Can anyone give me an idea of the cost to charge an electric car overnight. I'm thinking of something full electric like a Leaf so imagine it takes a bit of time even with an installed charger as reckon a 13a plug charger would take a lifetime to charge fully. Keen to much the electric bill would increase per month compared with say a hybrid where I will still use some petrol.
Overnight charging cost
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Burt2000
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I think it was about £2.50 or £3 a charge when we had the Zoe, I barely ever charged it at home though, the odd top up just. That was about 6 years ago though so prob cheaper and it had a small range and battery pack compared to newer stuff.
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VEN©M
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Depends on the size of the battery, how much you put in to it and the price you're paying per kWh
gpaevo
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£10 to £12 to charge a Tesla Model 3. My buddy has a electric smart meter at the house so keeps a record when charging his Model 3. That is with a Tesla charger. Just plugged into the mains he said it would take about 2 days to fully charge.
michelinman
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Yeah as Adam (@saxo_man ) says, my 30kwh leaf never took 30kwh, even when we ran it as low as we dared (1%). I had a power monitor set up at my old house and I think the most it took was about 23 or 24kwh. 1kwh = 1 unit. So just multiply the units by the rate and that’s the cost. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, it’s about how many units you use. I think we were paying 14p a unit, so not a very good rate. But a full charge only cost around £3.30 and that lasted 110/120 miles in summer and around 90/100 in winter. In Germany the electric costs are much higher, so it is the same cost to run my 330 e46 as it did the leaf 
So the leaf was dispatched before we moved 
When I charged at my parents, I only had access to 13a. It took about 11/12 hours to fully charge the leaf compared with 3-4 when I used the 7kw at my old house.
So the leaf was dispatched before we moved When I charged at my parents, I only had access to 13a. It took about 11/12 hours to fully charge the leaf compared with 3-4 when I used the 7kw at my old house.
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For a full electric car it seems a home 7kwh charger is essential otherwise it will take an age to charge. Standard Powerni tariff seems to be about 18 per unit, is there a way to get cheaper night time electric?
Alternatively charge at work for free seems a good plan.
Alternatively charge at work for free seems a good plan.
Economy is cheaper. That's the E7 that Saxoman is taking about up there^.
Graham2
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Yeah as Adam (@saxo_man ) says, my 30kwh leaf never took 30kwh, even when we ran it as low as we dared (1%). I had a power monitor set up at my old house and I think the most it took was about 23 or 24kwh. 1kwh = 1 unit. So just multiply the units by the rate and that’s the cost. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, it’s about how many units you use. I think we were paying 14p a unit, so not a very good rate. But a full charge only cost around £3.30 and that lasted 110/120 miles in summer and around 90/100 in winter. In Germany the electric costs are much higher, so it is the same cost to run my 330 e46 as it did the leaf
When I charged at my parents, I only had access to 13a. It took about 11/12 hours to fully charge the leaf compared with 3-4 when I used the 7kw at my old house.
You are assuming 100% efficiency, there will be a loss across the charging circuit which will also be affected by the ambient temperature so the loss will vary at different times of the year.
michelinman
RMS Regular
Yup! But I didn't see any other way to try and measure the cost of charging. All I can say was that is was pretty consistent in terms of the monitoring device which displayed the power consumption of the charger. The leaf also had a kwh to mile consumption display on the dash, which was also relatively consistent at 4kwh/mile. So calculating backwards, that was also around 22.5 to 27.5kwh usage depending on the season. So perhaps there was some loss, but if we take an ave of 25kwh for a "full tank", that was about £3.50 per charge. So not far off what I originally thought.
Mark Irwin
RMS Regular
I have economy 7 and charge at night 8.66 ppKW and a 9p a day standing charge. As I also have a solar PV system this is a really cheap way to charge your car. Next step is batteries to store excess solar once they drop in price a bit.