EV COST CHECKER

Short answer: anywhere between about £3 and £17 for a typical full charge, depending entirely on your tariff. That's not a typo. The same car, the same plug, the same electrons — and a five-fold difference in price depending on when you charge and what deal you're on. This guide explains where those numbers come from, so you can work out which end of the range you'd be at.

The basic sum

Charging cost is just battery size multiplied by your electricity rate. A typical family EV — a Kia Niro EV, an MG4, a Tesla Model 3 — has a usable battery of around 60 kWh. So:

• On a standard variable tariff at around 26p per kWh (the typical capped rate as of mid-2026), a full charge costs roughly £15.60.
• On an EV tariff's overnight rate — around 7p per kWh, and as low as 5.49p on Intelligent Octopus Go since Octopus cut its rates in April 2026 — the same charge costs £3.30 to £4.20.

In practice you rarely charge from empty to full. Most people plug in every night or two and top up 20–40%, so the cost per session is smaller — but the per-kWh arithmetic is what matters.

What that means per mile

Per-mile cost is easier to compare against petrol. A reasonably efficient EV does about 3.5 miles per kWh in mixed real-world driving (more in summer, less in winter — see our winter range guide for why). That gives you:

The petrol row is there for context, and it's worth dwelling on. Charged overnight on an EV tariff, an electric car costs roughly an eighth as much per mile as a 40 mpg petrol car. Charged on a standard tariff, it's still less than half. But if you mostly use public rapid chargers at 75p or more per kWh, you can end up paying more than petrol — which is why your charging mix matters more than the car you choose. Our public charging guide digs into that.

The catch with EV tariffs (there's always one)

That 5.5p–7p rate only applies during a fixed overnight window, typically five or six hours starting around 11:30pm or midnight. Outside the window you pay a peak rate that's usually a few pence above the standard tariff — around 31p–34p as of June 2026. So an EV tariff is a trade: cheap car charging in exchange for slightly dearer daytime electricity for your kettle and washing machine.

For almost anyone who charges a car at home, the trade is worth it. A typical household uses maybe 8 kWh of daytime electricity; the extra 5p on that costs 40p a day. Charging 10 kWh into a car overnight at 19p–21p below the standard rate saves about £2 a day. But if you drive very little — under 3,000 miles a year, say — do the sums first, because the daytime premium can eat the saving. Our EV tariff comparison covers the main options supplier by supplier.

Don't forget these three things

You need a smart meter. Every EV tariff requires one, because the supplier has to know what you used and when. If you don't have one, your supplier will usually fit one free, but waiting lists vary by region.

Charging isn't 100% efficient. Between the wall and the battery you lose roughly 10% as heat. If you add 60 kWh to the battery, you'll be billed for about 66 kWh. The table above builds that into the real-world miles-per-kWh figure, but it surprises people the first time they study their bills.

A home charger costs money up front. A 7 kW wall box with installation typically runs £800–£1,100. You can charge from a normal three-pin socket at 2.3 kW (a "granny charger"), and for low-mileage drivers that's genuinely fine — it adds about 8 miles of range per hour, so an overnight plug-in covers 80-odd miles. The wall box earns its keep when you need to fit a full charge inside a six-hour cheap window.

Run your own numbers

Averages only get you so far — your mileage, your tariff and your car's efficiency shift the answer a lot. The calculator below takes two minutes and uses your actual figures, including how much of your charging happens at home versus on public chargers.