Electricity Usage

1000 miles of driving at $0.12 per kwh added about $60 per month. It was about $40 with Leaf. Part of increase is phantom load and slightly more driving. Car has dedicated E V meter with SCE.

Where is electricity so cheap?

janandji said:

Hello,

I have the 60 kw Model S and my daily total commute is around 40 miles, my electricity bill has increased by around $175 after i got the car. i pay around 9 cents/kwh for electricity and current use the NEMA 1450 outlet with 40 amps.

Can the fellow users help me out whether the bill increase is similar or somethings wrong with the picture?

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No, something is VERY wrong with that picture...

Assuming 1200 miles/month, even if you drive at 400wh/mi, have a 15% loss during charge, and 10kWh of vampire drain per day - all extremes - it should still be no more than $65/month.

You may need to get your meter tested. See if you can have them give you a kW reading with charging vs. not charging, since you have a nice read-out in the car to compare it to.

janandji said:

Hello,

I have the 60 kw Model S and my daily total commute is around 40 miles, my electricity bill has increased by around $175 after i got the car. i pay around 9 cents/kwh for electricity and current use the NEMA 1450 outlet with 40 amps.

Can the fellow users help me out whether the bill increase is similar or somethings wrong with the picture?

Click to expand...

I think something is wrong with the picture.
At 9cents/kWh a $175 increase would be about an increase of 1750 kWh which, after adjusting for charger efficiency, would move the Model S about 4200 miles.
If you are driving 40 miles a day a month's travel would be about 1200 miles.

Check your bill to see if there are delivery or other charges paid by the kWh. Or your charging efficiency may be way off for some reason.
Or, is someone tapping into your electricity? Perhaps you are paying someone else's electric bill as well?

laalan said:

Where is electricity so cheap?

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Indeed. My Off Peak "all-in" electricity rate is 12.52 cents/kWh (Peak is 19.19 cents) in Ontario, Canada.

laalan said:

1000 miles of driving at $0.12 per kwh added about $60 per month. It was about $40 with Leaf. Part of increase is phantom load and slightly more driving. Car has dedicated E V meter with SCE.

Where is electricity so cheap?

Click to expand...

Hehe, move to The right spot in Texas and off peak electricity is free.
Here in Minnesota I am paying 5.7c/kWh.

National average is, I believe, about 12 cents, so there are quite a few places with cheaper electricity just as there are quite a few with more expensive electricity.

deonb said:

You may need to get your meter tested.

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<Groan> As a utility guy, this is always the first place people go when their "bill is too high". In 34 years of utility work, I've never seen a meter fail "fast". Electromechanical meters (the ones with disks and dials) invariably fail "slow" (i.e. in the customer's favor). Newer electronic meters can also fail, but they are usually registering so far out of whack that it is clearly apparent.

As has been suggested, check your invoice to see if there are other regulatory or delivery charges beyond your 9-cents/kWh. Another thing to consider is whether your utility "estimates" your bill and only reads the meter every other month or so. Finally, do you have air conditioning and are you in an area where a/c use might have been lower or non-existent on the bill you're comparing to.

mknox said:

<Groan> As a utility guy, this is always the first place people go when their "bill is too high". In 34 years of utility work, I've never seen a meter fail "fast".

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I agree - the meter test would help him to however figure out if there is something else wrong. He can turn off all power to the house and only have the Model S charging to see whether it is metering correctly, then start turning on everything else until he finds something that may cause an unexpected reading.

With old style meters, users could do this themselves, but nowadays the dial is not visible so you have to request a specific test.

I have a very hard time believing these figures, without any supporting evidence. A photo of the Tesla Model S odometer (where hopefully Trip B has never been reset) would show the lifetime energy usage and average energy usage by the Tesla. If a 60KwH Model S gets 200 miles on a full charge, then 1200 miles/month would equal six full-charges. Six times 60KwH is 360 KwH, times .09 cents/KwH = $32.40. Adding charging losses, vampire load, and having a lead foot while driving uphill both ways might double that (in an absolute worst case scenario), so I don't see any possible way the Tesla is adding $175/month to the electric bill.

It is far more likely that something else (like air conditioner use during July) is accounting for this.

laalan said:

Where is electricity so cheap?

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Texas for one. I pay .09/kWh here.

I checked with my financial advisor (my wife) and she asked

- is the .09 price time sensitive? If so, did the car charge at the cheap rate time?
- did he just change rate plans? If so, had the .09 rate taken effect yet?
- with SCE, for example, we switched to a time sensitive rate plan...which means consumption during the prime hours is very expensive. Maybe the car is charging at .09, but other household usage is now more expensive than it was previously.

Jeff

I'm on a TOU plan, but it's still a tiered pricing scheme.
What I've found is that having the Tesla pushes me into the higher tiers much earlier in the month than before, so the electricity for the whole house is more expensive.

Are you on a tiered plan?

I'm going to bite the bullet and go solar.

Where do you live, and what rate program are you on. It can get complicated if you are on a tiered rate and all electric, then you end up adding the Model S into the equation and it can push you into the higher tiers which are expensive. Even so that number seems out of wack.

Averaging about $2.20/day for electricity during first two months

I have been tracking my electricity usage in a spreadsheet and have seen $65 (30 days) and $70 (32 days) monthly increases compared to last year's electricity bills. I also pay about 9 cents/kWh with 5.25% tax (Frisco, TX). I am averaging about 1000 miles a month. My ICE car's gas bill for the last two months was $37 (with 3/4 of a tank left). I refused to drive the Tesla to the airport and leave it there for a week. Last year my gas bill for two cars was just under $300 for the same two months. I will continue to pay for the additional electric usage (with a Tesla grin on my face).

laalan said:

1000 miles of driving at $0.12 per kwh added about $60 per month. It was about $40 with Leaf. Part of increase is phantom load and slightly more driving. Car has dedicated E V meter with SCE.

Where is electricity so cheap?

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Everywhere but California.

Meter may not have failed, but I have had a meter reader (the two-legged type) fail. Those old-fashioned gauges can be tricky to read between digits.

Kermit said:

Meter may not have failed, but I have had a meter reader (the two-legged type) fail. Those old-fashioned gauges can be tricky to read between digits.

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Absolutely, although most utilities employ software on the handheld devices and billing systems that checks for inputting errors. They predict what the reading should be, and flag it if it is outside of a predetermined range for a billing agent to check.

It's probably the simplest answer. It was hot in July, more AC, higher electric bill.

When I got my Model S (P85) I switched to a rate called TOU-2. This Time of Use rate charges me a dramatically lower cost per kwh for usage between midnite and 5am. My total power bill has actually gone DOWN although the total kwh usage is sharply up.

I'm on SDG&E.

janandji said:

Hello,

I have the 60 kw Model S and my daily total commute is around 40 miles, my electricity bill has increased by around $175 after i got the car. i pay around 9 cents/kwh for electricity and current use the NEMA 1450 outlet with 40 amps.

Can the fellow users help me out whether the bill increase is similar or somethings wrong with the picture?

Click to expand...

I can tell you from my experience that is WAY WAY out of line. My first month, we drove over 2400 miles. My gas bill dropped by $360 and my electric bill was up by $83 and the Kw was compared last year to this year. This month my bill is up $42 which seems way too low, but looking at the FPL website, the temps were milder this June, and probably my household use was down. I figured my car costs about 4 cents per mile in power costs. That makes much more sense. We also have a Model S 60 w 19in tires and std suspension.