Enter your battery size, electricity rate, and vehicle efficiency.
Charging cost per mile depends on three things: your electricity rate, how efficiently your specific EV uses that electricity (measured in miles per kWh, or the inverse, kWh per 100 miles), and how much energy is lost as heat during the charging process itself rather than reaching the battery.
Home AC charging (a standard Level 1 or Level 2 charger) typically loses somewhere around 10-15% of the electricity drawn from the wall, while DC fast charging can be less efficient still — this calculator lets you adjust that loss percentage to match your own setup.
The gas car comparison converts the same 100-mile distance into gallons of gas at the price you enter, so you can see directly how much cheaper (or occasionally, in areas with very high electricity prices, how much more expensive) driving electric works out to be for your specific rates.
Not all the electricity you draw from the wall ends up stored in the battery — some is lost as heat during the AC-to-DC conversion. A 10-15% loss is typical for home charging, so you're paying for more electricity than the battery's kWh rating alone would suggest.
Check a recent power bill for your rate per kWh, or your utility's website. If you're on a time-of-use plan and charge overnight, use your off-peak rate for a more accurate result.
Most EVs display this in the dashboard trip computer, or you can look up the EPA-rated efficiency for your model — it's often listed as kWh per 100 miles, which you can convert to miles/kWh by dividing 100 by that number.
In most regions with typical residential electricity rates, yes — but in areas with very high electricity prices or very low gas prices, the gap can shrink or even reverse. This calculator uses your own numbers so you can check for your specific situation.
