EV Charging Cost Calculator

What an electric car costs to charge depends on just two things: how much energy goes into the battery, and what you pay per kilowatt hour. The same car can cost a few pounds to fill overnight on an EV tariff or ten times that on a motorway rapid charger.

Pick your car below (or enter its battery size), set the charge window and the price you pay, and the calculator shows the cost of the charge, the range it adds and your cost per mile.

What it costs to charge, by location

The spread between charging at home and charging in public is enormous. For a typical 60kWh battery at 3.5 miles per kWh:

Prices are typical at the time of writing and vary by supplier and network - use the calculator with your own rates.

Charging at home

Home charging is almost always the cheapest option, and a dedicated EV tariff makes it cheaper still: suppliers offer overnight windows at a fraction of the standard unit rate, on the basis that your car charges while demand on the grid is low. A car charged overnight at 7p/kWh costs around 2p a mile - most petrol cars cost around 13-15p a mile in fuel, so the saving adds up quickly across a year's driving.

You'll need a home chargepoint (typically 7kW) to make the most of it - a three-pin plug will charge the car, but slowly, and isn't recommended as a routine solution.

Public and rapid charging

Public chargers trade price for speed and convenience. Fast AC chargers (7-22kW) suit longer stops - workplaces, car parks, shopping centres - while rapid and ultra-rapid DC chargers (50-350kW) can add hundreds of miles of range in under an hour, at the highest prices per kWh. Many networks offer subscriptions or memberships that bring the per-kWh rate down if you use them regularly.

Charging an EV at your business

If you run a business, workplace charging changes the sums again: chargepoints for staff and fleets are typically billed at your commercial electricity rate, which is agreed per contract rather than capped. Getting a competitive rate on the supply itself is the single biggest lever on your cost per mile - and worth checking before you install chargers.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my charge draw more from the grid than the calculator shows?

Charging isn't perfectly efficient - some energy is lost as heat in the charger and the car's electronics. Real-world losses are typically around 10%, so a 48kWh top-up might draw around 53kWh from your meter. The calculator prices the energy that ends up in the battery; add roughly 10% for the billed figure.

How long will a charge take?

Divide the energy added by the charger's power: 48kWh through a 7kW home chargepoint is around 7 hours - fine overnight - while the same charge on a 150kW rapid charger takes around 20-25 minutes. Cars also slow their charging speed above roughly 80% to protect the battery.

Is charging an EV really cheaper than petrol?

At home, substantially: 2-7p a mile against roughly 13-15p for a typical petrol car. On rapid chargers the gap narrows to little or nothing - which is why where you charge matters more than what you drive.

Does battery size affect efficiency?

Not directly - efficiency (miles per kWh) is about the car's weight, aerodynamics, speed and the weather. A bigger battery just holds more energy, so it costs more to fill from empty and takes you further.