Southern CA Edison rates make it not worth charging at home

[v8eater]

If you live in CA, and plan on staying, solar with a battery backup is really the only way to go. There is zero chance electricity will get less expensive. Solar alone would help the OP but the battery will make the ROE faster. Stay "off grid" during the peak hours. Charge the car during the day off solar, AND have a backup for power outages.

 

[240W]

Haven’t really looked into powerwall (especially since they no longer offer it standalone), or it’s competitors but may have to start researching

 

[Empiro]

Battery backup has it's own benefits, but for how much it costs, it's usually more cost effective to instead get a bigger array. You can go on a TOU plan that has higher off peak rates and lower peak rates. The current net metering means that you effectively get paid more if your rates are higher.

Of course this may all change with the new net metering rules.

 

[Streetmoney21]

SCE customer. I am on the Time of use prime plan. Off peak hourly rate is .19 per kWh which starts after 9 pm and ends at 4pm the following day. Super off peak hours are from 8am to 5pm but don’t believe the rate drops any lower during those hours. My wife and I are now working from home and I charge my Model Y performance once or twice a week. I treat it like an ICE car in that I don’t top off ever night. With 300 miles of range it’s best to drive until the battery is low like down 20 to 15 percent charge. Kind of like going to the gas station when you’re low on gas. Sometimes I start the charge at midnight, but if I know I’ll be home I start charging at 8am. I have the Tesla wall connector and it works pretty good. I know some people drive a lot and may need to charge more frequently, but I believe the public charging stations cost more to use if you don‘t have supercharger credits so it’s cheaper to charge at hom.

 

[jcanoe]

SCE customer. I am on the Time of use prime plan. Off peak hourly rate is .19 per kWh which starts after 9 pm and ends at 4pm the following day. Super off peak hours are from 8am to 5pm but don’t believe the rate drops any lower during those hours. My wife and I are now working from home and I charge my Model Y performance once or twice a week. I treat it like an ICE car in that I don’t top off ever night. With 300 miles of range it’s best to drive until the battery is low like down 20 to 15 percent charge. Kind of like going to the gas station when you’re low on gas. Sometimes I start the charge at midnight, but if I know I’ll be home I start charging at 8am. I have the Tesla wall connector and it works pretty good. I know some people drive a lot and may need to charge more frequently, but I believe the public charging stations cost more to use if you don‘t have supercharger credits so it’s cheaper to charge at hom.

Treating your Tesla Model Y as if it were an ICE vehicle by waiting to charge until the battery is at 15% or 20% state of charge as if filling the fuel tank is a misconception of many Tesla owners new to driving an electric vehicle initially make. The Tesla Model Y Owner's Manual states that you should leave your Tesla vehicle plugged in when not in use. * For daily commuting you should set the battery charge limit between 50% and 90% but only charge above 90% if you need to before a longer road trip. If you do charge to 100% prior to leaving on a road trip then only do so just before starting out driving. (It is easier to set the daily charging limit via the Tesla phone app then to use the charging settings screen in the Tesla vehicle.) Many Tesla Model Y owners would agree that setting the daily charging limit to around 80% more than meets their daily driving needs.

* Some Tesla Model Y owners don't charge every day but do maintain the battery between ~50% and ~80% for the long term health of the battery. Some only charge at work, either by choice because they can charge for free or because they do not have the ability to charge at home. Others, such as myself, usually charge their Tesla Model Y vehicle where they can charge using free to use public charging.

If you decide not to plug in your Tesla Performance Model Y every day nothing bad will happen. Try and charge often enough so that the battery is maintained, on average, within a range of 50% to 80% for the best performance of the battery.

It is usually much less expensive to charge at home than to use a Tesla Supercharger or a public charging station (unless free to use.)

 

[Empiro]

The manual also says to keep the car plugged in. My conjecture is that keeping it plugged is good for the long term health of the battery, so long as you don't keep it charged too high.

I think this is true because there are a number of things the car has to power even when parked (like the cell connection, temperature monitoring, etc.). That puts a small stain on the battery. When you're plugged in, my understanding is the the car will bypass the battery and use the supplied power, even when not charging. Over the car's lifetime, that can add up.

 

[rrolsbe]

The manual also says to keep the car plugged in. My conjecture is that keeping it plugged is good for the long term health of the battery, so long as you don't keep it charged too high.

I think this is true because there are a number of things the car has to power even when parked (like the cell connection, temperature monitoring, etc.). That puts a small stain on the battery. When you're plugged in, my understanding is the the car will bypass the battery and use the supplied power, even when not charging. Over the car's lifetime, that can add up.

Wish that was true but it's not.

 

[Exelion]

I don’t think it is either. There’s a few times where i kept it plugged in, and in the morning the car lost about 2-3% and i heard the charger click back on and charge it back up, the very little % it lost. So that tells me the power plug is not bypassing the battery.

 

[jcanoe]

In the Tesla Model Y there are only high voltage (360V) systems (including the AC compressor and the front and rear drive motors) and 12V systems (everything else.) Only the on-board charger handles 120V or 240V for charging the high voltage battery. The DC-to-DC converter powers the 12V systems using power from the high voltage battery when the Tesla Model Y is powered on. At other times, when powered down, the 12V battery maintains critical systems including the door locks, alarm (not Sentry mode), BT and LTE modems. After about a day of being powered down the Tesla Model Y will power on for several hours so that the DC-to-DC converter can charge the 12V battery. Over time the state of charge of the high voltage battery will decrease a few percent. If the Tesla vehicle is plugged in the high voltage battery will be charged to the preset battery charge limit.

 

[Big Dog]

OP: Methinks your title is incorrect What you have posted about your daily usage just indicates that its not worth it to change to Edison's ToU plan. (I also live in The OC, and for us, the ToU is projected to cost a few dollars more per month on average.) You can still charge at home, unless you can charge at work for free or susidized cost. To me, one of teh big benefits of an EV is charging at home; not worth it to save a few cents to sit at a SC every so often.

Have you compared rate plans with to the regular one? Tier 1 is 16cents and Tier 2 is 24 cents. (Yikes just noticed your monthly spend. What the heck are you spending all of those electrons on? With that kinda monthly bill, solar is the way to go.)

 

[ucmndd]

With 300 miles of range it’s best to drive until the battery is low like down 20 to 15 percent charge.

Lol, no. Stop doing that.

 

[davenlei]

I live in SDGE (San Diego Gas and Electric) territory and their rates are worse than SCE. In fact they have the highest rates in the United States.
Even with that, when I switched to their EV plan (the plan I chose charges a base $16 fee per month just for the privilege to be on that plan but has the lowest nightly rate) my total electric bill is about the same prior to getting an EV. So basically my costs to charge at home is almost nothing (around $20 a month charging nightly) because the time tier rates are lower for all my electricity usage and the night rate (12AM-6AM) is drastically lower ($0.09 kw/h).
I was notified SDGE are raising rates about 7% overall so I guess they want to maintain the title of the highest electricity rates in the nation.