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It won’t be news to anyone that energy prices have risen at a crippling rate in 2022 due to the ongoing energy crisis. The latest price rise will see the average household on a variable or default duel-fuel tariff pay an estimated average of £3,549 per year for electricity and gas; up from an estimated average of £1,971 based on summer 2022 prices.

This will impact some 24 million households in the UK who are on a default or variable dual-fuel tariff. It represents capped unit prices of 52 pence per kWh (p/kWh) plus a 46p per day standing charge for electricity. Gas will cost 15p/kWh, plus a daily standing charge of 28p per day, according to Ofgem figures.

Rates will vary depending on your provider, your tariff and how you pay. It is also worth noting that the price cap, which dictates energy prices across the UK, will be revised every three months as of 2023, and the industry predicts further rises.

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With this huge hike in domestic utility costs, there’s an even greater focus on whether electric cars are still cheaper to fuel than petrol and diesel cars. Here, we’ll take a look at what it will cost to run an electric car (EV) after the October price rises.

Why have energy prices gone up? Will they continue to rise?

Energy prices in the UK are governed by government body Ofgem, which sets a default tariff price cap in April and October each year (or every quarter as of January 2023). This dictates the maximum price that energy providers are allowed to charge for their default variable tariffs.

The price cap is, of course, largely dictated by wholesale energy costs, which have now risen sharply.

According to a spokesperson for Octopus Energy, prices have risen “due to a combination of several factors. Two of the main causes – global supply chain issues post-pandemic and long, late and cold winters in Asia and Europe last year – are likely to be temporary, so we are expecting them to normalise over time.

“However, the third main cause – the Russian invasion of Ukraine – has had the biggest impact on the global energy market. It is affecting Russian gas imports into Europe and the uncertainty is also throwing market prices for gas sky high, in turn impacting electricity prices and overall energy bills.”

How much will an EV cost to charge at home?

You can calculate how much an EV costs to charge by multiplying your electricity price per kWh by the usable battery capacity of your car.

A Peugeot e-208, for instance, has a total 50kWh battery but only uses 46.2kWh of this (all car batteries ‘reserve’ some cells like this, in the interests of longevity). So, at the October 2022 rate of 52p/kWh it would cost £24.02 to “fill up” a Peugeot e-208 from empty. That’s up from £12.74 since April 2022, and £8.73 before that.

The Kia e-Niro has a longer driving range courtesy of a usable battery capacity of 64kWh, so a full battery would cost £33.28 – up from £17.92 as of summer 2022. The Mercedes EQS has one of the biggest batteries currently on sale, at 107.8kWh, and would cost £56.01 for a 100% charge.

Those on an Economy 7 tariff can halve those costs by charging between midnight and 7am, with companies such as EDF offering rates of between 25-30p per kWh during these hours.

It’s easy to set an electric vehicle to charge only during these hours via the car’s in-screen menus, or internet-enabled home chargers also offer controlled charging hours.

Many utilities providers have pulled low-cost EV specific tariffs from sale for the foreseeable future.

How do EV costs compare with petrol and diesel?

If you don’t utilise cheaper overnight electricity rates, at 52p/kWh, an electric car doing 3.2 miles/kWh (roughly speaking, a realistic real-world efficiency expectation for an EV such as the Volkswagen ID.3, Peugeot e-208, Tesla Model 3 et al) works out at around 16.25p per mile to fuel.

With petrol and diesel prices also suffering big rises in the last year, that’s compared to 19.6p per mile for a petrol car doing 40mpg on fuel costing £1.73 per litre, or 15.3p per mile for a diesel car doing 55mpg with pump prices of £1.85 per litre.

Essentially, this means than an electric car is no longer cheaper to fuel if you’re paying the prices set by the Ofgem price cap. Rather, it’s roughly on parity – perhaps slightly cheaper – than an efficient petrol car, while an efficient diesel will likely undercut the fuel costs per mile.

How much will an EV cost to rapid charge?

Public charging has always been more expensive than charging at home, and the rapid charging network has also seen big price rises for 2022. Most public charging networks have raised their rates, but it’s most telling on rapid chargers of 50kW or more, which now typically cost 60p/kWh or more where they were closer to 35p/kWh some 12 months ago. Prices do vary, of course.

Ionity charges 69p/kWh at its 350kW ultra-rapid chargers – which is actually unchanged from what it’s cost for some years, but it is still the most expensive rapid charging network, if also one of the fastest. bp Pulse currently charges 59p/kWh, while Shell has pegged its rates at 65p/kWh. Instavolt and Osprey both charge 66p/kWh. All of these rates are for non-subscription, pay-as-you go users, with nearly all public charge providers offering reduced unit rates for those who sign up and pay a monthly fee.

Most providers also offer preferential rates for subscribers, which can save up to 15p/kWh, so it’s often worth signing up and paying a low monthly fee to get cheaper electricity from any public charging network that you routinely charge at.

If we stick with 65p/kWh as an average price for contactless payment, non-subscription rapid charging in the UK, a 30kWh top-up (enough for a 20-80% top up of a 50kWh battery) will cost £19.50. At 3.2miles per kWh, that’s just over 20p per mile.

We need to talk about EV efficiency…

This is a good place to stress the importance of electric car efficiency. Until now, the disparity in efficiency between EVs has been easy to gloss over as the fuel cost disparity between a performance EV and an everyday EV has been fairly low – especially compared with the running cost disparity between a performance or efficiency-focussed internal combustion engine (ICE) car.

With electricity prices now going up, the difference in fuel costs between a big, high-powered EV and a smaller, more modest EV are growing.

EV efficiency is measured in miles per kWh (abbreviated to m/kWh). Think of this figure as mpg for electric cars. To state the obvious, m/kWh is literally a measure of the number of miles that the car is covering per kWh of battery capacity. Hence the higher the number, the more efficient the car is.

Going by official WLTP range figures, some of the most efficient cars you can buy today include:

Fiat 500e 24kWh at 5.5m/kWh

Tesla Model 3 at 5.4m/kWh

Hyundai Ioniq at 5.0m/kWh

Hyundai Kona Electric 39kWh at 4.8m/kWh

Renault Megane E-Tech at 4.7m/kWh

Many of these cars are very aerodynamic – particularly the Tesla and Ioniq – and some simply don’t focus on performance as much as many other EVs. All have single electric motors, so have only two driven wheels. Many also have fairly small batteries, which keeps weight down; weight will always be the ultimate enemy of efficiency. It’s also another reason to wait eagerly for batteries to continue getting lighter and more energy dense…

Regardless, if you go for one of these efficient EVs and manage to return 4.0 miles/kWh in real world use (it’s reasonable to expect better than this in summer, when batteries benefit from warmer operating temperatures), then you’ll be paying some 13p per mile, assuming you charge at home for 52p/kWh. That compares with 16p in an EV doing 3.2m/kWh, or 22p in an EV doing 2.4m/kWh – the latter being a realistic expectation for bigger, high performance EVs such as the Audi e-tron SUV.

In essence, the cost of electricity now means that it’s a very substantial saving to run an efficient EV over a less economy-minded alternative, so pay attention to the potential m/kWh of a prospective EV if you’re considering an electric vehicle and want to keep your costs down.

So, is it still cheaper to run an EV?

Only if you can routinely charge overnight on a cheaper Economy 7 or EV-specific tariff, or if you have other methods of accessing cheaper electricity such as home solar panels or charging at your office. With access to cheaper electricity, running an EV remains far cheaper than running an ICE vehicle.

Unfortunately, many energy companies are not offering reduced price overnight tariffs to new customers, so getting access to these lower prices may not be possible for many motorists.

Without the benefit of off-peak tariffs or other cheaper energy sources, the cost of fuelling an EV is now roughly on a par with an ICE vehicle. The environmental benefits remain, but there’s no doubt that electric cars have just become harder to justify for many.

As for the overall ownership cost of an EV, purchase prices on average remain more expensive than for equivalent petrol or diesel alternatives, but there are exceptions: The Nissan Leaf, all of the electric models from MG and the Tesla Model 3 all offer similar list price and monthly PCP prices to equivalent ICE alternatives.

Used EVs also still typically hold their value very well – better, in fact, than comparable ICE cars. Great if you’re selling, as depreciation is still often the highest cost of owning a new car. It’s less ideal if you’re buying used, of course, but look to options such as the BMW i3, Renault Zoe and Hyundai Ioniq for some of the best used electric cars.

Insurance costs and tyre costs are also very similar between EV and ICE. Servicing tends to be needed less frequently than on a petrol or diesel car, and is sometimes cheaper (although this isn’t the case for all manufacturers).

Ultimately, of course, overall ownership costs – factoring in purchase, maintenance, fuel and depreciation – will vary dramatically depending on which electric vehicle you’re considering and how you’re buying.

However you pull the costs apart, the reality is that – for many, if not all drivers – the energy crisis is currently wiping out the chief financial incentives that have historically encouraged the take-up of electric cars.

This article is kept updated with the latest information.