Utility Bills and Electric Car

[Not1Drop]

Being rural in Ontario comes with additional surcharges compared to being in the city. In the most basic terms though, averaging about 4000km per month, we're hitting about $150 on our bill trying to be faithful about charging only during low rate hours, setting the time on the charging screen etc... Two years ago when we took delivery we put 5000km on the car in the first month, an example would be Toronto to Miami and back for distance, and with rates at that time it was about $100.

 

[David29]

I envy the folks in Ontario and AZ with cheap power! In eastern MA it is much more expensive, and probably not cheaper than gasoline. (I pay an average of about 18.5 cents per kwh even at night.)
As for the concern about the network becoming over-burdened if EVs were widely adopted, I suspect that might occur in localized areas (say of 3 or 4 houses all in a row should increase their maximum demand to charge an EV or two each) but I expect the growth in demand is quite manageable on a network basis. I do not see EVs being adopted so fast that utilities could not keep up. (Be nice if I were wrong, in some sense, though...)

 

[dhrivnak]

Lucky you...having solar...I'm actually interested in having that on my roof. In Ontario, we have this limited deal where the government buys the electricity from our panels for 28 cents/kwhr...and it doesn't cost us that much to consume it 18 cents/Kwhr during peak hours at the most...

Do you have a battery system too? are you doing net-metering?

No batteries as we have full net metering over a year period. So my excess in the spring and fall can cover my winter deficit.

 

[Not1Drop]

Ahhh, David29, I'd almost take your 18.5 cents per kwh if that's the all in price.
Granted we should probably move to a different thread about hydro prices.
We're a family of five, rural so everything is electric, septic, water heater, geothermal heat and a 4000km per month S85D we only charge at night. Our hydro bill for Dec 30 to Jan 31 was $810.29, the month of December was $950.76, Invoice breaks down as $112.97 On-peak @18cents, $69 mid-peak at 13.2 cents per, 272.45 at 8.7 cents off-peak. Being rural there is an automatic per kw surcharge and that gets rolled into a charge they love to call Delivery which totalled $281.25, then regulatory for another $32.16 and finally $42.46 for taxes. So my usage was $454.42 then $355.87 in charges and taxes. Worked out to 18.9 per kw.

 

[Lon12]

If you haven't read this article then its worth reading if you are concerned about the effect EV's will have on our current grid.
Standouts to me are that both BC and Quebec say that they have enough power currently to support everyone driving EV's instead of ICE.
An electric car uses as much energy as your hot water tank.
Electrical grid could handle millions of plug-in cars — but maybe not all at once

 

[Hugh Mannity]

Nice article Lon! Gawd don't read the comments below though. You'll want to bang your head on the wall after reading the Neanderthal comments there.

 

[MeetValet]

I have had my Tesla Model X for about a year now and for the first 3 weeks I didn't have a charger in my garage and it was definitely a hassle. But I went the route of having a separate meter installed that is only dedicated to my Tesla -- mainly because the rate is seriously reduced, but also so that I have a separate bill that only is for my Tesla.

I can say that you may want to plan ahead and get an electrician lined up weeks (if not months) before your car is delivered because it will make your life a lot better.

I got 2 nema- 14-50 amp outlets installed and am very happy with the set up. I think my bill is only $12 per month and I do a lot driving.

The other thing is that because I didn't want to spend so much money on the wall charger, I had to get a mobile charger installed with an outlet which I think is the way to go. Hope this helps -- i also created a shield that can be used to cover the outlet and you can check it out at www.valet-shield.com! Thanks!

 

[SmartElectric]

Facts

1. Ontario has massive over built grid. A nuclear reactor did go offline in 2015 with no effect on grid stability.

2. There's 7GW of gas turbine electricity plants sitting idle waiting for the nuclear refurbishment to start.

3. Ontario can charge 1 million EV'S overnight just using the surplus power we export to NY state at a loss.

4. Local power distribution has to account for big simultaneous loads like air conditioning and water heaters, EV'S are no different.

Relax

 

[f-stop]

How much of an impact did an electric car had on your utility bills for the last year or two?

I've had my 70D now for a little over 1 year, taking delivery beginning of Dec 2015. I recently compared my BC Hydro electric bill for the first full year of owning the car compared to the full year prior without ( I wrote about it with some additional detail in another thread here: BC Hydro step 2 rates )

In summary:
- I drove my 70D ~14,000km in the first year, including a 3500km road trip plus a few other shorter trips (i.e. those were of course Supercharged).
- my total home electric bill went up by only $129 for the year (this included a Hydro rate increase sometime in 2016)
- my typical daily mileage is low, so I usually don't need to charge much overnight, the car is usually set to charge to 65%
- since I only have slow 120V charging at home, I sometimes take advantage of public L2 chargers if there's one available somewhere I happen be going anyhow. We're extremely lucky here, there are lots of free chargers all over town, sometimes they're in pay parking lots, other places even the parking is free
- In terms of hours spent charging (charging time, not kW), my ratio of home vs public charging is probably about 85%

 

[Blackout]

If you haven't read this article then its worth reading if you are concerned about the effect EV's will have on our current grid.
Standouts to me are that both BC and Quebec say that they have enough power currently to support everyone driving EV's instead of ICE.
An electric car uses as much energy as your hot water tank.
Electrical grid could handle millions of plug-in cars — but maybe not all at once

Nice article, It touches on alot of the questions I was asking...

But what I got from it when reading the "Risk of Overload" is as of now, especially in Toronto, We are not ready for mass adoption of the electric car and the Transformers will have to be updated to support the extra load. I find it funny that they mentioned neighbors will start promoting their cars and might increase the number of EV in one neighborhood... That is such a thing that I will do with my model 3...That's kind of why I asked...

Mr smart electric brought some fact, 7GW would be good, especially if the Pickering reactors get shut down in the next 4 years. But new plants require new distribution system, then you have the transformers that will need to be update. So the question remains, Would I have to confront one day an angry ICE driver that sees his utility bill rising and He would blame it on the mass adoption of the electric car?
If that would happens my come back would be well, buy an electric car, because you are paying high cost for electricity and high cost for gas...You're getting burned either way lol...

 

[Blackout]

Facts

1. Ontario has massive over built grid. A nuclear reactor did go offline in 2015 with no effect on grid stability.

2. There's 7GW of gas turbine electricity plants sitting idle waiting for the nuclear refurbishment to start.

3. Ontario can charge 1 million EV'S overnight just using the surplus power we export to NY state at a loss.

4. Local power distribution has to account for big simultaneous loads like air conditioning and water heaters, EV'S are no different.

Relax

2 - I didn't know about this and to me that's great news...

3/4 Producing the electricity for million EV is one thing, there is also the issue of delivering it to your door, and that's where the transformers comes in...There'll have to be some investments to updated them, because these transformers are rated to handle certain loads. On average Canadian consumes about 30kwhr a day...So charging and S60 even half way is like 2 times the consumption of an average consumer. Now it works well if it's a couple people in one are...But It might be a serious concern if a 1/3 of people in the same area switch to EV and charge after they get back from work...Off peak hours...I know I should be relax and you have very valid point But following the trend of growing price in ontario, plus what I can see coming especially the model 3 sales itself, I gotta ask these, who's going to pay for this...The government seems to promise a freeze on electricity cost for the next 4 years...So it's a relief, but someone's gotta pay for it...and it usually falls one way of another in the hands of the tax payers...I'm ok because I'm looking into benefiting from the microFIT program before it expires this year, and possibly a lithium Ion battery system. That's just me, but I can't help thinking about how it would affect everyone on a larger scale...

 

[Blackout]

I have had my Tesla Model X for about a year now and for the first 3 weeks I didn't have a charger in my garage and it was definitely a hassle. But I went the route of having a separate meter installed that is only dedicated to my Tesla -- mainly because the rate is seriously reduced, but also so that I have a separate bill that only is for my Tesla.

I can say that you may want to plan ahead and get an electrician lined up weeks (if not months) before your car is delivered because it will make your life a lot better.

I got 2 nema- 14-50 amp outlets installed and am very happy with the set up. I think my bill is only $12 per month and I do a lot driving.

The other thing is that because I didn't want to spend so much money on the wall charger, I had to get a mobile charger installed with an outlet which I think is the way to go. Hope this helps -- i also created a shield that can be used to cover the outlet and you can check it out at www.valet-shield.com! Thanks!

Are you behind developing this product?

Ok...So the shield is covering the plug, but still allow connection to it...The tesla charger hanging down is that the portable charger you were referring too?

Maybe I'm missing something but wouldn't buying a wall mount charger be more efficient? if the point is to cover the plug, and to wrap the cable around the charger..

Btw I love this website, looks pretty clean...

 

[MeetValet]

Yes - I am behind developing and designing the product. Those are very good questions. What the Valet does is allow you to take your EV charger with you and not leave an exposed 50 amp outlet behind.

it is a sleek and easy way to have a cover for the outlet that also hold the cable. You get a wall mount connector is $550 - so not all people want to have a cable sitting on their garage wall. With this shield you can use any mobile/portable charging cable that you can plug and unplug as many times as you want and still have the same cool design.

Thanks for the comments and the only reason I am doing this is because I have two outlets in my garage and couldn't find anything that could be used to cover them.

 

[FlatSix911]

Yes - I am behind developing and designing the product. Those are very good questions. What the Valet does is allow you to take your EV charger with you and not leave an exposed 50 amp outlet behind.

it is a sleek and easy way to have a cover for the outlet that also hold the cable. You get a wall mount connector is $550 - so not all people want to have a cable sitting on their garage wall. With this shield you can use any mobile/portable charging cable that you can plug and unplug as many times as you want and still have the same cool design.

Thanks for the comments and the only reason I am doing this is because I have two outlets in my garage and couldn't find anything that could be used to cover them.

Nice idea ... when does your Kickstarter campaign begin? Meet Valet

 

[MeetValet]

Nice idea ... when does your Kickstarter campaign begin? Meet Valet

View attachment 217234

Thanks! I am hoping to launch in in the next 2 weeks. Just finished the video and now just trying to get some interest in place before I do the launch so that there is more attention to it!

 

[rapoport3a]

To answer the original question, we have an S85 that we pay about 75% of the electricity for, the rest being free. In its first two years, we spent about CA$50 a month in energy, to go about 31,000 km each year. That's about 1.95 cents/km.

Calculating electricity cost is a difficult game in Ontario. For the car we include all per km charges (metered), reasoning that the fixed costs we'd have to pay anyhow for the house. To repeat what has often been noted, in recent years the all-in (tax included) off-peak rate in Ontario has not been 8.7 cents/kWh. Where we are, it's gone down recently from 13.609 cents to 11.876 cents and may go lower in four or five months.

Without a meter, there's no way to know the electricity cost for one of these cars. The car's indication of kWh added is too low, by an amount that may average about 10%, depending on, among other things, how warm the battery is when charging starts and how long the charge session is.

The interesting question is what the Model 3 may cost to charge, because in significant ways it will be a different car. To an extent, Model S and X experiences, even when well documented, may only be in the same general range.

 

[Blackout]

Yes - I am behind developing and designing the product. Those are very good questions. What the Valet does is allow you to take your EV charger with you and not leave an exposed 50 amp outlet behind.

it is a sleek and easy way to have a cover for the outlet that also hold the cable. You get a wall mount connector is $550 - so not all people want to have a cable sitting on their garage wall. With this shield you can use any mobile/portable charging cable that you can plug and unplug as many times as you want and still have the same cool design.

Thanks for the comments and the only reason I am doing this is because I have two outlets in my garage and couldn't find anything that could be used to cover them.

Ohhh I get it...So you buy the portable charger instead and you can use it any other place other than you home. But you might need another shield at the location you expect to charge if they don't have Level 2 chargers...But hey more business for you

Good idea and I Love the design of it...It looks futuristic.