Work out how much it costs to charge your electric car at home per mile, and how much you save versus petrol, using your own electricity price and mileage.
EV charging cost · Cost per mile · Home charging · vs petrol
Real-world miles per kWh. Most EVs manage 3–4.
For the petrol comparison.
Divide 1 by your EV's real-world efficiency in mi/kWh, adjust upward by your charging-loss percentage, then multiply by your electricity price in pence per kWh. At 3.5 mi/kWh, 10% losses, and 24.5p electricity, you get around 7.7p a mile — roughly half the 14–15p a mile for a 45 mpg petrol car at 145p/litre.
Switch to an off-peak EV tariff at 7p/kWh and the cost drops to around 2.2p a mile, saving over £850 a year versus petrol on typical UK mileage.
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The inputs above cover all of those intents because they convert electricity price, vehicle efficiency, charging losses and mileage into a pence-per-mile figure and an annual saving versus petrol.
An EV tariff with a cheap overnight rate can be the single biggest factor in your running cost — bigger even than the efficiency difference between EV models. At 7p/kWh you pay less per mile than almost any petrol car can match, even an efficient hybrid.
Most smart home chargers (Ohme, Myenergi Zappi, Pod Point) can be set to charge automatically in off-peak windows. Combined with an EV tariff, this takes almost no effort once set up.
At the standard Ofgem price cap rate of around 24.5p/kWh, a typical EV needing about 60 kWh to fill charges from empty costs roughly £15. Home charging is far cheaper than public rapid chargers, which often run to 40–70p/kWh. Use this electric car charging cost calculator with your own tariff rate to get a personalised pence-per-mile figure.
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For most drivers who charge at home, yes. At 24.5p/kWh and 3.5 mi/kWh efficiency, an EV costs around 7–8p a mile including charging losses — compared with 14–16p a mile for a 45 mpg petrol car at 145p/litre. The saving grows further with an off-peak tariff. The exact crossover depends on your electricity price, EV efficiency, and the petrol car you're comparing against.
Several UK suppliers offer EV-specific time-of-use tariffs with overnight rates as low as 7p/kWh (e.g. Octopus Go, OVO EV Everywhere). Charging at 7p/kWh instead of 24.5p cuts the cost per mile by roughly two-thirds — from around 7.7p to about 2.2p. Over 7,000 miles a year that is a saving of more than £380 on charging costs alone.
Cost per mile (in pence) = (1 ÷ efficiency in mi/kWh) × electricity price in p/kWh, multiplied by a charging-loss factor. For example: 1 ÷ 3.5 = 0.286 kWh/mile; × 1.10 for 10% losses = 0.314 kWh/mile; × 24.5p = 7.7p per mile. Compare this with the petrol equivalent: litres per mile × petrol price in p/litre.
Charging losses of 8–15% are typical for AC home charging — the charger and battery management system generate heat. At 10% losses and 24.5p electricity the cost per mile rises by about 0.7p. It is a real cost but relatively small compared with the savings over petrol. Fast DC charging has lower losses but usually costs more per kWh anyway.
Public rapid chargers (50–150 kW) typically cost 40–70p/kWh in 2024–25, compared with 24.5p at home on a standard tariff or as little as 7p overnight on an EV tariff. At 60p/kWh, the same 3.5 mi/kWh EV would cost around 18.9p per mile — more expensive than a petrol car. Relying on public charging makes EVs much less economical, so home charging access is key.
