Is EV fast charging more expensive than running a petrol car?

As more and more electric vehicles hit the road around the world, there is increased evidence that  home charging account for  between 70 and 95 per cent of all charging events.

The rest is made up of AC destination charging (for example: at work, at the local shopping strip or recreation centre) and a small percentage of DC fast-charging when travelling away from home … or when you forgot to plug in at home!

For those with access to home charging, the running cost for EVs is therefore primarily determined by the kWh electricity price you pay at home, or forego if you are exporting solar to the grid.

This also means you also have great flexibility in charging costs, depending on your choice of electricity plan and time of charging, and coming up with an ‘average’ annual cost of running an EV is dependent entirely on these timing and tariff choices.

In any event, as I wrote here, it is inarguable that EVs charged at home are much cheaper to run than an ICE (internal combustion engine) car. (For those looking to read up more,  this story, explains how to work out those costs if you mentally swap kWh per 100km for litres per 100km).

But a common question is what happens if you don’t have easy access to home AC charging? What if you need to rely solely on DC charging – does it mean those savings are lost?

As it turns out, the answer is an emphatic ‘NO!’

Below is a basic cost comparison of home charging and DC network offerings, using either method of charging at all times, or a mix of 90% AC charging and 10% DC charging to show a more ‘typical’ EV charging regime for owners with access to home charging.

Looking through the table, even if using the most expensive DC network for 100% of your charging (bold type in the table), you’ll still be paying less than half (41.5%) the price of the ‘average’ petrol bill for 10,000km.

For EV owners who do have access to home or similar AC charging options, even if you used peak electricity at home and the most expensive DC charging on your trips away (blue italic in the table) – you would still be spending 80% less than your previous petrol bill.

Timing your charging to use off-peak electricity at home and the lowest DC rate – that improves to 88% less (green italic in the table).

Or, for those lucky pre-2017 Tesla owners who charge at home but have lifetime Supercharger DC charging access – 91% cheaper! (Red italic in the table).