$28.11

So in my quest to sort out why my electric bill jumped 50% in the last month I had to first run some numbers on the most obvious culprit, the Tesla.  Thanks to a site I use, Teslafi.com, I am able to figure this sort of stuff out very easily.  All you do is configure what your electricity per kwh cost is and it does the rest for you since it talks with the car and knows exactly how much juice goes in every charge.

My electric company, LCEC, doesn’t offer off-peak rates like a lot of other utilities do.  Instead they have a tiered pricing structure where the first 1000 kwh are at a lower rate and then anything above that is at a higher rate.  The idea is the tiered plan promotes conservation.  The reality is overall, the pricing is good, probably even better than FPL, the dominant utility company in the state.

So for my calculation I entered the highest kwh rate which is actually more than what I pay in reality since the first 1000kwh are at 10-15% discount.  After entering my date range the site quickly spit out my total cost for electricity used for charging, $28.11   Wow, I was really happy with that number but at the same time frustrated because that meant that the lion share of the increase came from elsewhere in the household.  For comparison sake, even the gas sipping Prius would cost me at least $60 a month to fuel, if gas prices keep creeping up that gap keeps increasing.  If I were driving the Tacoma that number more than doubles.

Finding out just how low the electricity cost to charge at home makes my plan of going to the nearby supercharger today unnecessary but I still plan to do it anyway.  I brought the GoPro to do a video regarding my charging findings while I juice up.  I have never visited the Naples Supercharger so it will be a good experience anyway.