How much does it cost to charge an electric car at home per month in the UK?
A Tesla Model 3 driven 800 miles a month pulls roughly 162 kilowatt hours from the wall, which is £42.19 at the Ofgem cap rate of 26.11p per kWh, and a 40 kWh Nissan Leaf doing the same mileage costs £48.25. On a dedicated overnight EV tariff at 8p per kWh those same months cost £12.93 and £14.78.
What the car actually pulls from the wall
Two numbers decide this, and neither of them is the size of your battery. The first is how much energy your car uses per mile, and the second is how much of the energy leaving your meter never makes it into the pack.
Manufacturers publish the first figure under the WLTP test. A Tesla Model 3 is listed at 11.6 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometres, which works out at 18.7 kilowatt hours per 100 miles. A 40 kWh Nissan Leaf is listed at 13.3 per 100 kilometres, or 21.4 per 100 miles. Those are the test numbers, so treat them as the floor rather than the average, because a cold February and a motorway commute will both push real consumption higher.
The second number is charging loss. Energy goes missing in the cable, in the car's onboard charger turning alternating current into direct current, and in the battery cooling that runs while the car charges. Testing by the German motoring club ADAC put losses as low as 5.1 per cent on a home wallbox, and independent measurements across a range of cars land between 6 and 10 per cent. We use 8 per cent here, which takes the Model 3 to 20.2 kilowatt hours per 100 miles at the meter and the Leaf to 23.1.
Work it out for your own electric car charged at home
Type in the wattage from the plate on the back, then your own unit rate. The numbers update as you type.
The monthly cost, at two very different rates
A home wallbox is a 7kW unit in almost every British installation, because a 32 amp single phase supply is what a normal house can spare. The myenergi zappi and the Ohme Home Pro both sit at 7 to 7.4kW, and the speed matters far less than people expect, since the car is parked for nine hours and needs six of them.
At the Ofgem cap rate of 26.11p per kWh, here is what a month of driving costs at the meter.
| Miles a month | Model 3 at cap rate | Model 3 at 8p overnight | Leaf at cap rate | Leaf at 8p overnight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400 | £21.10 | £6.46 | £24.13 | £7.39 |
| 600 | £31.64 | £9.70 | £36.19 | £11.09 |
| 800 | £42.19 | £12.93 | £48.25 | £14.78 |
| 1,000 | £52.74 | £16.16 | £60.31 | £18.48 |
The right hand columns are the whole story of electric motoring in Britain. Tariffs such as Intelligent Octopus Go sell overnight units from around 8p per kWh, roughly a third of the cap rate, and a car that charges between half eleven at night and half five in the morning never needs to touch the expensive daytime rate. The same 800 miles costs £42.19 on a standard tariff and £12.93 on the overnight one, for identical driving in an identical car.
| Appliance | Typical draw | Usage we assume | Per hour (UK) | Per usage (UK) | Per month (UK) | Per hour (US) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric car charged at home | 7000 W | per full charge from a home wallbox | £1.83 | £11.36 | £49.22 | $1.28 |
Rates: Ofgem cap 1 July to 30 September 2026 at 26.11p per kWh (source), EIA residential average June 2026 at 18.34 cents per kWh (source). Checked 2026-09-22.
Working it out for your own car
The arithmetic is short enough to do on a phone. Take your car's consumption in kilowatt hours per 100 miles, add 8 per cent for charging losses, multiply by your monthly mileage divided by 100, then multiply by your unit rate.
For a Leaf driven 650 miles a month on the cap rate, that is 21.4 multiplied by 1.08, which gives 23.1 kilowatt hours per 100 miles. Multiply by 6.5 to get 150.2 kilowatt hours, then multiply by 26.11p, and the answer is £39.20. If your car has a trip computer showing miles per kWh instead, divide 100 by that figure to get the same starting number.
How to pay less for the same miles
- Move to a dedicated EV tariff before you do anything else, because nothing else on this list saves a third of the bill in one afternoon.
- Set the charge schedule in the car as well as in the app, so a plug in at teatime does not start pulling energy at the daytime rate.
- Charge to 80 per cent for daily use. The last stretch to full charges slowest, which means the car spends longer with its cooling and electronics awake for very little added range.
- Leave the wallbox powered down at the consumer unit if the car is away for weeks. A zappi draws 3 watts on standby, which is 26 kilowatt hours and about £6.86 over a year of doing nothing.
- Check your tyre pressures monthly. Under inflated tyres cost range in every car, and in an electric one that shows up directly as kilowatt hours.
- Precondition the cabin while the car is still plugged in on a winter morning, so the heating comes from the wall rather than from the battery you are about to drive on.
What this looks like in the United States
American drivers pay a residential average of 18.34 cents per kilowatt hour, using the EIA figure for June 2026. A Model 3 at 20.2 kilowatt hours per 100 miles costs $3.70 for those 100 miles, and 800 miles a month comes to $29.63. State rates swing that hard in both directions, from around 15 cents in Texas to nearly 35 cents in California, so the same car costs $25.76 a month in Houston and $56.14 in Los Angeles for identical mileage.
The comparison that actually matters
Most people arrive at this question from a petrol bill rather than an electricity one, so the honest answer has to cross the two. At 45 miles per gallon and £1.35 a litre, 100 miles of petrol costs £13.64. The same 100 miles in a Model 3 costs £5.27 on the standard cap rate and £1.62 overnight.
The gap survives even if you are pessimistic about the WLTP numbers. Add 25 per cent to the car's consumption for winter driving and short trips, and the cap rate figure becomes £6.59 for 100 miles, which is still less than half the petrol cost. The one case where the sums fail is a driver with no driveway who relies on public rapid charging, where the rate per kilowatt hour is set by the network rather than by a home supplier, and the running cost advantage narrows or disappears entirely.
Common questions
Does charging an electric car at home use a lot of electricity?
Yes, more than any other single thing in the house. A month of average driving adds roughly 160 to 190 kilowatt hours to the meter, which is comparable to a tumble dryer, a dishwasher and a washing machine put together. The reason it still feels cheap is that it replaces petrol rather than adding to it.
How much does it cost to charge an electric car at a charging station instead?
Public charging is sold at a price per kilowatt hour set by the network rather than by your supplier, and rapid units on motorways are usually the dearest option on the map. The energy your car needs does not change, so the only thing moving is the rate, which is why home charging stays the cheapest option for anybody with a driveway.
How much does one full charge cost at home?
A 40 kWh Nissan Leaf taken from nearly empty to full draws about 43.5 kilowatt hours at the wall once charging losses are counted, which is £11.36 at the cap rate and takes a little over six hours on a 7kW wallbox. A Tesla Model 3 with roughly 60 kWh usable takes about 65 kilowatt hours, or £16.97.
Is it cheaper to run an electric car than petrol in the UK?
On these figures a Model 3 costs £5.27 for 100 miles at the standard cap rate. A petrol car doing 45 miles per gallon needs about 10.1 litres for the same 100 miles, which is £13.64 at £1.35 a litre. Both of those inputs move, so put your own into the calculator above before treating the gap as fixed.