Electric vehicle VS petrol car running costs
VW ID.3 CHARGED AT HOME
Single charge cost (0-100%): £19.80
Number of charges required to cover 10k miles a year: 38
Annual bill for 10k: £752
VW ID.3 CHARGED USING PUBLIC DEVICES
Single charge cost (10-80%): £40
Number of charges required to cover 10k miles a year: 48
Annual bill for 10k miles: £1,920
VW GOLF PETROL FUEL COSTS
Each refuel from empty to full: £82.90
Number of refuel required to cover 10k miles a year: 19
Annual bill for 10k miles: £1,575
NB: Figures based on an electric VW ID.3 with a 58kW battery and claimed 265-mile range VS VW Golf 1.5-litre petrol with a 50-litre fuel tank capable of covering 50mpg. Home charging calculated using a 7kW charger at a unit rate of 34p per kWh. Public charging cost based on Osprey’s £1 per kWh charge. Petrol costs based on 166.3p-a-litre UK average on 14 September 2022.
Cost to charge an EV at home
Most homechargers offered to customers today are 7kWh devices, so we have used this as our benchmark for the calculation.
The energy price guarantee means electricity costs to the nearest pence from 1 October for an average household on a default tariff paying via direct debit will be 34p per kilowatt hour with a standing charge of 46p per day.
This is much less than it was due to cost under the proposed energy price cap put forward by Ofgem for the start of next month, with the unit rate for electricity set to soar to 52p per kWh.
In the scenario that an electric car owner pays 34p per kWh, fully charging the Volkswagen ID.3’s battery to 100 per cent will, in theory, take just over eight hours at a cost of £19.80.
With the ID.3 offering a range of 265 miles (according to the manufacturer claims), that works out at cost per mile of around 7.5p.
Based on the average Briton covering 10,000 miles per year, an owner of an ID.3 would need to charge their car at least 38 times, working out an annual running cost bill of £752.
The above calculation is based on a worst-case scenario, with the likelihood that many EV drivers charge their cars overnight during cheaper off-peak periods and will have shopped around for the cheapest fixed rate energy deal that guarantees them lower domestic electricity pricing.
Some might have been fortunate enough to have taken advantage of EV-specific energy tariffs that have until recently been available to electric car drivers.
Numerous providers were offering these dedicated EV-tariffs a year ago, though almost all have been pulled from the market in response to the rising cost of energy – the latest being EDF Energy, which has cited ‘ongoing energy market volatility’ for closing availability to new customers in recent weeks.
Only Octopus Energy currently offers a low fixed-rate EV tariff, providing off-peak rates of 7.5p per kWh when charging an electric car during the hours of 11:30pm and 5:30am.
That’s 26.5p less during that six-hour window than the energy price guarantee of 34p per kWh from October – though an Octopus spokesperson told us that its pricing is always under review, suggesting it might not stay that low for long.
Cost to charge an EV using the public network
Around a third of properties in the UK do not have off-street parking. For EV drivers in this predicament, they are heavily reliant on the national network of public chargers, of which there are over 32,000 devices in the UK, according to latest government statistics. And they’re much pricier to use compared to charging at home.
Almost every public charging operator has already increased their prices once this year in response to the wider energy crunch, with Osprey’s new hike being its second in just eight weeks.
The increase to £1 per kWh makes Osprey Charging by far the most expensive network to date. In fact, the next priciest is Ionity, which currently charges 69p per kWh for pay-as-you-go customers to access its rapid devices – though that could soon rise.
For our calculation for EV running costs via the public network, we have used Osprey’s existing rate of £1 per kWh.
Electrying.com says the cost to charge the Volkswagen ID.3 from 10 to 80 per cent battery capacity – which is the typical charging session on a public rapid device – at an Osprey charger has risen to £40. A year ago, it would have cost just £16.
In order to cover 10,000 miles a year, the driver would need to plug into the network 48 times (taking into account the battery is only being charged up to 80 per cent capacity).
This means the annual running costs for the family-size EV would rise to £1,920.
Cost to refuel a petrol equivalent
Now we know how much it could cost to annually charge an electric car at home or via the public network from 1 October, how does it fair against an equivalent petrol model?
The 1.5-litre petrol VW Golf we’ve used for comparative purposes has a 50-litre fuel tank and an ‘official’ range of just over 50mpg. It means it can travel for 550 miles when brimmed with unleaded, though realistically – like the ID.3 – the real-world range will be shorter under normal driving conditions.
Based on current fuel prices (unleaded at 165.8p a litre on Thursday 15 September) it costs £82.90 to fill the tank of the popular family hatchback.
The Golf will need to be filled up with fuel 19 times a year to cover 10,000 miles in 12 months, which works out at £1,575.
That’s £823 more than the domestic charging costs for the electric ID.3, meaning EV owners who do have charging provisions at home will continue to save a substantial amount of money having switched away from petrol cars.
However, it is £345 less than charging up only using Osprey devices, meaning the combustion-engine car is the cheaper of the two options to run.