How much does it cost me to fully charge and drive my car?

[Zero Emissions]

Not sure how to run the numbers but here is what I got.

Last electric bill including all the fees and charges of $111 for 522 kWh usage = 21 cents a kW
2013 with 9 bars which I understand has a 24 kWh battery

So if the range is down to say 17 miles or 25% of the 70 mile range, it will use 75% of 24 kWh's or 18 kWh to fill up.

18 kWh x 21 cents = $3.78 for 53 miles.

That's about 7 cents a mile.

Does that sound accurate or am I missing something as that doesn't seem all that impressive compared to gas cars.

My Jetta gets 40 mpg overall on $3.30 gas which comes to 8 cents a m

Not sure how to run the numbers but here is what I got.

Last electric bill including all the fees and charges of $111 for 522 kWh usage = 21 cents a kW
2013 with 9 bars which I understand has a 24 kWh battery

So if the range is down to say 17 miles or 25% of the 70 mile range, it will use 75% of 24 kWh's or 18 kWh to fill up.

18 kWh x 21 cents = $3.78 for 53 miles.

That's about 7 cents a mile.

Does that sound accurate or am I missing something as that doesn't seem all that impressive compared to gas cars.

My Jetta gets 40 mpg overall on $3.30 gas which comes to 8 cents a mile.

Seattle Washington: Residential rates here are 10.263 cents per kWh plus a base charge of 36 cents per day. Small and medium business rates are 9.00 cents per kWh plus a base charge of 92 cents per day So My leaf now has a range of 182 miles when fully charged and my office is about 6.2 miles from my house and then I sometimes go to the store etc. So I don't drive that much and last week Nissan Installed a new 40K WH Battery under warranty so somehow I'm hoping for an even cheaper cost to run my electric ride. For the past three months I've averaged about $19.00 to $22.00 per month for Level 2 charging (set at 27 to 32 amps floating rate) of my little LEAF. I also have a 10 cylinder Super Duty Truck that gets a whopping 9.1 MPG that cost me about 20 bucks in fuel just to go to the store and back... so needless to say I love my little LEAF!

 

[Doanster1]

This thread/question is fraught with so many variables vs just doing straight up math.
You state your one and only electric bill shows 522kWH used. I assume that’s for your entire household usage and not solely for charging?
Second, as others have stated, GOM is not accurate. If only the EV Connect app or your EVSE app showed you exactly how many kW were added during your last session, trying to calculate based on mileage shown is futile.
Instead of reverse calculating based on your total bill, your provider should clearly list the per-kWH rate along with base fees/taxes, etc.
Start with that and multiply by 24 to see how much it’d cost you on paper for a “full” charge. Divide that by what actual miles you were able to drive.
We have both a Tesla and a Leaf. Last night I happened to charge the Tesla and the app tells me I put in 22kWH. We exclusively charge overnight on TOU, which is $.05/kWH, so it cost me a dollar and change.
Paper math for our Leaf SV - 40kWH x $.05 = $2
Even being conservative from the GOM (I avg 3.8mi/kWH according to the car) say I get 120mi on a full charge , that’s 1.6cents/mi. If I only charged during peak times, which is triple the price at $.15/kWH, my cost jumps to 4.8cents/mi.

 

[Dooglas]

The cost of charging my LEAF at home has worked out to about 1/3 the cost of gasoline for a similar compact car. Now, I grant you, the cost of electricity in the Northwest is substantially less than many parts of the country so I am lucky in that regard. On the other hand, we also have roof top solar at home which covers over 90% of our power consumption. The original estimated payback period for our solar investment was just short of 10 years. That has already been reduced by more than 25% due to annual rate increases and I expect that trend to continue. Thus within about 5 more years the cost of charging at home will take a dramatic drop. Owning and using an electric vehicle has been, and continues to be, a very cost effective choice for our household.

 

[NoMoreCO2]

Not sure how to run the numbers but here is what I got.

Last electric bill including all the fees and charges of $111 for 522 kWh usage = 21 cents a kW
2013 with 9 bars which I understand has a 24 kWh battery

So if the range is down to say 17 miles or 25% of the 70 mile range, it will use 75% of 24 kWh's or 18 kWh to fill up.

18 kWh x 21 cents = $3.78 for 53 miles.

That's about 7 cents a mile.

Does that sound accurate or am I missing something as that doesn't seem all that impressive compared to gas cars.

My Jetta gets 40 mpg overall on $3.30 gas which comes to 8 cents a mile.

 

[NoMoreCO2]

are you sure that the car is the only thing you are measuring? We often don't use much more than that amount of kWh for a full month's electrical charge for our home, which includes charging our Leaf a few times a week.

 

[atikovi]

Huh?

 

[Doanster1]

Huh?

The first problem with your calculation is that you’re starting with the $111 bill. You stated that’s your total for the month. Unless that’s solely for charging your Leaf and zero other household usage, you’re off from the get-go.
If you want to be accurate, get Leaf Spy, monitor actual data, and then calculate up from the rates charged per-kWH.

 

[RYoungberg]

At home, it's free to charge with the excess electricity generated by my home solar PV system, costs 14 cents per kWh off-peak nights and weekends, 28 cents per kWh during on-peak summer daytime hours, 30-40 cents per kWh at a public charger locally, as much at 85 cents per kWh when traveling.
Take your pick!
The dash read-out tells you the average miles per kWh, check it after a road trip or around town miles, check the miles driven on the trip meter, do the math:
To calculate the cost per mile at 3.5 miles per kWh and 15 cents per kWh, divide the cost per kWh (15 cents) by the miles per kWh (3.5), resulting in a cost of approximately 4.3 cents per mile then multiply times miles driven.
A public charger will tell you the total kWh provided by the charger, the rate, and the total amount. At home the LEAF dashboard readout is not very accurate, you can also buy a plug-in meter to track it, or a SENSE monitor for the electric panel.
Cheers!

 

[Gusset]

I guess my situation has the benefit of consistency, at least for now, as I've only ever charged at home, and there is no difference in what we pay for power- no peak/off peak differences. Since I know the odometer reading at the time I started using my EVSE, and my EVSE knows its lifetime kWh delivered, it should be fairly simple to calculate.

Once I take the car on a road trip or for some other reason charge it someplace else, though, it'll take a bit more effort.

 

[atikovi]

The first problem with your calculation is that you’re starting with the $111 bill. You stated that’s your total for the month. Unless that’s solely for charging your Leaf and zero other household usage, you’re off from the get-go.

Why would you assure that's solely for charging my Leaf and zero other household usage? That sounds bizarre. Why would someone have power for their EV but not have any lights or appliances in the house?

 

[Debster]

I wanted the answer to the same question. So I bought a meter on amazon. It plugs into the wall outlet and allows me to input the kWh charge from my local utility company. It calculates the amount for every charge. For the month of November 2024, I used $20.19 and drove my Leaf S for 520 miles.

 

[Chad E. Mo]

Let's not get distracted. The bill amount was simply used to determine the utility cost per kWh.

WRT the percent of the battery used: the leaf does not charge to 24kWh when new, even though it may say 100%. Now, if you are down a few bars on the display... 9 of 12 means the battery only has 75% capacity, or 18kWh at a true 100%. My guess is that you are only "filling up" to ~16kWh. (Leafspy can tell you the actual useable charge.)

So you might have used 75% of 16kWh, which is 12kWh.

And you went 53 miles on 12kWr, 12*21= $2.52, divided by 53 (miles) = 4.75c/mi.

 

[Doanster1]

Why would you assure that's solely for charging my Leaf and zero other household usage? That sounds bizarre. Why would someone have power for their EV but not have any lights or appliances in the house?

I’m not assuming that. I’m saying that the $111 INCLUDES power consumed by lights, appliances, etc. so you can’t use that amount to calculate how much it costs to drive your Leaf. You’d need to somehow subtract that out.
That’s why I said just start with the base per-kWH charge, use Leaf Spy to track charging sessions, then do the math with actual miles driven, not number of bars, which is a relative battery health indicator as ChadEMo stated.

 

[atikovi]

I’m not assuming that. I’m saying that the $111 INCLUDES power consumed by lights, appliances, etc. so you can’t use that amount to calculate how much it costs to drive your Leaf.

Yes exactly. And I never said I can use that amount to calculate how much it costs to drive my Leaf. I said I can use that amount to see how much I pay PER KWH. I can use THAT rate to calculate how much it costs to drive my Leaf if I know how much KWH's a charge uses.

 

[khbkhb]

The best way to compute such things is to have precise measurement of the power input (a “smart” EVSE like https://wallbox.com/en_ca/pulsar-plus-ev-charger does this for you trivially (well, modulo any losses in the EVSE itself :>). If you aren’t investing in such an EVSE already, check out some of the appropriate clamp on multimeters (make sure it has power factor correction and such, but such meters aren’t super expensive … just not the very cheapest) to measure the power flowing into your EVSE.

As others noted, using the Nissan native features of the LEAF is problematic.

Here is a sample (this is 3 LEAFs, our 2018SL and 2025SV+, as well as a neighbor’s 25SV+ who has some issues with their garage at the moment). I rather like the Wallbox units, but lots of folks use others to good effect. Arguably overkill (LEAF can’t exploit 48amps), but we also have a MachE which can … but that’s not covered by this EVSE ;>)

 

[frontrangeleaf]

Using rough numbers, I figure that our operating expense - charging and maintenance together - averaged over the year is about 5-6 cents/mile on our Leaf, whereas our Audi is closer to 20-25. That's before registration, insurance and depreciation, and partly due to towing our camper with the Audi.

We average close to 4mi/kWh with the Leaf typically, and pay 11 cents/kWh charging at home overnight. So about 3 cents/mile, add in another couple of pennies for tire wear, and that gets you to 5-6 cents/mile. Since we put better but higher rolling resistant tires on, a bit more actually, but that's still in the ballpark.

Given that we don't drive that far to begin with, the net impact to our budget is negligible either way. Rough figures are close enough. I never expect to drive the Leaf across the country, and we never charge anywhere but at home.

Overall, we drive about 55% of our total yearly miles in the Leaf, which has saved us a bit of wear and tear on our Audi. And saved us a few pennies along the way. When we commute, we take light rail. Also out to the airport when we travel farther afield.

We have solar as well, but also 1:1 net metering. So the opportunity cost of charging negates the savings. It still costs us something to charge the car, as we would otherwise sell that energy. Getting solar was a substantial investment, but it has saved us quite a bit in cash flow now that it's paid for. At some point, they'll end 1:1 net metering no doubt, but it won't matter much to us. We'll just shift to using a higher percentage of our own production.

We really like our Leaf. It's a competent little car, especially how we use it.

 

[moapys]

Thanks for confirming my top-of-head TCO swag. Our $/kWH is a bit higher, but I'm also able to recharge free periodically (many consumers / few chargers) at work. It nice to be able to run "capricous" errands and give little thought to the fuel cost or environmental impact