How Much Will It Cost to Charge My Tesla?

- So the average monthly cost to charge your Tesla
in the United States is just over $49,
but depending on where you live, it could be over $100.
So I found some data here that might help you
when thinking about how much it's gonna cost once
you finally get that Tesla you've been wanting.
Hey, thanks for joining me here on Teslanomics.
I'm Ben Sullins, and each week, what we do is
we decode the data behind Tesla, a company that's
really changing the world like no one else is.
And while everyone else, or a lot of folks,
focus on the flashy sex appeal of it,
we here like to dig into the economics.
The facts and figures that really make up
what this company's doing, because there's a message
in there, and if we just look and listen,
we'll actually hear it and be able
to understand it a lot better.
Thanks for joining me, and let's dive into the data now
and figure out how much it's really gonna cost you
each month once you finally take delivery of that new Tesla.
So, the cost of electricity can vary widely, and even people
in the same city can have different rates.
Where I'm from, Phoenix originally, there is APS and SRP,
and depending on what part of town you live in,
you'll have a different company
that may charge a different kilowatt-hour price.
So I found some data on this, and it goes all the way back
to the beginning of 2001.
So, this is really interesting and helpful to understand
how electricity prices in every state
in the United States have been trending
and what it might mean for the future,
if you're looking to buy a Tesla or any other kind of a EV.
Now, I know that this data isn't gonna be accurate
for every single person.
It's of average for the state, and like I mentioned,
it varies widely, so take it with a grain of salt,
but it is an estimate and it's something
that I think is fun to look at.
So, let's dive into the data now
and see what it's trying to tell us.
So the data here comes
from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
They have it broken down by the type:
residential, commercial, industrial, et cetera.
They also have it broken down by state and census division.
I like to think of that as region,
and I actually use this site, which has an API
to pull monthly data for every state
in the United States going back to 2001.
That gave me this listing here, which has the latest price,
the average price, the cents per kilowatt-hour.
So the dollar amount, essentially, that you're paying,
or you're paying on average,
for a kilowatt-hour of electricity.
You can see Hawaii is the most expensive.
California comes in at number seven,
with 18 cents per kilowatt-hour.
New York, just right behind it at 17, et cetera.
So this data was really helpful in pulling this together,
because then I could see trending over time,
and one of the things I noticed right away when looking
at this trend, all the way back to 2001 up to Q1 of 2017,
was that Hawaii has had consistently some
of the most expensive electricity in the United States.
No surprise that solar is becoming more popular there,
and batteries and Tesla are really getting evolved.
So, you can see that high-level information here on top,
and then down below, I thought,
"Why don't I put the average cost by state
"to charge your Tesla every month?"
So, you can hover over all of these and you can see
what the cost might be for whatever state
that is that you're in.
But, I didn't want to end there, because how you drive
and how many miles you drive will change,
so I wanted to get as accurate as I could.
So I partnered up with my friends from TesLab.
They're the ones that have that social app
where you can check the efficiency,
and who drives the fastest, or has driven the longest
when your TesLab, and it's a way
to measure how you're driving.
It's kinda like Fitbit for your Tesla.
And they shared some data with me
about the watt-hours per mile, so this is essentially
how many watt-hours, or how much electricity does it take
to go one mile in Tesla, and there's a lot
of data that they shared here that is
all aggregated up into this histogram.
What this histogram does is it explains
where are kind of the slower, more conservative driving
versus the faster, more aggressive driving styles
in terms of energy use.
So this will play a factor when it comes to you figuring out
what the costs are to charge your Tesla each month.
So, what I did was basically, on the low end, I looked.
There are 11% of people that are
at the 250 watt-hours per mile.
So, I assumed, "Okay, if you're being really conservative,
"you're just below that, maybe at 200."
Then, looking right in the middle, we see that over 42%
of people are between 300 and 400 watt-hours per mile.
So, for this, I used 300 as, let's say, normal driving.
Then, on the high end, I used 450, and you can see
that we have about 14% of people that fall
between 400 and 450 watt-hours per mile to drive a Tesla.
So, all this plays a factor
in calculating your monthly costs, and on this calculator
that I built here, which you can use, you can go
to teslanomics.co and find this video,
and this will be embedded on there, as well as
there will be a link in the description of this video.
You can choose all these variables,
and that's why I explained where the data came from
so you can understand that.
So, when you choose your state, I'm in California,
it's gonna pick the latest average electricity cost for you.
Then, when you choose your driving style,
that's gonna calculate how many watt-hours per mile,
then how many miles do you drive,
and I defaulted it here to the U.S. average,
and this is what it'll give you your estimated monthly cost.
So you can see, for somebody in California, for somebody
that drives normal and moderately,
and then also drives the normal amount,
1100 miles per month,
your estimated monthly cost would be
about $62.12 to charge your car.
Compare that to gas, and maybe
what you're already paying today, if you live in California,
and you can do simple math in your head
about how much you might be saving.
So that's helpful, but I also wanted to make it personal
to you, and so, you know, if I wanted to use this,
I would choose my state, it's already in California.
I do drive a bit fast and aggressive, and you can see
it then updated, but I only drive about 800 miles per month.
So, if I do that, you can see
that my estimated monthly cost is about $59.
I'm saving 3800 miles per year in terms
of the miles that I'm not driving,
because I don't drive a lot.
And my driving style's actually costing 14% more
than the average a normal style would.
Let's say I was in Texas, I can go here and look up Texas,
and you can see it updates.
Now, one thing I didn't explain yet is this chart
at the very bottom, and I put this in here
because this is something that you may want to take
into consideration when thinking about
whether or not an electric vehicle is for you,
and that is how has the cost of energy been trending
and where might it go in the future.
Here in Texas, you can see that it's actually pretty low.
We're, you know, at five cents per kilowatt-hour
and ten cents per kilowatt-hour.
And this is every single month going back to 2001,
so this is a fair amount of data.
And then, at the very end, what I've done is I've
actually generated a forecast that shows the next 12 months.
So you can see these are estimated,
and you can see January 2017,
what the price might be all the way
through to December of 2017.
And this is using a fairly advanced statistical model
which takes into account seasonality and historical averages
and tries to project them out.
So, this is something that is usually pretty good
when predicting, especially when you have this much data.
Not to say that that's a guarantee, but just something
to think about if the price of electricity
in your state is continuing to rise,
then that may be the tipping point for you
when it really makes sense to buy a Tesla.
So there you have it.
Depending on where you live, you can pay as little
as 35 bucks a month up to over 100, if you're in Hawaii.
And there's also things that play into effect,
like how much you drive, as well as your driving style,
and even the temperature of where
you live can have an impact on how much energy it
actually takes to power your car,
so, lot of variables there,
but I thought this was a fun tool
and I hope you find it useful.
So, question of the day.
If you are a current Tesla owner, I would love to know
how this matches up with your actual cost.
If you haven't seen how to do that, you can go check out one
of my other videos, where I actually break it down
and show you how I calculate it.
And also, if you are in the market for a Tesla,
does this help you or not?
Is this really helping you figure out
what the cost may be afterwards,
and how does it compare to your gas prices?
So, links to this data and all the sources
and everything else are in the description below, as always.
If you have questions or want to dig deeper, go do that.
And if you are in the market for a new Tesla,
don't forget to use our referral code.
There's only four left for this quarter, so get them
while they're still there, and you can find
that at teslanomics.co/td.
What it will do it is it'll redirect you over
to the Tesla site with our unique referral code
already added, so you can just go through
and order your Tesla right there, and please let me know.
I'd love to chat with you and figure out what you got
and even maybe send a picture.
It's just fun to build this community this way.
So thanks again for joining me,
and I'll see you back here next time.

How Much Will It Cost to Charge My Tesla?

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