Yes! I love electric vehicles … but at 60 cents per kilowatt hour, that costs a Host a lot of money to have someone charge their car using the home’s electricity.
What to do?!
You have to know the size of the car’s battery;
You have to know how far it’s been driven or drained;
… or you could monitor your meter before the charge and after??
… each day??
According to an online calculator, the average cost of a kWh is 14 cents. Another has it at 16 cents. I wish!! My bills dictate otherwise.
Using the Carmax website, and the first car on the pull-down list, it tells me that it would cost up to $33 to fully-charge the battery.
My actual cost could be $132 per charge. It would depend on the time of day, but a kWh cost is never lower than 38 cents ~ and that is a “Tier 1” rate. The extra electricity use would put me into the “Tier 2” level at an even higher price.
Should I charge based on how many days they are staying?
A one-time fee?
In this rural area, it is entirely possible that they would drive at least 150 miles/day once they arrive. Then it would be + recharging upon arrival + recharging before departure.
https://data.openei.org/submissions/5806 - this is estimated electricity cost based upon 2021 utility rate data from the Open Data Energy Initiative’s Zip Code Rate Lookup dataset. But rates in my area (PG&E) were significantly lower then!
Very good question! I would communicate this with your guests. They must know best how much electricity their car needs and how far away they are planning trips.
Do you want to agree upon an amount of money beforehand or do you want to base the amount on the actual electricity used? I don’t know if you have it, but we can see how many electricity is used on a specific day. If you can do that, too, you can tell them how much money they need to leave on the day they leave. Of course, you have to trust them to do that, but HE is all about trust.
Where I am (Spain) the bare cost is €0,10-0,20/kWh, depending on the time of day, but including fixed costs for meter hire, handling fee and 21% VAT my average rate is around €0,30/kWh. (I have a variable contract.)
An electric car battery has a 40-100 kWh capacity, depending on car. Charging an average 50 kWh battery would cost ‘only’ €0,30 x 50 = €15,00 (probably half of that if the battery is charged between 00:00 - 06:00 hrs).
In absolute sense €15 is not a lot of money, so why make a fuss… but it is the principle; if I pay for the electric ‘fuel’ of my guest’s car, should I also pay for non electric fuels (petrol, diesel, LPG, LNG, H2 …) ??
I think not… then I might as well pay for their food and other expenses (cleaning fee ?)
I would charge my guests for the kWh cost.
I do think this will become an issue as more and more people get Evs. If someone is staying for a while and regularly charging their car then I hope they would leave a contribution. I don’t think I would specifically ask for money though.
Yes 72Sonett,
Just to clarify … this would be using my home’s regular electric outlet … not an EV charging station or any kind of specific EV tap.
Since I do not have a vehicle to charge, I am not signed up for that program with my power company.
Yes, it would cost a tiny bit less if done ‘off-peak’, but it would still bump my kWh cost up overall; putting me in a higher ‘tier’. Did I mention that PG&E is a VERY expensive company to supply power?
I pay for regular utilities of course, and wine, and flowers, and coffee, and condiments & other cooking necessities AND cleaning … but I really don’t want to pay for their transportation costs.
HE would be SO far above the curve if there was a ‘calculator’ built into the website that exchangers could use to specify their car make/model/battery/usage…
It would be sensational to get this help!
But the type of charging makes no difference for the total cost; 50 kWh out of a regular 120/240 V AC outlet is same as 50 kWh out of a dedicated EV tap. The only difference is the speed of charging, an EV station charges faster, with a higher current.
72Sonett: There are kWh pricing differences depending upon the quantity and time of use. Two of the five plans are “home charging” and “electric home”. My tiered rate plan sends the cost into the stratosphere if more electricity than normal is used.
It is not the ‘type’ of charging … it is the quantity of use that I’m talking about (and cannot afford).
Hi Jasper,
great question as a EV owner I happened to ask explicitly to charge, and as a EV owner is VERY easy to demonstrate how much elecricity you used, but unfortunately I always got no as answer and respectfully avoided charging at home.
But since you’re the host and not the guest, my suggestion is not to get too technical, on batteries, vehicles and different hourly rates.
I would try to see usually in a week how much kWh you consume with a average usage of cooking, AC etc, and control the counter before and after your guests come, if you see a significant difference you might charge a forfait.
Of course like this you cannot distinguish if they charged a car or used AC 24/7 xD
But as you said charging a car a couple of time is way more than just some light left on, so it’s an easy process and very transparent,
I would appreciate someone telling me “it’s ok to charge tha car but you have to pay”,
mostly also because charging at home usually is cheaper than on the charging towers.
Thank you Zerho. It is wonderful to get the viewpoint of a Guest exchanger. I’m sorry Hosts have said ‘no’ to you - but I’m hoping this discussion will help the HE Community learn how to manage this issue of charging electric vehicles. I want to encourage EV use!
And … for the HE administrators watching … it would SOLVE the dilemma completely if a calculator was included in the reservation process.
:o)
We also have a plug-in hybrid and charge it at home. So far, no guests have asked to charge their EV in our home, but if they did, what I would suggest we do would be to measure their consumption with a smart plug, and let them know how much they used. We would agree on a price per Kilowatt beforehand (since ours is dynamic and changes hourly) and use that to calculate the cost.
Fantastic!
I found one online easily, but I’m sure there is one that is wi-fi enabled so that you can monitor usage from afar as well.
Thank you for that suggestion!! Usage Monitor link
