How much does it cost to charge a small electric car?
Work out what it costs to charge an electric car at home — per top-up, per year and per 100 miles or kilometres, including the energy lost on the way into the battery.
Using the Portuguese average of 24.35c/kWh — Eurostat, the second half of 2025.
City cars and small hatchbacks sit around 40 kWh usable. They are the cheapest to charge and the most sensitive to a bad tariff, because the charge is small enough that the standing charge starts to matter.
Common cases
- Anything
- Tesla Model 3
- Tesla Model Y
- MG4
- Fiat 500e
- Cupra Born
- Renault 5 E-Tech
- Kia EV3
- BMW iX
- Volkswagen ID.3
- Volkswagen ID.4
- Škoda Enyaq
- Hyundai IONIQ 5
- Hyundai Kona Electric
- Kia EV6
- Kia Niro EV
- Nissan Leaf
- Volvo EX30
- Citroën ë-C3
- Peugeot e-208
- Polestar 2
- Volkswagen ID.7
- Renault Mégane
- Hyundai IONIQ 6
- BYD ATTO 3
- Toyota bZ4X
- Dacia Spring
- Small EV, ~40 kWh
- Family EV, ~60 kWh
- Large EV SUV, ~80 kWh
- Empty to full
- Overnight top-up
- Plug-in hybrid
What drives the cost
A small EV is cheap to charge for two compounding reasons: there is less battery to fill, and a light, small car uses less energy to move. Around 15 kWh per 100 km is realistic, against 23 or more for a large SUV, so the cost per mile is often little more than half.
The flip side is that charging losses and any fixed daily charge weigh proportionally more. A 24 kWh top-up loses the same percentage as a 60 kWh one, but against a smaller bill it is a larger share of what you pay. If your tariff has a high standing charge and you drive modest distances, that fixed cost can rival the electricity itself.
How this is worked out
Charging cost is the energy you put in multiplied by your electricity rate — but the energy you put in is not the same as the energy that reaches the battery. Some is lost in the car's onboard charger, the cable and keeping the pack at temperature, and your meter counts all of it. So a 60 kWh battery taken from 20% to 80% needs 36 kWh at the battery, but around 40 kWh from the wall at a typical 10% loss.
What this assumes
- Charging losses of around 10%, which is typical for home AC charging. A slow 3-pin plug is worse, a wall box on a warm day is better, and cold weather is worse again.
- One flat electricity rate. If you charge on an off-peak or EV tariff, the rate you enter matters far more than anything else on this page — overnight rates are often a third of the standard one.
- Real-world energy use, not the official test figure. Winter, motorway speeds and a full car all push consumption up, often by 20–30%.
- Home charging only. Public rapid charging typically costs several times as much per kWh.
- The rate filled in for you is an average that spreads fixed charges across a year's usage, so it sits above what one extra unit really costs. Entering the unit rate from your own bill gives a closer answer.
Questions
Is a small EV cheap enough to charge on a standard tariff?
It is the case where a standard tariff hurts least, simply because the volumes are small. But the ratio is unchanged — an overnight rate still cuts the bill by roughly the same proportion, it is just a smaller absolute saving.
Why is the wall figure higher than the battery figure?
Because charging is not perfectly efficient. The car's onboard charger converts AC from your house into DC for the battery, and that conversion, the cable and the battery's own thermal management all take a share. Your meter bills what left the wall, so that is what this calculates.
Why does it charge to 80% rather than 100%?
Because that is what most people do with a nickel-based battery. Charging slows sharply in the last 20%, and an NMC or NCA pack left sitting at 100% degrades faster. LFP packs are the exception and are meant to be filled — if your car has one, its own page here says so. Set both fields to whatever you actually do; there is a full-charge preset if you want the other number.
Should I use my normal rate or my EV tariff?
Your EV or off-peak rate, if you have one and you charge overnight. It is by far the biggest lever here: the same car on the same mileage can cost two or three times more on a standard rate than on a dedicated overnight one.
Does this cover public charging?
No. This is home charging. Public rapid chargers are priced per kWh at a much higher rate, and often add a connection fee, so the cost per mile can be several times what you see here.
Related tools
Sources
- U.S. Department of Energy — charging at home — checked 2026-08-21
- EV Database — useable capacity and real-world consumption — checked 2026-08-21
Rates from Eurostat for the second half of 2025. Last reviewed 14 October 2026.