The cost of charging a Tesla varies based on where you live, how you drive, how much you drive and when you charge. Teslanomics breaks down what matters by digging into the data for each of those and translating it all into an easy to understand interactive website.
Cost of Electricity
Data for the charging cost in each state can be found over at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) website which has a handy Application Programming Interface (API) that allows anyone to reference the data from within an application, website or spreadsheet. The data is captured and stored with history which makes it easy to see how prices have fluctuated over time.
Using this data and an a geo-specific pricing model, estimating cost of electricity for future usage was included to help would-be Tesla owners understand what their electricity costs might look like several months into the future.
It’s important to note that the data is not taking into account pricing for different utilities within larger states like California where there’s multiple utilities operating with very different rate structures. Within each of those utilities, there are different rate plans like a time of use (TOU) plan that charges more to consume power during peak hours and discounts applied for night time energy consumption. Some utilities even offer special rate plans for EV owners that provide ultra-off-peak rates to encourage users to drive electric as a type of subsidy.
You’ll pay for driving fast
To understand Telsa driver behavior, Teslanomics tapped into the brilliant team behind the Teslab app which we reviewed in the past. Teslab has real-world efficiency data from their Model S and Model X-owning app users. Per Ben Sullins of Teslanomics, Teslab is “like a fitbit for your Tesla” as it provides insights into how you operate your vehicle.
In this case, the data showed that most drivers use approximately 300 watt-hours per mile as the “normal” efficiency achieved by Tesla drivers.
In Summary
Check out the quick and easy tool we’ve provided in this article courtesy of Teslanomics that lets you see how much you’ll be paying to charge your Tesla. Or perhaps you are trying to live on the cheap and just want to see how much you have saved over the last 12 months by only charging at the local grocery store with free charging. The tool works for that as well.
What are your thoughts? Is this something you would use? Do you track your charging history, miles driven and money saved?
