EV Home Charging Cost Calculator UK
Work out the real cost of charging your electric car at home vs public chargers, across UK time-of-use tariffs (Octopus Go, Intelligent Octopus, OVO Drive Anytime, E.ON Next Drive), and compare with petrol at today's prices.
Interactive EV home charging cost calculator
Worked example
A driver doing 8000 miles/year in an EV that averages 3.5 mi/kWh, charging 80% at home on Octopus Go with 85% of that in the 00:30–05:30 cheap window, and paying 75p/kWh at public rapid chargers. Compared against a 45 mpg petrol car at 145p/litre:
| Annual energy needed | 2286 kWh/yr |
|---|---|
| Home charging cost | £210 |
| Public charging cost | £343 |
| Total EV running cost | £553 |
| Petrol equivalent cost | £1172 |
| Cost per mile (EV vs petrol) | 6.9p vs 14.6p |
| 10-yr net benefit vs petrol | £6793 |
ToU tariff rates effective 1 April 2026.
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Compare Agile vs Go →Frequently asked questions
- How much cheaper is Octopus Go than a flat tariff?
- Octopus Go charges about 8.5p/kWh during a 5-hour overnight window (00:30–05:30) and roughly 28.5p/kWh the rest of the day. If you shift 85% of your home charging into the cheap window — which most EVs with a scheduled charger can do automatically — your blended home rate lands around 11–12p/kWh, less than half the 27p Ofgem flat rate. On 8,000 miles a year you typically save £250–£400.
- Are public charging rates really that high?
- Public rapid and ultra-rapid chargers (50–350 kW) in the UK currently sit between 60p and 85p/kWh — about two to three times the price of home charging on a flat tariff, and up to ten times more than a cheap overnight ToU rate. Slower destination chargers at supermarkets and hotels are often 35–55p/kWh, and a handful are still free. Our calculator blends your home and public split so you can see the true average.
- What's a realistic EV efficiency figure?
- Most mainstream UK EVs average 3.0–4.2 miles per kWh over a year of mixed driving. A Tesla Model 3 or Hyundai Ioniq 6 managed with a light right foot can exceed 4.0 mi/kWh; a large SUV like a Kia EV9 or an older Nissan Leaf on motorway trips can drop to 2.8 mi/kWh. 3.5 mi/kWh is a reasonable UK-average default — adjust the slider to match your car.
- When does an EV break even vs a petrol car?
- Running-cost only (this calculator), an EV on a ToU home tariff typically costs 3–5p/mile vs 15–17p/mile for a 45 mpg petrol car — so you start saving from mile one. The 10-year cumulative chart factors in 4% electricity and 3% petrol inflation; that widens the gap. The full picture, including the EV's higher purchase price and depreciation, depends on which specific cars you compare — use the per-mile figure as a running-cost input to that decision.
How this calculator works
The EV Home Charging Cost calculator turns how you drive, how you charge and which tariff you're on into a per-mile running cost, a total annual spend and a 10-year cumulative comparison against petrol. The arithmetic is: annual miles divided by efficiency (miles per kWh) gives annual kWh; we then split those kWh across home and public charging according to your usage split, and blend home charging across peak and off-peak windows according to your tariff and night-charging percentage. The petrol comparison uses miles divided by MPG, converted to litres (one imperial gallon = 4.546 litres), multiplied by pence per litre. Both sides apply annual inflation — 4% electricity, 3% petrol is the UK default — to the 10-year view.
The tariff table is the heart of it. We carry current off-peak and peak rates for Octopus Go, Intelligent Octopus Go, OVO Drive Anytime and E.ON Next Drive — the four tariffs that together cover the large majority of UK domestic EV charging — plus a flat-rate option anchored to the Ofgem default cap . If you're willing to be more aggressive about shifting, Octopus Agile can beat all of these for the right driver. The off-peak windows vary: Octopus Go is 00:30–05:30 (5 hours), Intelligent Octopus is dynamic (6 hours, usually 23:30–05:30), OVO Drive Anytime offers a fixed 7p/kWh for any home charging on a smart meter, and E.ON Next Drive is 00:00–07:00. The shape of the window matters: an EV that needs 40 kWh overnight can easily top up in a 7-hour window at 7 kW but may struggle in a 5-hour window, which shifts a portion of the charging to peak rates.
Common pitfalls and things people get wrong
- You need a smart meter. Every time-of-use EV tariff in the UK requires a SMETS2 smart meter in half-hourly settlement mode. If you have a first-generation SMETS1 meter, you must either have it "migrated" to the DCC (your supplier can request this) or replaced. Do not sign up for Octopus Go without confirming this; people lose months on this gotcha.
- Public rapid pricing is eye-watering. 75–85p/kWh at Ionity, Gridserve, Osprey and Shell Recharge is the 2026 norm — about 3× home flat rates and 10× a good off-peak rate. A driver doing 8,000 miles a year with 20% public charging spends roughly £200 extra over home-only; the penalty scales with how much you rely on public. This isn't a reason not to drive an EV — it is a reason to maximise home charging share if you can.
- Efficiency varies wildly in winter. 3.5 mi/kWh is a decent annual average for a mainstream UK EV, but winter motorway driving at 2.5 mi/kWh is not unusual for larger SUVs, and a heat pump equipped EV in mild weather can hit 4.5 mi/kWh. Annual average smooths this out; the calculator uses one number, so use a realistic yearly figure from a tool like ABRP or your car's own long-term display.
- Workplace charging and destination chargers. Many UK drivers have access to free or subsidised chargers at work, supermarkets, or hotels. If that's you, treat them as "home" rate in the split — in fact, free workplace chargers can tip the running cost below 2p/mile, which is essentially rounding error against petrol at 15p/mile.
- Intelligent Octopus vs Octopus Go. If your car or charger is compatible (Tesla, Ohme, Myenergi, many others), Intelligent Octopus Go is almost always cheaper than vanilla Go because you get more off-peak hours at the same cheap rate. If it's compatible, enrol — it's a free upgrade.
UK-specific context
The UK's home-vs-public charging gap is the widest in Europe: flat rates at home sit near the Ofgem cap of about 27p/kWh, rapids are 75p+/kWh, and the off-peak tariffs drop to 7–8.5p. Nowhere else in Europe rewards a driveway charger so disproportionately. This is partly accident — the ToU tariffs emerged during the 2021–2022 gas crisis as a way to move load off peak — and partly deliberate Ofgem policy to reward flexibility. It does mean that EVs genuinely make financial sense for anyone with off-street parking and a bit of charger discipline, and genuinely don't for a driver with only public-charger access.
On carbon: UK grid electricity at around 180 gCO₂/kWh combined with a 3.5 mi/kWh EV emits about 51 gCO₂/mile. A 45 mpg petrol car at 2,392 gCO₂ per litre emits about 237 gCO₂/mile. The EV is roughly 4–5× cleaner on UK grid today, and the ratio improves about 8% per year as the grid decarbonises.
When this isn't the right answer
This is a running-cost calculator; it deliberately ignores purchase price, insurance, finance, depreciation and servicing — all of which matter for an overall buy-vs-buy decision. EVs are still typically £3,000–£8,000 more expensive than petrol equivalents new, though used BEVs from 2020–22 now trade at near parity with equivalent ICE. If you're trying to decide whether to buy an EV, use this as the running-cost input to a fuller total-cost-of-ownership spreadsheet. And if you can't charge at home — a flat without a parking space, a terraced street without kerbside provision — the maths here simply doesn't apply; most of the saving comes from cheap night-rate home charging, which you don't have access to.
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