What it costs to charge an electric car in 2026
The honest answer is a range, because charging cost is set by three things: how big the battery is, how efficient the car is, and crucially where and when you plug in. Same car, same miles, the cost per mile swings from about 2p to 23p depending only on the last factor. The calculator below prices it for your car and your rate.
What will it cost to charge your EV?
Set your car and your rate. We show the cost of a full charge, the cost per mile, the yearly bill, and how much an off-peak tariff would save you.
A full charge costs
£
miles of range
Per mile
p
A year
£
vs a petrol car (45 mpg, £1.34/L ≈ 13.5p/mile):
Switch to a 7p off-peak EV tariff and this year's charging drops to £, saving about £ a year.
You are already modelling a cheap off-peak rate, the lowest-cost way to run an EV.
Cheapest live electricity rate
British Gas is offering 23.85p per kWh, about 3% below the 24.67p cap. Apply it to re-price the charge above.
Cap rate 24.67p/kWh (Ofgem, 1 Apr to 30 Jun 2026). Public rapid 79p/kWh (RAC Charge Watch, May 2026). Off-peak figure reflects typical dedicated EV tariffs. Real-world charging losses of about 10% are not included, so budget slightly above these figures.
Cheapest live electricity rates to charge on
Your charging cost is your electricity unit rate divided by your efficiency. So the single biggest lever is the rate itself. These are the cheapest single-rate electricity tariffs we can see live in our comparison feed right now, before any dedicated off-peak EV window is added on top.
Cheapest 23.85p /kWh
British Gas · Standard Variable
Charging at this rate: about 6.8p a mile.
23.85p /kWh
EDF Energy · Simply Tracker
Charging at this rate: about 6.8p a mile.
23.85p /kWh
Octopus Energy · Flexible
Charging at this rate: about 6.8p a mile.
Live single-rate tariffs from the Selectra UK comparison feed, one per supplier, sorted cheapest first. A dedicated EV tariff adds an even cheaper overnight window on top.
Home, off-peak and public: the three prices of the same energy
The clearest way to see the structure is to price one full charge of a 60 kWh battery three ways. The kilowatt-hours are identical; only the rate changes.
| Where you charge | Rate | Full charge (60 kWh) | Per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off-peak EV tariff Cheapest | 7p | ~£4.20 | ~2p |
| Home, standard price cap | 24.67p | ~£15 | ~7p |
| Public rapid / ultra-rapid | 79p | ~£47 | ~23p |
60 kWh usable battery, 3.5 mi/kWh. Real-world charging losses of about 10% are not included, so add roughly 10% in practice. Public rate: RAC Charge Watch weighted average for rapid and ultra-rapid, May 2026. Verified June 2026.
The belief that costs EV drivers money
The common assumption is that an electric car is cheap to run because electricity is cheap. That is only half true. Electricity at the price cap is about four times cheaper per useful mile than petrol, but only if you charge at home. The moment you rely on public rapid chargers, an EV can cost more per mile than a frugal petrol car. The fuel is not the variable. The charging location and tariff are.
This is why two identical cars on the same street can have charging bills that differ by hundreds of pounds a year. One charges overnight on a 7p EV tariff; the other tops up on rapid chargers at 79p. Same car, same miles, a 10x gap in the rate.
Why most "cost to charge" articles mislead
Most guides quote a single home-charging figure at a fixed rate and stop there. Two problems follow:
- ✓They quote one rate, usually the cap, so the number is wrong for anyone on a fixed deal or an off-peak EV tariff;
- ✓They ignore the off-peak window, which is the single biggest lever and the whole reason EVs are cheap to run;
- ✓They rarely show public charging honestly, where the per-mile cost can quietly exceed petrol.
The version that helps you is the one above: your car, your rate, the three charging locations side by side, and the live cheapest tariff applied.
The insider view: you are buying a charging pattern, not a car
Here is what the running-cost tables miss. An EV's economics are decided in the first week of ownership, by two choices that have nothing to do with the car: whether you can charge at home, and whether you get onto an off-peak EV tariff. Get both and you run at 2p a mile. Miss both, relying on public rapid charging, and you run at 23p, worse than many petrol cars.
The lever almost no one pulls in time Off-peak EV tariffs price overnight electricity at around 7p per kWh because suppliers want your flexible load when demand is low. That window is where the EV saving actually lives, not in the car. A driver who buys an efficient EV but stays on the standard cap is leaving roughly £350 a year on the table, often more than the difference between two cars they agonised over.
The practical consequence: before you compare cars, confirm you can fit a home charger and switch to an EV tariff. Those two decisions move the running cost far more than the badge on the bonnet.
What to actually do
Charge at home if you possibly can
Home is roughly a third of the cost of public rapid charging. A driveway or off-street parking is the biggest single cost advantage an EV owner has.
Get onto an off-peak EV tariff
A dedicated overnight rate near 7p per kWh cuts home charging cost by about 70%. This is the real EV saving, do it in week one.
Use a smart charger that schedules
It charges the car automatically during the cheap window while you sleep, so you capture the off-peak rate without thinking about it.
Treat public rapid as a road-trip tool
At about 23p a mile it is fine for occasional long journeys, but running a car on it day to day erases the EV cost advantage.
The bottom line
Charging an electric car costs about £15 and 7p a mile at home on the price cap, under £5 and 2p a mile on an off-peak EV tariff, and over £45 and 23p a mile on a public rapid charger. The car barely moves that number; the tariff and the place you plug in move it by more than threefold. Sort a home charger and an EV tariff first, and the running cost takes care of itself.
EV charging FAQ
The Selectra expert answers your questions
For a typical 60 kWh battery, a full charge from empty costs about £15 at the Ofgem price cap of 24.67p per kWh, giving a range of roughly 210 miles, around 7p a mile. On a dedicated off-peak EV tariff at about 7p per kWh, the same full charge costs under £5, closer to 2p a mile. Real-world charging losses add about 10%, so budget slightly above these figures.
Home is far cheaper. At the price cap, home charging is about 7p a mile. Public rapid and ultra-rapid chargers averaged 79p per kWh in 2026 (RAC Charge Watch), which is roughly 23p a mile, more than three times the home cost. Slower public chargers averaged about 54p per kWh. Public charging is a convenience tool for long trips, not a way to run a car day to day.
Assuming a typical efficiency of 3.5 miles per kWh: about 7p a mile at the price cap, 2p a mile on a 7p off-peak EV tariff, and 23p a mile on a public rapid charger. By comparison, a petrol car doing 45 mpg at £1.34 a litre costs roughly 13 to 14p a mile in fuel. The home-charged EV wins comfortably; the public-only EV does not.
A dedicated EV tariff with an off-peak window (for example around 7p per kWh overnight), charging the car while you sleep. That single move cuts home charging cost by roughly 70% versus the standard price cap. It needs a smart charger that can schedule, and a tariff that offers the cheap window, which is why the charger and the tariff matter more than the car.
It adds a clear, predictable amount you can calculate. An average UK driver doing 7,000 miles a year uses about 2,000 kWh for charging. At the price cap that is roughly £490 a year; on a 7p off-peak tariff, about £140 a year. The off-peak saving of around £350 a year is usually larger than any saving from switching the car itself.