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Electric vehicles have gone from niche to normal in just a few years. Some people switch because they want to lower their carbon footprint, others because EVs are cheaper to drive than gas. Most end up appreciating both.
But what catches many electric vehicle owners off guard is their first electric bill after charging at home for a month or two. For many households, charging an EV adds 30-60% to their electricity usage, those with longer daily commutes can see their bills double compared to “pre-EV” usage. That leads to a fair question:
“If my electric bill goes up that much, is driving an EV really saving me any money?”
In most cases, yes.
And if you charge your EV using solar power… absolutely!
How much electricity does an EV actually use?
The amount of electricity your EV uses depends mostly on how much you drive. The average driver in the U.S. logs about 12,000 miles per year, which is a good baseline for comparison, and will use that figure in our calculations.
Most EVs use around 0.30 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per mile. When you multiply that by 12,000 miles, you get:
12,000 miles × 0.30 kWh = 3,600 kWh per year
That number assumes all charging happens at home, meaning a typical EV adds about 3,600 kWh of annual electricity use.
For context, most New York homes use between 7,000 and 9,000 kilowatt-hours per year total. This means EV charging alone can increase household electricity usage by 40% or more.
What does it cost to charge an EV in New York?
Electric rates in New York are higher than the national average. When supply and delivery are combined, many homeowners pay around $0.25 per kWh, and in some areas it’s closer to $0.30-$0.35 per kWh.
Using a conservative $0.25 per kWh, charging an EV that uses 3,600 kWh per year costs:
3,600 kWh × $0.25 = $900 per year
For most homeowners, that number often feels manageable, so most people simply accept it as part of owning an EV. The problem is that electric rates don’t stay flat.
With just a 5% annual increase, that same 3,600 kWh would cost about $1,470 per year in 10 years, without driving any more miles than you do today.
How does this compare to gas?
To make a fair comparison, let’s use the same annual mileage of 12,000 miles and a realistic 27 miles per gallon. This shows that a gas vehicle burns roughly 444 gallons annually:
12,000 ÷ 27 = 444 gallons per year
At different gas prices:
- $3.00 per gallon → $1,332 per year
- $3.50 per gallon → $1,554 per year
- $4.00 per gallon → $1,776 per year
Even with rising electricity rates, EVs are still cheaper to fuel than gas. The bigger difference is how predictable those costs are over time.
Grid-charged vs. Solar-charged EVs
The biggest drawback to charging your EV from the grid is that you are buying electricity at a price you do not control. That price can change year to year, and historically it goes up.
When you charge your EV with solar, the electricity comes from your own system. You are using energy you produced at a steady and predictable cost. This predictability becomes extremely important as rates and even your annual mileage continue to increase. The more you drive, the more valuable that stability becomes. With property planning and design, solar can cover 100% of your EV usage on top of all of your everyday home usage as well.
With solar, that 3,600 kWh is often produced at cost closer to $0.15/kWh, depending on the system size and site conditions. This cuts your annual charging costs nearly in half and locks in that rate for decades, which means your driving doesn’t have to be tied to rising grid prices at all.
Why EV owners often prefer solar
Driving an EV already shifts money away from gasoline and toward electricity. Solar changes where that electricity money goes.
With grid charging, you keep paying the utility company indefinitely. You are still at the mercy of what the grid wants to charge you. With solar, you charge at the same predictable rate in year 20 as you did in year 1. And eventually, that payment drops to $0 and it’s completely free to charge your car. You’re paying for something you own. Over time, the cost of each mile driven keeps going down, not up.
The more electricity a home uses, the higher the potential to save with solar. And adding an EV is like putting an addition to your home that increases sqft by 40-60%. That added demand presents a unique opportunity to save more for homeowners with enough usable roof space. But even if your home can only fit a small 3-4 kW system, solar can completely offset your EV usage.
And as rates rise, each kWh produced by solar offsets a more expensive kWh of grid power. Over time the avoided costs and savings compound year over year.
This is why EV owners often see solar as a “no-brainer” when comparing the cost to public fast charging, which can be as much as $0.50/kWh, or home charging through the grid.
How much solar is needed to cover EV charging?
The math itself is very simple, but it’s not always black and white. If your EV uses roughly 3,500 to 4,000 kWh per year, your solar system needs to produce that much additional energy annually to offset charging. But that does not mean you need a 3.5-4 kW system. In New York, 2.5-3 kW of solar panels in optimal conditions is often enough to produce that much energy over a year.
In most cases, adding panels to offset an EV does not mean doubling the size of the system. For many homeowners, it means a modest increase in capacity during the design phase.
It’s important to note that whenever planning a solar installation, you should seriously consider any potential appliance changes or upgrades you plan on making in the next few years that could impact your electric usage. EVs fall into this category but that also includes hot water heaters, HVAC, and hot tubs. Planning for an EV upfront is far more efficient than retrofitting later.
The exact system size depends on several factors. Roof orientation, available surface area, shading, and local production all play a role. Utility rules around net metering and excess production also affect how the system should be designed.
This is exactly why proper system design is so crucial when getting solar installed. A well-designed system accounts for current usage and anticipates future EV charging from day one.
Final thoughts
Charging an EV from grid power is already cheaper than buying gas. But charging it with solar is by far the cheapest way to travel.
Instead of tying your transportation costs to inflation and future electric rate hikes, solar lets you drive on energy you produce. Not only does that remove a major source of uncertainty, but it gives you long term control over one of your largest recurring expenses.
For most EV owners, this decision isn’t really about technology or trends. It’s about knowing what their energy will cost next year, and ten years from now.
Can your home produce enough “juice”?
Every home and every driver is different. The only way to know what this looks like in real life is to compare three things:
- How many miles you actually drive
- What your electric rate is
- How much energy your roof can produce
Once those three numbers are modeled together, it becomes very clear whether charging your EV with solar works for your home.
As a company that’s designed over a thousand solar projects to accommodate EV charging, we can walk through that math with your actual usage and show you what it would look like, but even without that, the takeaway is simple:
EVs save money.
EVs charged with solar save more, and do it with far less uncertainty.
If you want to see what charging your EV with solar looks like for your home, request a personalized Solar & EV Savings Plan. We will show you:
- Exactly how much solar you need to cover your EV usage.
- If your roof has enough space to generate all the energy you need to charge your car year-round.
- How much money you’ll save compared to grid charging.
