What Are Electric Car Owners Paying to Charge Their Cars?

[mdbuilder]

Don't get too excited, that is the worst bill of the year by far being July and every day >90f with my wife home all summer. Most bills in the low to mid 300's and 3 or 4 a year in the 180-250 range.

No tiers, just a slightly higher rate in the summer. There are PV incentives in Md but I already have the prime 30% or so of my roof covered in solar water panels for the pool. Not really interested in a PPA. Kind of interested in an outright purchase, maybe in the next couple years as prices fall a little more.

 

[Don]

My goodness!! - That's still upwards of $3K per year in electricity costs. I would be making a MAJOR change to something, somewhere . . . . probably several major changes if I was paying anything close to that

We bought an older house after Katrina and when we remodeled it we added wall insulation, 2 feet of blown in attic insulation and 3 inches of spray foam under the floors, a high efficiency HVAC system plus we put in 17 new vinyl low-E thermo-pane windows. Our electric for a 2,250 sq ft house is under $100 per month - We also installed a solar water heating system 10 years ago

If I was younger and/or our electric rates were higher, we would definitely invest in a big solar set-up like some here already have, but I don't think with our present electric rates we have enough years left to break even, let alone see any positive investment from doing that. The nice thing about making energy saving improvements to your house is that you can (or at least you could back when we did it) recoup much of your costs on tax credits. We spent about $3K designing and building our own solar water heating system 10 years ago and immediately got about half of that back in tax savings and the energy saved paid for the other half in only 3 or 4 years. Since then, it's been a real money-maker. IMO, solar water heating should be a standard feature on all new houses - It's easier and cheaper to build it in than to add it on later. No energy savings option has a quicker payback than solar water and it's relatively easy and cheap to do even if you're adding it to an existing house

Don

 

[JoeS]

...Kind of interested in an outright purchase, maybe in the next couple years as prices fall a little more.

By all means, buy it, and now. Friends of mine in New Orleans stalled and now the terrific local government incentives they could have had have vaporized! My own very expensive system that I put in 10 years ago that I had calculated would take 17 years to amortize has already fully paid for itself as of a couple of years ago!

 

[mdbuilder]

Yes, 3K or so to heat, cool, light, cook, supply hot water, circulate the pool, wash and dry the clothes. And, oh yeah - charge the car for 1,000 or so miles a month.

Doesn't seem so bad to me, at least I get something for it. Paid > 20 times as much in taxes last year :shock: It's a big house, if it mattered I'd start by raising the thermostat 5 or 6 degrees...

 

[rmay635703]

Yes, 3K or so to heat, cool, light, cook, supply hot water, circulate the pool, wash and dry the clothes. And, oh yeah - charge the car for 1,000 or so miles a month.

Doesn't seem so bad to me, at least I get something for it. Paid > 20 times as much in taxes last year :shock: It's a big house, if it mattered I'd start by raising the thermostat 5 or 6 degrees...

You could probably cut that bill in half or even quarter it using cogeneration or just plain natural gas

 

[Don]

Doesn't seem so bad to me, at least I get something for it. Paid > 20 times as much in taxes last year :shock: It's a big house, if it mattered I'd start by raising the thermostat 5 or 6 degrees...

Gotcha . . . . and I agree - If you're paying $60K a year in taxes, $3K for living comfortably is pretty small potatoes!

Don