I estimate I drive at least 900 miles a month (45 miles every weekday. Maybe 15miles on weekends) and charge every night. My bill went from about $200 at most to $470 in my last bill.. I was on a tier plan and I think charging starting at 6pm probably contributed to that high cost. I just swapped it to a TOU plan which will get cheap starting at 9pm so I hope to reduce that. But below is the energy consumption from the past few months. I picked up my Model Y perf end of December. Looks like it added another 400kWh of consumption. Does this sound about right?
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What's everyone's electricity bill increase to/by?
- Thread starter Jlam
- Start date
If you were on a tier plan, it wouldnt have mattered what time you charged. Charging at 6pm would not have mattered on a standard tier plan. Those plans charge you more, the more you use, and WHEN you use it doesnt matter, so unless you have some way to reduce usage (like solar) they are not good when you have an EV.
I think you should go back and look at your plan again, as with a standard TOU plan in CA, you might say "it gets cheap starting at 9pm, but thats only because the cost from 4-9pm is so high, much higher than you were paying on your tiered rate.
Your "it gets cheaper" rate will be after midnight, and you will want to charge your car from midnight to 6am only (for the most part).
One more thing, comparing "what is everyones electricity bill increase by" is not going to generate any useful information for you at all. Too many variables, the biggest of which is how far each person drives, and the fact that CA has some of the most expensive electricity (and gas) in the nation.
Reading someone in texas say their bill goes up (made up number) $60 bucks a month because they have 11 cent a kWh rate is going to be meaningful for you.
I think you should go back and look at your plan again, as with a standard TOU plan in CA, you might say "it gets cheap starting at 9pm, but thats only because the cost from 4-9pm is so high, much higher than you were paying on your tiered rate.
Your "it gets cheaper" rate will be after midnight, and you will want to charge your car from midnight to 6am only (for the most part).
One more thing, comparing "what is everyones electricity bill increase by" is not going to generate any useful information for you at all. Too many variables, the biggest of which is how far each person drives, and the fact that CA has some of the most expensive electricity (and gas) in the nation.
Reading someone in texas say their bill goes up (made up number) $60 bucks a month because they have 11 cent a kWh rate is going to be meaningful for you.
$270 for 400 kWh is $0.675/kWh! Is electricity really that expensive in CA? And 900 miles for a 20mpg car is 45 gallons used. Even at $5/gal, this is less expensive than electric.
Second what @jjrandorin said, look for what the cost is per kWh and try to optimize that. It sounds like your ev electricity consumption is more than half your total monthly bill of your home. Finding the best ways to minimize this potion of your bill (and you are on the right track with TOU) will make a huge difference. I’m not familiar with CA rates, but there has to be ways to drop that cost per kWh by more than half.
Second what @jjrandorin said, look for what the cost is per kWh and try to optimize that. It sounds like your ev electricity consumption is more than half your total monthly bill of your home. Finding the best ways to minimize this potion of your bill (and you are on the right track with TOU) will make a huge difference. I’m not familiar with CA rates, but there has to be ways to drop that cost per kWh by more than half.
First, your driving efficiency is ~400Wh/mile. This can be due to driving 75 MPH+ and using the climate control system without preconditioning before driving especially for short trips. Driving at 70 MPH will reduce your consumption by almost 10%, i.e. 40 Wh/mile. Drive at 65 MPH and you would reduce your consumption by almost 20%, i.e. 80 Wh/mile (for this time of year, using the climate control to keep warm and the Performance Model Y fitted with the 21" Uberturbine wheels ~330Wh/mi would be achievable.)
You were paying ~$0.25 per kWh for electricity on the tier plan (before switching to the the TOU plan, charging after 9PM.)
Now that you have started to charge on the TOU plan set up Scheduled Departure to complete charging each A.M. by the time you normally leave. The battery will be warm from the charging just having completed and you won't use as much power to precondition before driving.
If you can charge at work, at no cost, then that can reduce your cost per mile by at least half, maybe more. You might even be able to charge M-F at work and only charge at home on the weekend.
You were paying ~$0.25 per kWh for electricity on the tier plan (before switching to the the TOU plan, charging after 9PM.)
Now that you have started to charge on the TOU plan set up Scheduled Departure to complete charging each A.M. by the time you normally leave. The battery will be warm from the charging just having completed and you won't use as much power to precondition before driving.
If you can charge at work, at no cost, then that can reduce your cost per mile by at least half, maybe more. You might even be able to charge M-F at work and only charge at home on the weekend.
I doubt it, actually. That would only be if they stayed in "Tier 1" and its almost impossible to actually live in a home and stay in tier 1 electricity rates. A $200 bill tells me they were not in tier 1 rates.
OPs location shows as "los angeles", so SCE, and they were almost assuredly at least in tier 2, but more likely in the third tier. They were either paying 37c a kWh or 46c a kWh (not 25c)
I was just going by the previous utility bills, before the OP started to charge their Tesla Model Y at home. Just a quick looks shows December usage approaching ~800kWh and the OP stated the bill was $200, so $0.25 per kWh (including all power generation and distribution costs) seemed like a good estimate.
csrpenfab
Member
Just got mine and did first top off charge. $0.07/KWh here in Idaho, it won’t cost much!
mservoss
Member
I have LADWP in California, my tier 1 is up to 700 kwh=.19.....Tier 2 is up to 1400 kwh=.25.....I've never hit tier 3, when I receive my MYLR, I just did a high average of .28 kwh and figured it would cost about $35/month to charge for 4 hours a day.....Hope my calculations are correct! BTW, all high end estimates. Still cheaper than gas
CaptUAL
Member
Charging at 48amps @ 240 volts is about the same as running 5 - Five Ton variable speed DC Air Conditioners at the same time, or 11,520 Watts. Just think how the crappy California grid and it’s Summer brown-outs can handle thousands of people plugging in their Go Green Teslas after work
. The grid already can’t handle the demand in Summer!
. The grid already can’t handle the demand in Summer!
mservoss
Member
Very True!Charging at 48amps @ 240 volts is about the same as running 5 - Five Ton variable speed DC Air Conditioners at the same time, or 11,520 Watts. Just think how the crappy California grid and it’s Summer brown-outs can handle thousands of people plugging in their Go Green Teslas after work
If you have the option to charge at home you could set up for night charging when loads are lightest. Easy to do with the app.Charging at 48amps @ 240 volts is about the same as running 5 - Five Ton variable speed DC Air Conditioners at the same time, or 11,520 Watts. Just think how the crappy California grid and it’s Summer brown-outs can handle thousands of people plugging in their Go Green Teslas after work
mservoss
Member
I'm not in the OP nor am I in their area, but I'm on PG&E E-TOU-C (https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-TOU-C.pdf) which is TOU AND tiered. The tier 1 (baseline) amounts receive baseline credit (see page 2). Once you pass baseline allocation, you receive no credit for the kWh used after that point, so you're in tier 2. The tier amounts are on page 4. I'm in area X, code B so baseline (tier 1) is 309 or 315 kWh for a 30 day billing period.
We do have EV2-A (see page 2 of https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2 (Sch).pdf) which has no tiers.
I was previously on E-6 (https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf) which is also TOU and with tiers but I moved off of it due to COVID work from home and since that plan is being phased out, nobody can join it or rejoin it.
I almost never charge my EVs at home so EV2-A makes no sense for me. And, I'm usually able to stay within tier 1.
I've been going to the office for awhile and am able take advantage of free L2 charging there. There's also some free L2 charging sorta near home and there's also some 19 cent per kWh DC FCing 5 miles from home in an area that I frequently pass. Since I've had a CCS car since end of Jan 2019, I can use that, so long as it's not broken. That's cheaper than the 24.4 cents/kWh which is the cheapest you can get on EV2-A while PG&E reams you from 3 pm to midnight everyday at 41.3 to 55.7 cents/kWh.
If I didn't have access to any of the above or free/cheap charging, my PG&E bill would skyrocket.
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I'm on Rocky Mountain Power in Utah. We have had our model Y for well over a year. I looked up our electric bills for the last 5 years and they consistently
were about $1500 per year for our condo before we got the Y. We have been on the Rocky Mountain time of day usage rate for over a year. It has a on peak of 22 cents and an off peak of 7 cents. We currently have about 28K miles on the Y, so it gets well used. The total power bill for a full year on the time of day
usage rate was also $1500. So the cost for the increased power usage has been negligible.
were about $1500 per year for our condo before we got the Y. We have been on the Rocky Mountain time of day usage rate for over a year. It has a on peak of 22 cents and an off peak of 7 cents. We currently have about 28K miles on the Y, so it gets well used. The total power bill for a full year on the time of day
usage rate was also $1500. So the cost for the increased power usage has been negligible.
My rate over 1,000kwh (which we always exceeded even before the Tesla) is $0.12 per kwh. According to the charge stats we added 347kwh over the last 31 days. Even after adding some % for charging losses, etc. it's still incredibly cheap compared to what we were paying for gas...especially if we were paying today's prices.
Exelion
Member
Even the highest tier (tier three in this region) for electricity is nowhere near the price of gas these (and soon to be) days. I'm predicting gas will hit $10.00 per gallon very soon.
Also, about those tiers:
If a person is in the dark grey region, let's say 500% consumption, that doesn't mean all of their electricity is charged at $0.46. They pay $0.28 per kWh up to where Tier 1 ends, then $0.37 in Tier 2, and then the very last amounts is $0.46, which is from the 400% to 500%.
Also, about those tiers:
If a person is in the dark grey region, let's say 500% consumption, that doesn't mean all of their electricity is charged at $0.46. They pay $0.28 per kWh up to where Tier 1 ends, then $0.37 in Tier 2, and then the very last amounts is $0.46, which is from the 400% to 500%.
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