Electric car charging cost calculator
A typical electric car, the middle of the 81 in the US EPA’s data, uses 2.88 miles per kWh, so at 26.32p/kWh charging it at home costs £9.14 for every 100 miles: £914.12 a year for 10,000 miles of driving.
A year of charging at home costs
£914.12 a year
£9.14 for every 100 miles, £76.18 a month, using 3,473 kWh from the plug for 10,000 miles.
The same driving in a petrol car costs £3,100.61 a year, so charging at home saves £2,186.49, 71% less than the petrol bill.
The middle of the listed models uses 2.88 miles per kWh, from the US EPA. Charging losses are included.
Charger and off-peak charging
On the charger’s label. Volts times amps: a 32 A single-phase supply at 230 V is 7.4 kW.
Starts as an average day’s driving. It sets how long a charge takes.
Compare with petrol or diesel
Default UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 21 Sep 2026.
Starts as the median petrol car of the same class in the EPA data. Enter your own, especially for a diesel.
| Period | Electric | Petrol | Electric saves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per 100 miles | £9.14 | £31.01 | £21.86 |
| A month | £76.18 | £258.38 | £182.21 |
| A year | £914.12 | £3,100.61 | £2,186.49 |
| Energy a year | 3,473 kWh | 1,803 litres | |
| CO2e a year | 755 kg | 4.8 t | 4 t |
How long a charge takes
Putting back 27.4 miles of driving takes 9.52 kWh from the plug and costs £2.50. The time depends on the charger’s power.
| Charger | Power | Time | Adds an hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your charger | 7.4 kW | 1 h 17 min | 21.3 miles |
| Single-phase, 10 A | 2.3 kW | 4 h 8 min | 6.6 miles |
| Single-phase, 16 A | 3.7 kW | 2 h 35 min | 10.6 miles |
| Single-phase, 32 A | 7.4 kW | 1 h 18 min | 21.2 miles |
| Three-phase, 16 A | 11 kW | 52 min | 31.8 miles |
| Three-phase, 32 A | 22.1 kW | 26 min | 63.6 miles |
The supplies are worked out as volts times amps at 230 V, times three for three-phase. The times assume the car accepts the charger’s full power throughout.
How we calculated this
Energy from the plug is the distance times the car’s consumption, divided by how efficient charging is. 10,000 miles at 2.88 miles per kWh, with charging losses already counted in the figure, is 3,473 kWh a year, which the electricity price turns into 26.32p/kWh on average.
A typical electric car is the middle of the 81 all-electric models of model years 2026 and 2027 in the US EPA’s fuel economy data, from US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy. Choose your own model, or enter your own figures, for a better answer.
EPA’s kilowatt-hours per 100 miles is the electricity its label prices, so we treat it as measured at the plug and add no further charging losses. That is our reading of the label, not something EPA states in those words.
Electricity costs 26.32p/kWh. That is the published figure for the United Kingdom, 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2026, from Ofgem. Average for England, Scotland and Wales, paying by Direct Debit. No VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Standing charges are left out: you pay them whether or not the appliance runs.
Petrol at £1.72 a litre, 21 Sep 2026: Average pump price of ultra low sulphur unleaded petrol, duty and VAT included. From UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. The car it is compared with does 25.2 miles per gallon, the median of 805 petrol cars of model years 2026 and 2027 (hybrids and plug-ins left out), 21 miles per US gallon. If you drive a diesel, enter its own economy.
Emissions use 0.217 kg CO2e per kWh, the lifecycle intensity of electricity generated in the United Kingdom in 2025, from Ember, via Our World in Data. Lifecycle means building the power stations and supplying their fuel are counted too. It is the grid’s average, not the particular power station an extra appliance brings on.
Petrol and diesel CO2e use 2.66 kg per litre: burning it plus getting it to the pump, from UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Charging at home counts the electricity from the plug at the grid’s average intensity.
Charging time is the energy from the plug divided by the charger’s power, so it assumes the car accepts the full power throughout. The charge for an average day’s driving is the year’s distance divided over 365 days, unless you set the distance yourself.
The starting distance, 10,000 miles, is where the calculator starts, not an average: change it to how far you drive.
What drives the cost
Charging at home costs the electricity the car uses times what a kWh costs you. Two things set it: how much electricity the car needs for every 100 miles, and the price of that electricity. A cheaper off-peak rate lowers the second without changing the first, and a more efficient car lowers the first. Compared with fuel, what matters is the price of a kWh against the price of a litre for the distance you drive.
What it costs in the UK, Europe and the US
The typical electric car in the EPA data against a typical petrol car in the same data, at each country’s published electricity and petrol price, per 100 miles in the UK and US and per 100 km elsewhere.
| Country | Electricity | Charging | Petrol price | Petrol |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 26.32p/kWh | £9.14 | £1.72 a litre | £31.01 |
| United States (average) | 18.19¢/kWh | $6.32 | $4.48 a gallon | $21.32 |
| Ireland | €0.4042/kWh | €8.72 | €1.94 a litre | €21.78 |
| Germany | 0,3869 €/kWh | 8,35 € | 2,35 € a litre | 26,30 € |
| France | 0,2561 €/kWh | 5,53 € | 2,22 € a litre | 24,86 € |
| Spain | 0,2669 €/kWh | 5,76 € | 1,93 € a litre | 21,59 € |
| Italy | 0,2966 €/kWh | 6,40 € | 2,14 € a litre | 23,98 € |
| Netherlands | € 0,2558/kWh | € 5,52 | € 2,45 a litre | € 27,43 |
Per 100 miles in the UK and the US, per 100 km elsewhere, so read across a row, not down a column.
Questions
How much does it cost to charge an electric car at home?
A typical electric car, the middle of the listed models, uses 2.88 miles per kWh. At 26.32p/kWh, that costs £9.14 for every 100 miles. Driving 10,000 miles a year comes to £914.12 a year, or £76.18 a month.
Is charging an electric car cheaper than buying petrol?
For the same 10,000 miles a year, a typical petrol car in the same data, doing 25.2 miles per gallon, costs £3,100.61 at £1.72 a litre, against £914.12 to charge at home: charging costs £2,186.49 less. Charging would cost as much as that petrol at 89.28p/kWh. These are US-market cars, on average larger than many sold elsewhere, so enter your own car and fuel price for a fair comparison.
How much electricity does an electric car use?
It depends on the car. Across the 81 all-electric models of model years 2026 and 2027 in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s data, the middle model uses 2.88 miles per kWh, and models run from 1.50 to 3.72 miles per kWh. The figures come from US tests of US-market cars, so a car sold and driven elsewhere may differ: enter your own to check.
How much energy is lost when charging at home?
Some of the electricity a charger draws is lost as heat in the charger and the battery. The US Department of Energy’s fueleconomy.gov says charging efficiency is often 84% to 93%. For a car you describe yourself the calculator starts at 90%. EPA’s figure for a listed model is the electricity its label prices, so we treat it as measured at the plug, with those losses already in it.
How long does it take to charge an electric car at home?
The time is the energy from the plug divided by the charger’s power. An average day’s driving, 27.4 miles, needs 9.52 kWh, which takes 1 h 17 min on a 7.4 kW charger and adds 21.3 miles of driving for each hour plugged in. This assumes the car accepts the charger’s full power for the whole charge, so check what yours can take.
Is it worth charging in off-peak hours?
On a time-of-use tariff, electricity in the cheap window costs less per kWh, and an electric car can charge when it opens. Enter your peak and off-peak rates in the price settings and the calculator works out how much of a charge falls inside the window if you plug in when it opens, so you can see what the tariff saves.
Sources
- Fuel economy data (vehicles.csv), fueleconomy.gov, US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, 16 September 2026. “All-electric models of model years 2026 and 2027: 81 models, combined city and highway electricity use from 26.9 to 66.5 kWh per 100 miles, the middle model 34.7. Petrol cars of the same years: median 21 miles per US gallon across 805 cars.”
- Electric vehicles: learn more about the label, fueleconomy.gov, US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, read on 26 September 2026. “This value tells you how many kilowatt-hours the vehicle would use to travel 100 miles.”
- Where the energy goes: electric cars, US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, fueleconomy.gov, read on 26 September 2026. “Battery charging efficiency can vary, but it is often 84% to 93%, based on published studies”
- Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors 2026, UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, read on 26 September 2026. “Petrol (average biofuel blend), per litre: combustion 2.075 plus well-to-tank 0.58094 kg CO2e. Diesel (average biofuel blend), per litre: combustion 2.58354 plus well-to-tank 0.61101 kg CO2e.”
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