Charging at Home to Save Money
Switching out of a petrol or diesel car into electric can save you a small fortune on fuel, if you can charge at home. Here’s how to do it…
How much can you save in an all-electric vehicle?
If you do 8,000 miles a year in a petrol/diesel car capable of 40 MPG, it’ll cost you about £1,564 in fuel, based on petrol or diesel at £1.72 a litre.
The same 8,000 miles in an all-electric car will cost just £190, assuming you do all of your charging at home on an off-peak rate of 9.5p per kWh. The calculation is based on an average EV efficiency of 4 miles per kWh.
That’s a saving of £1,374 a year!
To get tailored savings results matching your exact annual mileage, try our interactive EV Fuel Cost Calculator.
How do you achieve these savings?
The secret to low-cost home charging is:
- Get a home charger installed professionally, and
- Switch to a dedicated, smart EV tariff.
EV tariffs typically come with two rates: (i) a cheap rate available for certain hours of the day – usually overnight – when you should charge your car for maximum savings, and (ii) a more expensive rate outside of the EV charging hours.
For example, your normal ‘day’ rate might be 29p per kWh, and your ‘night’ EV rate could be 9.5p per kWh. When you consume electricity during the day, you pay the higher day rate of 29p per kWh. But for a limited period of time during the night – usually 5-6 hours – you are charged at a lower, off-peak rate of 9.5p per kWh.
So, if you charge your car during that cheap, off-peak slot at night, it could cost you roughly 3 times less than charging during the day (29p divided by 9.5p = approximately 3).
How can I switch to an EV friendly tariff?
Call your energy supplier and check what kind of tariff you are on at the moment. You may well be on a ‘flat rate’ tariff where you pay the same amount for your electricity 24 hours a day. Many flat rate tariffs are known as 'standard variable' tariffs.
If you are on a flat rate, you can charge your car at any time. You can’t make any savings by charging at a different time of the day.
Ask your energy supplier if they have any dedicated EV tariff options. These can sometimes be added to the tariff you are already on, or they may switch you to a new tariff focussed purely on EV drivers.
The cheapest EV tariffs are usually 'smart' which means (i) you must have a smart meter, and (ii) either your car or charging point must be able to connect to the energy supplier's systems via the internet.
The person you speak to at the energy company should be able to guide you through the process of selecting the most appropriate EV tariff for your situation and check you have the correct technology in place.
How to set up charging to take advantage of an off-peak tariff
There are generally three different ways you can set up charging, but you need to follow your energy supplier's specific process in order to lock in the greatest savings:
Programme your car
Most EVs now have charging timers. You access the timer either via the car’s touchscreen or third party smartphone apps (if the manufacturer has one for your model). Set the charging timer to coincide with the start and finishing time of your off-peak slot.
Programme your charging point
As an alternative to programming your car, most charging points can now be programmed to start and stop charging automatically. You set up the charging time via an app or the web.
Use a smartphone app
There are also third-party apps – or apps provided by your energy supplier – that can either control your car’s timer or the timer in your charging point. You’ll normally tell the app how much you want to charge, when your off-peak rate is, and when you need the car ready in the morning, and the app will set the charging up for you.
What if my off-peak slot is too short?
Imagine your energy provider gives you a 5-hour off-peak slot at night. Charging a typical all-electric car for 5 hours will get roughly 130 miles of range into the car’s battery.
If you charged every day for 5 hours that would equate to 47,450 miles of range a year – more than enough for most people.
However, if you need to get 230 miles’ range into your car’s battery overnight, then you’ll need to charge for about 8 hours 50 minutes. That means 5 hours can be charged at your low off-peak rate, but the other 3 hours 50 minutes would be charged at your higher day rate.
To avoid paying a higher rate for your charging, the trick is to charge more regularly. If you can, don’t let your car’s battery get down to 5-10%. Instead, charge when it’s at say 40-50%.
In this way, you can charge for shorter periods, keeping within your off-peak charging window. In may sound like you have to do complex maths to work out when to charge, but in reality it soon becomes routine.
Questions?
Phone our dedicated EV team now on
0118 3048 688
or email us at
enquiries@selectcarleasing.co.uk
