Electricity bill shocker

[Seven7]

My electric bill always soars this time of year, it's from kids home from school all day turning both thermostats down to 71 and running computers, xbox, 3 flat screen TVs, ect...

 

[spc]

Anyway, I guess I need to get TED or something similar to monitor my usage. Any recommendations for a device preferably with an iOS app and remote access.

This really gets me, we paid good $$$$$ for this car and we still need to go buy some extra equipment to show us what the car already knows. Perhaps this is the real reason Tesla does not tell us the actual juice into the car. It eats more then they claim it does. And we all here keep trying to justify, calculate and guess what the real number really is.

 

[Khatsalano]

I think this page from JCP&L is helpful: Saving Energy

But from what I see, you're on a non-tiered rate without TOU. The best way to save money, is probably due to efficiency upgrades in your home, such as, LED or CFL conversion, A/C efficiency check, insulation check, etc. It also appears your utility doesn't offer an EV-owners rate like we have here in California. Solar can help, but at $0.16/kWh or so, you won't be saving, but you will be helping offset CO2 in the world.

- K

 

[McMuggets]

I feel for you Americans. We pay all the time no more than 0.08/kWh here in Alberta Canada. But really, I've driven about 4600Km and (2800 miles-ish) and have spent about $100.00CAD in electricity to do so (usage was 1200kWh more than before I got my Tesla comparing to my bills from prior year, which is very close to what the Tesla reports in the onboard "Trips" tab for energy usage). I have not changed anything else with lifestyle or the home. This is verified by the slight increase in my electric bill. I plug in the Tesla all the time now and so vampire drain is there as well. Please do have your meter checked, maybe something is wrong.

From my experience driving a Tesla is INSANELY cheaper by far than my lower performing ICE vehicle. A car with the same performance level would easily cost me way more to drive.


edited after the fact...:


I would like to add that even if I paid 0.16/kWh, my bill would only be $200 in total to drive 2800 miles. Not bad at all vs. gas.

 

[jeffro01]

This really gets me, we paid good $$$$$ for this car and we still need to go buy some extra equipment to show us what the car already knows. Perhaps this is the real reason Tesla does not tell us the actual juice into the car. It eats more then they claim it does. And we all here keep trying to justify, calculate and guess what the real number really is.

I know of no EV that tells you how much energy was pulled from the "wall" and how much of that energy made it to your battery pack via your EVSE and charger. The car has no idea how much is lost between the panel and your battery. I also know of no EV that tells you how much energy was transferred between your EVSE and the battery. All EVs take calculated statistics on how much energy you used while driving but even then they don't account for vampire loss or loss during "idle".

In the end if you want to know precisely how much your using then something like a TED is your only recourse. This isn't a Tesla problem.

Jeff

 

[yobigd20]

This really gets me, we paid good $$$$$ for this car and we still need to go buy some extra equipment to show us what the car already knows. Perhaps this is the real reason Tesla does not tell us the actual juice into the car. It eats more then they claim it does. And we all here keep trying to justify, calculate and guess what the real number really is.

I know a local owner that has one and monitored it pretty extensively. I believe if I recall the charging efficient was at or above 90% which is actually pretty good. Aka filling 85kW would use actual 94kW from the wall.

 

[spc]

I know of no EV that tells you how much energy was pulled from the "wall" and how much of that energy made it to your battery pack via your EVSE and charger. The car has no idea how much is lost between the panel and your battery. I also know of no EV that tells you how much energy was transferred between your EVSE and the battery. All EVs take calculated statistics on how much energy you used while driving but even then they don't account for vampire loss or loss during "idle".

In the end if you want to know precisely how much your using then something like a TED is your only recourse. This isn't a Tesla problem.

Jeff

Please... I did not get me "any ev" I got me a TESLA. did not say anything else but what comes from the wall into the car that will tell us what the cost really is. what goes to the batt and the other places counts as energy needed to get yu from point a to b. as i said the info is already in the car, tesla needs to give it to us.

 

[Saghost]

In the end if you want to know precisely how much your using then something like a TED is your only recourse. This isn't a Tesla problem.

The TED will give a much more comprehensive answer, but if the only thing he wants is the power the car is eating, an EVSE with power logging would be an option, too.

- - - Updated - - -

I know a local owner that has one and monitored it pretty extensively. I believe if I recall the charging efficient was at or above 90% which is actually pretty good. Aka filling 85kW would use actual 94kW from the wall.

If all you want is a generic "what's typical" answer, it is latent in the data the EPA publishes aside from the vampire drain: The original 85 kWh was rated at 265 miles range and 38 kWh/100 miles from the wall - meaning the EPA test aggregation showed 100.7 kWh from the wall.

What interesting is the newer cars show lower numbers - one of the reasons I'm still thinking the methodology changed somehow for the newer test on the AWD cars. The P85D is rated for 253 miles at 36 kWh/100 miles - meaning only 91 kWh from the wall. The 85D is rated for 270 miles at 34 kWh/100 miles - 91.8 kWh.
Walter

 

[davewill]

A buddy of mine (not an EV owner) had his electric bill suddenly go crazy. Turned out he had a hot water leak...which burned out one of the heating elements in the really old hot water heater. So his landlord replaced the heater not knowing about the leak, and they had to try again the next month when the bill was still crazy. The usage just kept creeping up day-by-day (as the leak got worse) until he was using over 100kWh a day.

You really want to nail this down. I can't see how it could be the car.

 

[S'toon]

My mother once got a $10,000 bill. Turned out the meter broke, and the power company read it as one full cycle of the meter.

 

[jeffro01]

This really gets me, we paid good $$$$$ for this car and we still need to go buy some extra equipment to show us what the car already knows. Perhaps this is the real reason Tesla does not tell us the actual juice into the car. It eats more then they claim it does. And we all here keep trying to justify, calculate and guess what the real number really is.

Would you just stop? I mean come on... Really??? Tesla isn't doing anything different from any other EV maker out there, it isn't magic. I would guess the real reason has much more to do with customer confusion rather than some secret hidden agenda. If you want to know this, get a TED, otherwise I don't really see what you could be all that annoyed, upset, frustrated, or whatever about...

Jeff

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

OK, didn't help. Now I'm really upset

 

[smilepak]

Hm am I reading his bill right? it seems you are paying approx 0.15 - 0.16 cents per KW. You might want to call your electric company to see if they have an EV plan or special plan for EV owners. Here in California, I was on a 0.28 cents per KW. I called Edison and they swapped me into a different plan where it only cost me 0.11 cents per KW to charge as long as I charge during Super Off Peak Hrs between 10:00 PM - 8AM. Saved me a lot of money overall.

https://www.sce.com/wps/portal/home/residential/rates/residential-plan/!ut/p/b1/hc5LCsIwGATgs3iCTBJt4jKB2P5VGvtA22ykq1LQ6kI8vxG6EVFnN_ANDAusZWHqH-PQ38fr1J9fPSQnrlOTUQ3SVjqQhS9MZbBViKCLAF9i8G9_ZOGdpPvVEpSrBkrVXG_UB6iUiODgdt5yAS1msE7hstxH0JQSJEsUtTESSGbw4-Tt0mKkYfEEvibj1Q!!/dl4/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/#/accordionGrp2-3/accordionGrp2-2/accordionGrp2-4

Time of Day	Summer (June – September)	Winter (October – May)
On-Peak: 2 p.m – 8 p.m. (non-holiday weekdays only)	35¢	25¢
Super Off-Peak: 10 p.m. – 8 a.m. (every day)	11¢	11¢
Off-Peak: 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.	18¢	14¢
Fixed Charges
Monthly Basic Charge (This is a flat daily charge that is billed on a monthly basis)	$16

Residential Time-of-Use TOU-D-B* (price/kWh)

​

*The rate factors shown are effective as of 3/2/2015. Rates are subject to change. Other charges will also appear on the bill.
Notes About This Rate Plan:

• This rate plan has a higher monthly customer charge, but offers lower kWh pricing as compared to Option A.
• This rate plan may be more beneficial to customers with usage of more than 700 kWh per month.
• There are a limited number of enrollments available for this rate plan.

Thanks. So if I used up around 2590 kWh (4090-1500) last June+July, then I guess the meter is correct.

- - - Updated - - -



The rate code is the same (June bill was an estimate) but the rate seems to have increased slightly in August. Not sure if it's usage tier model or not.

View attachment 89826

 

[SFOTurtle]

I would think that even charging at 15 cents/kWh, the OP would still be saving quite a bit compared to driving a car that got 35 mpg.

 

[Matteo]

caps04, what was your wh/mi during those last two months, if you had to guess?

 

[omarsultan]

So if you take the 4,000 miles and assume 320wh/mi, then...

(((4000 * 320) / 1000 ) / 0.92) * 0.163458 = ~$227

(1) Sub in your actual wh/mi
(2) dividing by 1000 to convert to kW
(3) Dividing by 0.92 for normal efficiency losses

Meanwhile...

(4000 / 35) * 2.427 = ~$277

(1) Avg price of regular gas in NJ

 

[FlasherZ]

This really gets me, we paid good $$$$$ for this car and we still need to go buy some extra equipment to show us what the car already knows. Perhaps this is the real reason Tesla does not tell us the actual juice into the car. It eats more then they claim it does. And we all here keep trying to justify, calculate and guess what the real number really is.

This is incorrect. The car has no way of telling the resistive losses in the home wiring (voltage drop), cable, or the loss from the UMC/HPWC.

 

[TaoJones]

It's certainly possible to get only 100 miles of driving out of a 90% charge, which as a rough calculation is less than 10mpg. People perhaps don't realize this because they just look at their trip screen numbers.

That said, other than making sure that Smart Preconditioning is off, even that and the above would in combination be a fairly sketchy explanation for that bill. I haven't heard of anyone getting, and I'll use the colloquial for the sake of brevity, crappy mileage for 2 months straight.

Investing in some troubleshooting equipment isn't the end of the world. It's not like it won't pay for itself. Or sell it on eBay after you're done with it. Also, it's possible that your electric company will perform a free on-site energy audit. Back in the day, they would spend quite a bit of time measuring just about everything in the house.

In any case, the mystery is there to solve.

 

[Matteo]

It seems I've used 4090kWh over 2 months for about 4000 miles of driving.

Ok, so I dug up last year's consumption numbers and it's 650 + 1200 kWh for those two months.

Here is how I would do the calculation:

Drive consumption	350Wh/mi * 4000 mi= 1400 kWh
Vampire loss (4 kWh/day)	4 kWh/day * 60 days= 240 kWh
Charging loss (30 Wh/mi)	30 Wh/mi * 4000mi= 120 kWh
Total	1760 kWh

I assumed 350 Wh/mi because the average energy consumption for S85 or S85D is 350 Wh/mi based on the survey in my signature (check stats page).
I assumed 4 kWh/day vampire loss because the car consumes 1.5-2 kWh during first 12 hours. To represent day to day use you have to measure first 12 hours vampire loss and multiply by 2. Charging loss is based on EPA numbers.

2 month period, this year, non-car consumption: 4090-1790= 2330 kWh
2 month period, last year, non-car consumption: 650+1200= 1850 kWh
Unaccounted consumption= 2330-1850= 480 kWh

Possible explanations:

1. 650 + 1200 kWh from last year was an estimation or the 650 was a correction for a previous estimation. The 650 was actually 480 kWh more, 1130 kWh.
2. This year non-car home consumption might have increased compared to last year. The increase was (2330-1850) / 2330 = 0.2060= 20.6%

 

[kennybobby]

How much current does the on-board charger(s) draw when plugged in but not actively charging?

Is the home A/C unit low on freon, are the air filters clogged?