How much has your Electric Bill gone Up?

Fabulist

· #2 · Dec 21, 2013

seantennis said:
Hi Fisker friends,

I noticed that our electric bill has gone up few hundred dollars. Can you guys confirm how much your bill has gone up since you charging the car. I am charging it daily, because I'm drivnig the car daily. This is for the normal 110v

thanks

On average, my bill has gone up by $100/Month. For that, I get four full charges during the week for my 45-mile one-way commute (I also have Level II charging at work) and one full charge on the weekend. (100 KWHs total/week). I have an EV-specific time-of-day rate from the local utility (PG&E) and do most of the charging starting around midnight to get the best rate.

For context, before getting the Karma, my bill averaged $250/Month using time-of-day pricing. I have a 3.8KW Solar PV system that (over the course of a year) reduces my electrical bill by half.

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dennis

· #3 · Dec 21, 2013

My bill actually went down, even though I used 3 mwh the first year charging the Karma. With solar PVs I was originally on PG&E E6 time of day pricing. But with baseline allocation of 11 kwh a day, even charging at night it cost me $.30/kwh.

As soon as I got the Karma I converted to the E9 experimental rate schedule for EV owners which reduced the cost to $.20 from 12AM-7AM. That reduced my average monthly bill by about $150 because all my usage during that time was charged at the lower rate, not just charging the Karma.

PG&E recently replaced the E9 schedule with one called EV. That has no usage tiers and the rate from 11PM-7AM is now $.10. This looks to be breakeven in the summer months because they are paying me less for peak power I send to them, but a 33%-50% reduction on my overall bill in the winter months. YMMV

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Bert Yetman

· #4 · Dec 21, 2013

I noticed that our electric bill has gone up few hundred dollars.

That's ridiculous! A rise such as that has to consider weather, such as increased use of house air conditioning, or heating, if electric.
Christmas tree lights might also be a factor.

I charge every night (110v) and haven't noticed any unusual variation in my electric bill.

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Roberta'sKarma

· #5 · Dec 21, 2013

Ours went up about 150-200. That's six charges a week (5 work days + 1 weekend), almost full charges, I usually get home with 8-9 miles worth of electricity still. Oh and that's Hawaii electric rates, which I believe are about $.30-.40/kwh depending on time of day.

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EVer1

· #6 · Dec 21, 2013

I haven't noticed any increase in my electric bills. Probably because I charge at work and at home, and my round-trip commute is 16 miles.

I have noticed not visiting the gas station!

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NJFISKERGUY

· #7 · Dec 21, 2013

Wow that sounds like a lot. I can't tell you if mine went up because we have solar panels here so most of the time it's free for me. ;-) I thought I read that it should be about 2 to 3 bucks a day.

Sent from AutoGuide.com App

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ct-fiskerbuzz

· #8 · Dec 21, 2013

Impossible to tell, for me. Solar PV on house starting in Nov 2012, with house rebuild finished in Dec 2012, moving back from temporary housing to house at that point. Karma first arrived in Sep 2012.

One thing people here should remember is that electric energy is very cheap in much of the US ($.10-ish per kWh), but expensive in California (e.g., 25 to 40 cents = 2.5 to 4 times national average). Other parts of the country that experimented with "deregulation" have similar cost issues: e.g., parts of TX, NJ, PA pay 1.5 to 2x national average.

Hawaii's high cost of electricity is at least due to reality: it's expensive to get energetic fuels to the islands (Hawaii is one of the few places in the US that still has to burn oil for electricity). California's is due to Enron-itis. (Though I believe a lot of it is actually traceable directly to El Paso Energy, not that Enron helped any.) Long-term contracts ensure that high electricity costs will persist through the end of the current decade. Good news for getting more solar PV installed, I suppose.

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Dave_Car_Guy

· #9 · Dec 22, 2013

seantennis said:
I noticed that our electric bill has gone up few hundred dollars.

I agree that a "few hundred" suggests you have something wrong or other factors at work...

You should assume it takes something like 16-18 kwh of energy to charge from empty. in your part of the country, you could be paying $0.25 per kwh on average, but if you are already into your "upper tier" of use, the marginal rate could be at the high end of $0.31 per kwh for SoCalEd Tier 4 (PG&E rates are even higher than that, up to about $0.36/kwh for Tier 5). At a rate of $0.30, you would be spending about 18 x $0.30 = $5.40 a day. If you charge every day, that would move your electricity bill up by about $162 a month.

By the same token, assuming you are driving 40 miles a day, that would be 1200 miles in a month. In a traditional gasoline car getting you 25 mpg, you would use 48 gallons. at $4 per gallon, you would spend $192. So, on a cost-equivalent basis, your $162 a month in electricity is like getting 29.6 MPG. To the extent you can drop your electric cost to 10 cents by charging only at night on an EV rate, your cost would presumably drop 2/3 to $54, for a cost-equivalent "MPG" of 88 MPG.

I would suggest you look at your meter and see at what rate it is "spinning" (digital readout will tell you kwh rate at any given time). While keeping everything in your house constant, then go plug in your 110 charger into the car when empty. Note where the rate/hour goes. Once the car is charged, plug it in again and note the change in the rate on your meter. The car should not be drawing any power if it is full. if there is an issue, maybe the car could continue to draw some power when it should have dropped off. If that were the case, you could conceivably by constantly drawing power when plugged in.

FWIW, my power efficiency went way up and power use got more efficient when I installed the 220 charger (also, I have solar PV on the house and get the late-night EV rates, per Dennis' wise recommendation).

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dennis

· #10 · Dec 22, 2013

Dave_Car_Guy said:
You should assume it takes something like 16-18 kwh of energy to charge from empty.

My Blink charger recorded 20kwh used to charge an empty Karma battery. I believe that is 17kwh for the actual capacity of the battery (3kwh/15% buffer) and 3 kwh in charging losses. I remember reading that it is less efficient to charge at 120V so it may take more than 20kwh to charge an empty Karma battery using the convenience charger.

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Fanofearth

· #11 · Dec 22, 2013

Dave_Car_Guy said:
I agree that a "few hundred" suggests you have something wrong or other factors at work...

You should assume it takes something like 16-18 kwh of energy to charge from empty. in your part of the country, you could be paying $0.25 per kwh on average, but if you are already into your "upper tier" of use, the marginal rate could be at the high end of $0.31 per kwh for SoCalEd Tier 4 (PG&E rates are even higher than that, up to about $0.36/kwh for Tier 5). At a rate of $0.30, you would be spending about 18 x $0.30 = $5.40 a day. If you charge every day, that would move your electricity bill up by about $162 a month.

By the same token, assuming you are driving 40 miles a day, that would be 1200 miles in a month. In a traditional gasoline car getting you 25 mpg, you would use 48 gallons. at $4 per gallon, you would spend $192. So, on a cost-equivalent basis, your $162 a month in electricity is like getting 29.6 MPG. To the extent you can drop your electric cost to 10 cents by charging only at night on an EV rate, your cost would presumably drop 2/3 to $54, for a cost-equivalent "MPG" of 88 MPG.

I would suggest you look at your meter and see at what rate it is "spinning" (digital readout will tell you kwh rate at any given time). While keeping everything in your house constant, then go plug in your 110 charger into the car when empty. Note where the rate/hour goes. Once the car is charged, plug it in again and note the change in the rate on your meter. The car should not be drawing any power if it is full. if there is an issue, maybe the car could continue to draw some power when it should have dropped off. If that were the case, you could conceivably by constantly drawing power when plugged in.

FWIW, my power efficiency went way up and power use got more efficient when I installed the 220 charger (also, I have solar PV on the house and get the late-night EV rates, per Dennis' wise recommendation).

In the City of Anaheim (where Fisker is based) we pay on average much lower rates and I calculate somewhere in the range of $2-3 avg vs SCE rates. YMMV but there is a big difference between utilities. I bought a Karma because they were a local company and I passed by the Fisker building every day on my way to work and thought it would be a great way to support a local business. I pay about $55/month extra for owning a Karma and I live in Anaheim.

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Sigurd

· #12 · Dec 22, 2013

I pay 8.6 cents per KWh in Dallas, so the cost is about $2 per charge. So, I spend about $12 a week.

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Fabulist

· #13 · Dec 22, 2013

dennis said:
My Blink charger recorded 20kwh used to charge an empty Karma battery. I believe that is 17kwh for the actual capacity of the battery (3kwh/15% buffer) and 3 kwh in charging losses. I remember reading that it is less efficient to charge at 120V so it may take more than 20kwh to charge an empty Karma battery using the convenience charger.

My Blink charger, back when it was an intelligent charger, gave me similar data. It took close to 20 KWH to store 16 KWH in the Karma's battery. I even documented that a fully charged car that is left plugged in to the Blink consumes around 3KWH a day for just the wake-up and check cycles. I reported this to Fisker, when they were in existence, and they allegedly made software changes that were distributed in the 510 version to reduce the vampiric loss. Sadly, my Blink has lost it's mind and I can't verify that there is any difference now versus then.

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Dave_Car_Guy

· #14 · Dec 23, 2013

Fabulist said:
I even documented that a fully charged car that is left plugged in to the Blink consumes around 3KWH a day for just the wake-up and check cycles.

Aha! I had not documented this, but I noticed that my electric usage stayed high when the car was plugged in, even after it was fully charged. Based on your findings, a car plugged in for one week and not driven could conceivably draw 20 kwh to get to full charge the first day, then another 3 kwh each day for the next 6 days to get you to a hefty 38 kwh for that "single" charge event. I no longer leave mine plugged in for long periods, and I use the delay function more now to ensure I am charging after 11 pm for best rates.

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AlJOHN

· #15 · Dec 24, 2013

Interesting range of responses. Here in Atlanta, the utility offers a Usage by time of day meter. That is, pay less during the night time hours when rates are cheaper since usage is down and electric company is looking to "shift usage" and reduce peak demand.

With the meter installed, when I got the Fisker last year, the bill has stayed pretty much the same. I compared the bill from 2011 to 2012 month by month and say little or no increase. After a year the comparison was no longer valid, since I had been on the time-of-day metering for over a year.

Everyone may want to check with the power company and see if there is a time of day usage plan available. Here in Atlanta 11pm to 6am is 1/3rd the cost of peak. A good time to wash dishes, run the dryer etc. once on the plan.

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