in 5 summer months during the day from 2pm to 7pm. But it goes down at night, and all day on the other 7 months. I have a spreadsheet with kWh used by month, plus what the bill would have been if I did not have the EV plan.

It still saves money, even with the extra that I have to pay to run the AC during the summer. Having the nighttime electricity be essentially free (plus taxes) more than makes up for the afternoon rate hike. It's not a huge amount, but I save about $12/month by being on the tiered rate plan.

 

[juliusa]

Home charging cost = (miles charged at home) / 4 * (what you pay per kWh)

 

[ODWms]

$16 per month for an energy bill EV plan? That would be 2 full (0-100%) charges for me, and then the “discount“ would be in effect.

 

[orntar]

Home charging cost = (miles charged at home) / 4 * (what you pay per kWh)

Forgive my ignorance, but what is that based on or what is the / 4 for?

In ID elec rate is 8.67c, so if I wanted to figure out a "fill up" of 250 miles, 250 / 4 * .0867 = $5.42 to fill up?

 

[mojojojo_1]

Thank you everyone for your responses. This has given me hope that it is an issue with my charge times. I am going to work hard to figure out how to charge the Tesla only during off peak times. I am also going to start leaving the Tesla unplugged and only charge when it drops to 20% battery or if I have a trip planned and reach out to sdge to see about the special ev pricing plan.

this is the energy consumption by month
July- 348 kwh
August 981 kwh
Sept 957 kWh

 

[jjrandorin]

Thank you everyone for your responses. This has given me hope that it is an issue with my charge times. I am going to work hard to figure out how to charge the Tesla only during off peak times. I am also going to start leaving the Tesla unplugged and only charge when it drops to 20% battery or if I have a trip planned and reach out to sdge to see about the special ev pricing plan.

this is the energy consumption by month
July- 348 kwh
August 981 kwh
Sept 957 kWh

So, you went from tier 1 energy usage to tier 3 (if on a tiered plan). You will not change your energy usage by simply running the car down to charge it back up. In order to minimize your costs, you need to get SOME form of level 2 charging (240V charging) and switch to a time of Use plan, and set the car to only charge during the off peak time of midnight to 6am.

You will need enough charging speed to fit all your charging into that window.

Its not going to help you to simply leave the car unplugged unless you plan on charging somewhere other than home.

 

[Sunny5280]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is that based on or what is the / 4 for?

In ID elec rate is 8.67c, so if I wanted to figure out a "fill up" of 250 miles, 250 / 4 * .0867 = $5.42 to fill up?

I assumed he's using a charge rate of 4 miles per hour since the OP is charging using 120 volts.

 

[jjgg]

So, you went from tier 1 energy usage to tier 3 (if on a tiered plan). You will not change your energy usage by simply running the car down to charge it back up. In order to minimize your costs, you need to get SOME form of level 2 charging (240V charging) and switch to a time of Use plan, and set the car to only charge during the off peak time of midnight to 6am.

You will need enough charging speed to fit all your charging into that window.

Its not going to help you to simply leave the car unplugged unless you plan on charging somewhere other than home.

Aug and Sep each had more than 600 kWh additional consumption compared to July. That's about 6 times full depleting and charging the LR battery (if we factor in a 80% efficiency for charging), which would correspond to over 2000 miles drive per month. Obviously OP mentioned the car only had 1200+ miles in the first post. So no matter what every poor efficiency the 120V charging get, the majority of the additional electricity consumption cannot be attributed to the car.

 

[jjrandorin]

Aug and Sep each had more than 600 kWh additional consumption compared to July. That's about 6 times full depleting and charging the LR battery (if we factor in a 80% efficiency for charging), which would correspond to over 2000 miles drive per month. Obviously OP mentioned the car only had 1200+ miles in the first post. So no matter what every poor efficiency the 120V charging get, the majority of the additional electricity consumption cannot be attributed to the car.

I didnt say it was all attributable to the car, only that they need to get their car charging in the TOU windows (which they probably are not using). I find a usage of 348kWh for a month of electricity, in southern california, with no solar or offset to it, very (very) low.

 

[scalbert03]

I just drive it and enjoy it...life is too short to worry about gas for cars or juice for my Tesla. That's no way to live...

Having said that...the Tesla makes it real easy to not worry...it costs us $3 for charging at home overnight from approx 20% or less to 100%.

View attachment 715782View attachment 715783

GA Power is charging you 15¢ kWh?

 

[RandyS]

$16 per month for an energy bill EV plan? That would be 2 full (0-100%) charges for me, and then the “discount“ would be in effect.

When you pay the $16 monthly fee for that pricing plan, the price for the super off peak period goes from 22 cents/kWh to 9 cents/kWh. So to get that 13 cents savings per kWh, it costs $16. If you use more than 123 kWh in that super off peak period, you'll pay back the $16 fee and start to save 13 cents for each kWh consumed above 123 for that month...It's a money-saver for most EV drivers...

 

[SaintMickey®]

GA Power is charging you 15¢ kWh?

Your math not mine but I have no idea. Not said to impress our home is over 4,000 sq.ft. and we use a lot of electricity. 3 or 4 bucks a day this time a year is fine by me.