Wondering what the increase owners are paying around different parts of the country. Also do you get an off peak reduced rate? Thanks, DBCassidy
No off peak here and with most of the house changed to cfl I noticed a drop in my bills. Then I added another 20 dollars in saving because of a change in suppliers.
Poor question, as many things affect electricity bills. Our cost of the electricity to charge our Volt averages out to about $20-$25 a month. No off peak although I have been encouraging our utility to go to a TOU setup. About 9.5 cents/kwh. I estimate that we are saving an average of 13 gallons a month from our previous car
Hmm a decent thread/question... I have TOU rates (which went up by almost 10% in May). I charge at night where my green power now costs .0519/kWh for off-peak and .090 for mid-peak. (I never charge on-peak with is .162). The switch to TODU increased the "meter charge". I allocate the fixed fees/taxes on a cost basis and my blended cost is about .062/kWh. Our hose was already very efficient so I did not get any new gains. The daytime power costs are, of course, increased with TODU and green power. All in, my monthly bills are about $15 to $22 a month more, for 600 to 900 EV miles per month. (Less efficient in the winter, and higher net costs as we use more on-peak electricity in winter too). My estimates are saving about 20-25 gallons per month compared to my past car, for a net saving of $50 a month, in fuel costs.
I too noticed a decrease in electric bills after the Volt, which I mostly attribute to heightened awareness of energy use. I also went and got home solar because of the car and since then my bills have dropped by more than 60% (old power bill was around $250 a month, last month with the A/C running the power bill was $18 and the system lease payment is $90) I am also saving about $100 a month in gas over my old prius. I do about half my charging for free at work, looking at the charge info from Onstar and my rate (not TOU), I'd say the cost to me of the electricity I use on the car at home is about $15 a month.
Ditto. Buying the Volt made me look at electricity consumption and I then switched to an hourly rate plan from a fixed rate plan. My avg rate went from $0.11506/kWh down to $0.08548 per my spreadsheet tracking of the past 3 years. I'm now saving more than $50/mo and the Volt cost less than $30/mo for me to charge it at midnight. Net +$20 in savings per month. P.S. Also installed some CFLs
As my Vectrix electric motorcycle I've been riding for past 4 years, I'm charging my Ampera at night if I can. Our off-peak hours are from 22:00 - 6:00 plus weekends plus all national holidays. However, my company has put a 50kW solar array on the roof a few months ago and I got a permit to charge. My charging is for free and I drive my Ampera with the power of the sun shine I plug into standard 230V 16A Schuko plug, which is already set up and also the parking place is under the roof, so my Ampera is protected from the hail, which is quite often here in the summer.
I have been on a TOU-D rate for a long time (way before the Volt). I pay 5.5 off and 6.5 on. So, I average 6 cents per kilowatt hour. I have used about 3,700 kWh since I bought the car. I would say about 50% of that has been freely provided power at work. But if you assign my rate to all the power, it is about $220 given I am averaging about 31 kWh per 100 miles.
