Interactive tool
What does a charge cost?
Home, public Level 2 and DC fast charging, priced per session, per mile and per year — on your rates, your battery and your real efficiency.
Enter your battery capacity and efficiency to price a charge.
How the cost is worked out
Energy into the battery
Usable capacity multiplied by the state-of-charge window you are filling. Charging 20 to 80 percent of a 75 kWh pack puts 45 kWh into the car.
Energy off the meter
Always more, because of charging losses. The calculator divides by one minus your loss figure, so the bill reflects what the meter counts rather than what the dashboard says.
Cost and range
Metered energy times your rate gives the session cost. Battery energy times your real efficiency gives the miles it buys, and the two together give cost per mile.
No utility tariffs, network prices or vehicle efficiency figures are published here. They change by state, by network, by membership and by hour, and a national average we could not source would be a number we had invented. Every rate in the result is one you entered. The single pre-filled assumption is a ten percent charging loss, shown as an editable field rather than a claim about your equipment.
Common questions
- Why does charging cost more than the battery size suggests?
- Because you pay for energy at the meter, not energy in the battery. Some of it is lost to the charger, the cables and the car’s onboard electronics, and more is lost in cold weather or when preconditioning the pack. This calculator models that gap explicitly as a loss percentage you can set.
- What loss percentage should I use?
- Use your own measurement if you have one: compare the kWh your home charger or utility reports against the kWh the car says it added. The field is pre-filled at 10% purely as a starting assumption, not as a figure we are claiming for your setup. Level 1 charging and cold weather push it higher; warm-weather DC fast charging tends to be lower.
- Why are the public rates blank?
- Because network pricing varies by state, site, time of day, membership plan and even by the hour. We do not publish a national average we cannot source. Check the price in the network’s own app before you plug in, then put it here.
- What about networks that bill by the minute?
- They cannot be compared this way. Per-minute billing ties the cost to how fast your car charges — state of charge, battery temperature and the charger’s own output all change it. This tool prices per-kWh billing only, and leaves out idle fees, session fees and subscriptions.
- Is the gasoline comparison fair?
- It compares fuel against electricity and nothing else. Insurance, depreciation, maintenance and tires all differ between an EV and a gasoline car, and none of them appear here. For the whole picture use the ownership cost calculator.
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