Charging at Home to Save Money
Switching out of a petrol or diesel car into electric allows you to save a small fortune on fuel, if you can charge at home. Here’s how to do it…
How much can you save in an all-electric vehicle?
If you do 8,000 miles a year in a petrol/diesel car capable of 40 MPG, it’ll cost you about £1,618 in fuel (at £1.78 a litre).
The same 8,000 miles in an all-electric car will cost just £229, assuming you charge off-peak at 10p per kWh and you do all your charging at home. The calculations are based on an average EV efficiency of 3.5 miles per kWh.
That’s a saving of £1,389 a year!
Is your home electricity tariff protected by the Energy Price Guarantee? If so, try our interactive EV Fuel Cost Calculator to discover how much you can save paying 34p per kWh.
How do you achieve these savings?
The secret to ultra-low-cost home charging is to switch to an electricity tariff that has two different rates, depending on when you use electricity.
For example, there might be a ‘day’ rate of 43p per kWh and a ‘night’ rate of 10p per kWh. When you consume electricity during the day, you pay the higher day rate. But for a limited period of time during the night – say 6 hours – you are charged at a lower, off-peak rate of 10p per kWh.
So, if you charge your car during that cheap, off-peak slot at night, it could cost you over 4 times less than charging during the day (43p divided by 10p = 4.3).
How can I switch to an EV friendly tariff?
First, check what kind of tariff you are on at the moment. You may well be on a ‘flat rate’ tariff where you pay the same amount for your electricity 24 hours a day.
If you are on a flat rate, you can charge your car at any time. You can’t make any savings by charging at a different time of the day.
If you are already of a dual rate tariff – with cheaper electricity at a certain time of the day – then you need to charge during that cheaper time window (see next section to discover how to do that).
If you are currently on a flat rate tariff, consider switching to a dual rate electricity tariff in order to make charging your car cheaper.
How to set up charging to take advantage of an off-peak tariff
There are three ways you can set up charging as follows:
Programme your car
Many EVs now have charging timers. You access the timer either via the car’s touchscreen or smartphone app (if the manufacturer has one for your model). Set the charging timer to coincide with the start and finishing time of your off-peak slot.
Programme your charging point
As an alternative to programming your car, most charging points can now be programmed to start and stop charging automatically. You set up the charging time via an app or the web.
Use a smartphone app
There are also third-party apps that can either control your car’s timer or the timer in your charging point. You’ll normally tell the app how much you want to charge, when your off-peak rate is, and when you need the car ready in the morning, and the app will set the charging up for you.
What if my off-peak slot is too short?
Imagine your energy provider gives you a 4-hour off-peak slot at night. Charging a typical all-electric car for 4 hours will get roughly 100 miles of range into the car’s battery.
If you charged every day for 4 hours that would equate to 36,500 miles of range a year – more than enough for most people.
However, if you need to get 200 miles’ range into your car’s battery overnight, then you’ll need to charge for about 8 hours. That means 4 hours can be charged at your low off-peak rate, but the other 4 hours will be charged at your higher day rate.
The best way to do most of your charging during your off-peak window is to top up your EV regularly. In other words – if you can – avoid running your car’s battery down to 5-10% and then doing a big charge up to 90-100%. Better to charge when you get down to 50-60% so most of your charging can still take place during the cheap off-peak slot.
Questions?
Phone our dedicated EV team now on
0118 3048 688
or email us at
enquiries@selectcarleasing.co.uk
