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| ▲ | Schiendelman 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| As someone who does non-trivial driving: When I switched over, I was floored - that electric bill increase was less in a month than gas was in about three days. And yes, I also have a dedicated 240V/50A circuit, 120/15 is only fine for normal commuters. In Seattle, we also went from flat 13.4c/kWh to a new variable rate with 8c/kWh available from 12-6am. My electric bill just dropped by about 30%. |
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| ▲ | bell-cot 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | What did you switch from and to? Even Tesla's Charging Calculator is far less optimistic than that: https://www.tesla.com/charging-calculator "Seattle" may be a critical bit here. The Fed thinks the "U.S. City Average" cost of electricity is far higher than yours: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 Based on how many of my friends followed their first EV purchase with an electrical outlet upgrade - even those with very short commutes - I suspect your "120/15 is only fine for normal commuters" is still a tad optimistic. EDIT: Re-reading comments here - I'd bet a leading reason to upgrade from 120/15 to 240/50 charging is to get much more of your charging done within the 12am - 6am "lowest rate" time window. Or whatever that window is, locally. | | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I switched from $5 a gallon for a Subaru to 8c/kWh for a Model 3. Seattle is the best trade in the US for EVs. |
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| ▲ | officeplant 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 400 miles of driving a month in my EV van which gets on average 1.7 miles/kwh is around 235.3 kwh. At local rates that $16.47 in electricity (235.3 x $0.07). On average my electric bill went up 15-25 dollars a month. I spent the first two years of ownership charging mostly from the 110v socket outside the house because over night its enough to cover my commute of around 27 miles at the time. Now that I have a 60A 240v circuit setup outside and a 40A EVSE I never even worry about what state of charge I get home with. |
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| ▲ | coldpie 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You're kinda right. Our car (2025 Ioniq 5) gets about 3-4 miles of range per hour on a 120V outlet. If you're home for 10 hours overnight, that's at least 30 miles of range each day. Some random article I found[1] suggests the average commute is about 42 miles. So if you include some extra time on weekends, a 120V outlet easily matches the average commute distance. If you drive less than that, or are home more often due to WFH or whatever, then a 120V outlet is definitely enough. In reality, probably people drive significantly more than that, eg for shopping and seeing friends and shuttling kids around and whatever. So in the end I do agree with you, lots of people will want to get a 240 line to their garage. But an existing 120V line is probably genuinely enough for a whole lot of people, too. It is for my wife & me. [1] https://www.axios.com/2024/03/24/average-commute-distance-us... |
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| ▲ | nathan_compton 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Yes, it will show up on your bill as a cost drastically smaller than purchasing the equivalent amount of gas. If you put solar panels on your house you can get that cost even lower. |
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| ▲ | bluGill 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm sure it shows up on my bill, but there are so many other variable costs that I can't find it. The weather (how much I use the heat pump) is a much larger factor |
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