EV Charging Costs UK: How Much Does It Really Cost?

Home charging is where EVs earn their keep. At the Ofgem cap rate (24.67p/kWh for April-June 2026, 26.11p from July):

• Full charge of a 60kWh battery: about £15
• Per mile (at a typical 3-4 miles per kWh): roughly 6.5-9p

Indicative arithmetic at cap rates, accurate as at June 2026. Domestic electricity includes 5% VAT.

Two easy ways to beat the cap rate:

• Off-peak EV tariffs: several suppliers offer tariffs with cheap overnight windows designed for EV charging. Rates change too often to print here, but they are the single biggest lever in EV running costs, and a smart charger (or the car's scheduler) makes them automatic. This is exactly what chargers like Ohme are built around.
• Solar surplus: if you have panels, diverted surplus only costs you the forgone export payment, typically around 12p/kWh: roughly 3-4p per mile. See the solar charging guide.

Public rapid chargers price per kWh at rates notably higher than home electricity: you are paying for the hardware, the grid connection and the speed. There is also a tax quirk: public charging carries 20% VAT, while home electricity is 5%, which widens the gap before the commercial margin even starts. Pricing varies by network, location and speed, so check the network's app before you rely on one.

The sensible mental model:

• Home charging is the daily plan: cheapest per kWh, zero detours, full every morning.
• Public rapid charging is the road-trip tool: worth every penny on the motorway, a poor habit as a daily routine.
• Destination charging (supermarkets, car parks, some workplaces) sits in between, sometimes cheap or free as a perk; take it when it is there.

This is why a home charger (bundles from about £999 installed, fitting typically £800-1,200) pays for itself: it converts almost all of your charging to the cheapest possible rate. See installation costs.

Worth knowing and easy to state: since April 2025, EVs pay Vehicle Excise Duty at the standard rate, around £195 a year, the same band as most petrol cars. The era of free road tax for EVs is over.

For fair comparisons, note what each side pays:

• EV: electricity (as above) plus VED (~£195/year).
• Petrol car: petrol at the pump, which includes fuel duty, plus VED. Pump prices move; as an editorial estimate, petrol sits around £1.45/litre in mid 2026.

So VED roughly cancels out across the two, and the comparison comes down to energy: pence per mile of electricity versus pounds per litre of petrol. For typical cars and mileages, home-charged EVs come out well ahead; run your own numbers in the EV vs petrol comparison.

Charging is only one line in the ownership ledger. The others worth weighing:

• Acquisition: there is no purchase grant (ended 2022), but salary sacrifice at 4% Benefit-in-Kind (2026/27) is worth £5,000-15,000 a year to typical participants, which dwarfs any charging arithmetic.
• Servicing: EVs skip oil changes, exhausts and much of the mechanical service bill; tyres wear somewhat faster. Our myths guide covers the honest maintenance data.
• The charger: a one-off from about £999 installed, repaid by the gap between home and public rates.

Set up the home side properly (charger, off-peak tariff, solar if you have it) and the running-cost case takes care of itself. Get free charger quotes to start there.