Home EV charging cost calculator
Tell it your car, how much is left when you get home, when you plug in and when you leave. It finds the cheapest hours on your rate, and what charging costs you a night, a month and a year.
Built by Aatish Patel, founder of XCharge North America
How it works
Energy needed is the gap between your arrival and target charge, times the battery size. The charger's power is the smaller of what the wall box delivers and what the car's onboard charger accepts. About 10% is lost on the way in on Level 2, and closer to 18% on Level 1.
The time between plugging in and leaving is cut into fifteen-minute slots, each priced from your rate for that month and day. "Plug in and go" fills slots from the moment you arrive. "Scheduled" fills the cheapest slots first, which is what the charging schedule in your car or charger does if you set it right. The year adds up every month, weekdays and weekends separately, for the number of nights a week you plug in.
Rates
- The ZIP lookup reads residential rates from the Utility Rate Database run by OpenEI, a US Department of Energy project. It lists the plans your utility has filed. It doesn't know which one you're on. Your bill does.
- Tiered rates are simplified to their first tier, and holidays are treated as weekdays.
- Fixed monthly charges are shown but not added to the cost of charging, because you pay them with or without a car.
- Presets are examples from 2026 rate sheets, energy prices only. Check your utility's current tariff before you switch plans.
Gas and public charging
- Gas prices are the Energy Information Administration's weekly retail averages, regular or premium to match the car, for your state where EIA publishes one and your region where it doesn't. They refresh every week.
- Average electricity prices are EIA's monthly residential averages by state, refreshed every month.
- Public fast charging uses the latest national average from Paren's quarterly report, updated by hand. Prices vary a lot by network and state, and members of some networks pay less.
- Gas cars use EPA combined fuel economy for a common trim. Each EV is matched to a similar gas car, and you can pick any other or type your own number.
- "Per gallon, equivalent" is what it costs to drive as far as the gas car goes on one gallon. The Department of Energy calls it the eGallon.
Questions people ask
Should I charge to 100%? Most carmakers suggest 80% for everyday driving and 100% before a road trip. Cars with LFP batteries are the exception and are fine at 100%. Your manual says which you have.
Does a faster charger save money? Not per kWh. It lets you fit the charging into a shorter cheap window, which matters on plans with a short super off-peak.
Car schedule or charger schedule? Use one, not both. Two schedules fighting each other is the most common reason a car isn't charged in the morning.