Lifestyle
EV Basics – What’s a kilowatt hour?
So what’s a kilowatt hour or shall we ask Watts a Kilowatt hour?
As more car buyers take the plunge into owning an electric vehicle (EV), it’s important to educate on the EV specific units of measure which differ greatly than your traditional gas burning vehicle. What is a kilowatt hour? How does it differ from a kilowatt? And why does this even matter?
Background
First, let me preface everything by saying that much of what I’m about to write is based on US specific units of measure since that’s what I’m familiar with. For instance, miles vs km and US dollars versus Euros. I’m also over simplifying and breaking things down to basic laymen terms so please cut me some slack if you already know all this!
If you receive a utility bill for your residence then you should probably be somewhat familiar with, or have heard of, a kilowatt (kW) and kilowatt hours (kWh) since that’s what electricity bills are measured on. Your EV is no different and uses these same units of measure although it’s probably something you haven’t paid much attention to in the past.
kW and kWh Units
Depending on the EV display you may see watt hours (Wh) or kilowatt hours (kWh) in some places and watts (W) and kilowatts (kW) in others. The kilo or k is a standard prefix meaning a thousand. So 1 kWh is 1,000 Wh. If you own your EV long enough you may just get to the next level, megawatt hour (MWh) which would be one million Wh!
Now for the fundamental definitions:
kW is a measurement of power and kWh is a measurement of energy.
Energy is the amount of work that can be performed. kWh, calories, joules are all units of energy. A slice of pizza has 285 calories which is 0.33 Wh of energy that can be derived from that substance. Energy can be converted and change in form. For instance we can convert that slice of pizza to heat by setting it on fire. The fuel is the pizza, but don’t try converting it in your EV!
Power is the rate at which energy is generated or used. kW is a unit of power. When you accelerate in your EV you’re using power and when you decelerate with regenerative braking you’re generating power. The Model S dedicates half the speedometer display to the unit of power on the right side. There you can see how many kW you are using (indicator is orange) or generating (indicator is green) at any instance in time. It’s great to be able to see this however you can’t easily convert this into a cost. In order to do that, you’ll need to measure it over time and convert it into a unit of energy.
Power is similar to your speed. 50mph is your speed, but you have to maintain that for an hour to travel 50 miles. Similarly, 40kW is how much power you’re using and you’ll have to maintain that consumption for one hour to use 40kWh. If you spend half that hour at 40kW and the other half at 20kW you’ll end up consuming 30kWh. Power usage is constantly changing and will depend on driving habit as well as usage of onboard amenities such as your seat heaters or A/C unit.
A 100W incandescent light bulb used over 1 hour will consume 100Wh of energy. If you use that 100W bulb for 8 hours every day, it will consume 800W or 0.8 kWh per day. After 30 days, it will have consumed 0.8kWh x 30 = 24 kWh. After 365 days it will have consumed 292 kWh. Measuring your EV is done in a similar fashion but keep in mind that an EV can both use and generate power (regenerative braking) over periods of time. The difference or net power used (used – generated) is what you see reported on your EV display.
Units for Charging
Charging your EV you transfers energy back into your battery so you’re effectively storing kWh for later use. EVs report charging in different ways but the most common is to report by kW and kWh added. So a charge rate of 6 kW is storing 6kWh for every hour of charge. If you’re charging at 6kWh and charge for 2 hours you’ll have an extra 12kWh added at the end of your charge.
When it comes to driving, we’re trained to think in terms of miles, but not all miles travelled are the same when it comes to energy usage since there are variations in terrain and elevations. Weather also plays a factor for each mile travelled. A kWh stored, on the other hand, is always the same. The main difference is how you use that kWh.
The Model S offers the option to display charge rate by kW and kWh or by miles. Not surprisingly most Tesla owners choose to display charge rate in terms of miles. However it’s important to note that there’s a huge assumption being made about how many miles you can drive on a Wh and that assumption needs to account for charging efficiency. Tesla uses their proprietary algorithm to compute this value.
On Tesla’s online calculator they assume 300Wh/mile average use and a 90% charging efficiency. My own measurements show the average Wh/mile usage to be a bit higher (306 lifetime average) and the charging efficiency to be slightly less (81% last month).
What about Volts vs Amps?
Now you may be wondering how all this relates to volts and amps. This gets us back to the basics. One can calculate watts by multiplying volts with amps. W = V x A. So if you’re at a public charger and it’s charging at 199V and 30A (reference picture above), you’re essentially charging at 199V x 30A = 5,970W or about 6kW. This equates to 6kWh added after an hour of charging, but as we all know this is based on an ideal world where it charges at 100% efficiency with no loss. At 199V and 30A, the Model S is reporting this as a rate of 16 mi/hr.
Lets check that math:
5,970W/300Wh/mile standard assumption = theoretical 20 miles/hr charge rate. But that doesn’t account for charging efficiency. The Model S is reporting 16 mi/hr so its assuming an 80% charging efficiency (16/20) under these conditions.
Cost
Utility bills price per kWh. Your electric company may break it down by distribution vs generation, time of use, etc. and then associate a different cost per kWh on each pricing tier. It seems complex but you can simplify this.
To figure out your total cost per kWh just take your total amount of the bill and divide it by your total energy usage for the same period. That may include the various service fees, taxes, etc. but in the end you’re paying the electric company that total amount for those kWh regardless of what it’s derived from. Knowing this will help you calculate the costs for your road trips based on the kWh used.
Summary
Elon Musk
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The Boring Company’s Prufrock MB2 is commissioned and ready to mine beneath Nashville’s streets.
The Boring Company’s second tunnel boring machine, Prufrock MB2, is officially ready to dig in Nashville. The company confirmed the news on X, posting: “Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here. Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start? And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August!”
MB2 arrives with meaningful improvements over its predecessor. Lessons learned from the launch and operation of MB1 have already been applied to MB2 to improve efficiency and prepare the machine for launch.
Traditional tunnel boring machines operate in a stop-and-go cycle, digging roughly five feet, halt, erect precast concrete segments to line the tunnel wall, then resume. That repeated interruption is one of the main reasons conventional tunneling is slow and expensive. Prufrock is designed to install the tunnel liner simultaneously with mining, eliminating the need to stop every five feet. The machine also skips the need for excavated launch pits. Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts down, and launches into the ground within 24 hours. And when the tunnel is complete, it emerges from the ground and drives to its next launch site on a trailer, eliminating the need for expensive cranes or pit excavation. The machine is also fully electric and runs with zero people in the tunnel during normal operations, controlled remotely from a surface operations center.
Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here.
Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start?
And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August! pic.twitter.com/TTrMql2aRg
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) June 17, 2026
It won’t be long before we hear of another major update on The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project – a planned underground transit network beneath Nashville that would move passengers in electric vehicles through a series of tunnels at highway speeds, and bypassing surface traffic entirely. Nashville was selected in part because of its strong rock conditions that suits the Prufrock machines well, and relatively less regulatory hurdles.
Progress has been steady on multiple fronts. All 37 permits and approvals required ahead of tunneling have been obtained, out of 45 total. Key wins include a fully executed TDOT tunnel permit authorizing 25 miles of tunnel, unanimous airport authority approval for a Nashville International Airport station, and the city’s first residential station agreement serving downtown tower residents.
With MB1 already tunneling, MB2 now commissioned, and MB3 shipping in August, Nashville is becoming something of a live proving ground for scaled tunnel boring. The broader ambition is not limited to one city. The Boring Company’s stated goal is to make underground transportation a practical alternative to surface roads across major metro areas. Nashville is one of many cities, including a successful Las Vegas tunnel system, where that idea is being put to the test at real speed.
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
Tesla faces Full Self-Driving pushback in EU over ‘speeding’
Tesla teases greater Grok FSD integration and ‘Banish’ feature ‘in about 3 months’
