The costs for charging up an electric car (EV) are both more complex and more variable than filling an internal combustion engine (ICE) car with fuel. With a conventional petrol or diesel car your fuel cost is obvious, as it’s whatever numbers come up when you’re at the gas pump, whereas with an an electric car, you’ll need to consider both your domestic electrical bill and the potential cost of EV charging costs when using the public charging network away from home.
Yet despite the complexity, charging up an EV can represent a significant saving over fueling an ICE car, especially if you’re able to charge at home. If you are able to charge via domestic solar power, you could reduce the EV bill still further.
Here’s our rundown of EV charging costs in Canada.
How Much Does it Cost to Charge an Electric Car?
- Charging at Home
- Example EV Charging Costs
- Public Charging
- Don't be Caught by Idling Fees
- Conclusion
Charging at Home
When you own an EV, most of your charging happens at home. in fact, by some estimates, an average of 80% of EV charging happens at home. It’s like having a gas station in your own driveway...
Owners of plug-in hybrids, which have a traditional gas-powered engine and an electric motor and a battery, can get away with using a household plug for their home charging needs, but if you choose a battery electric vehicle, you’ll find this is impractical. It can take several days to recover a charge to an electric car battery this way, even for an EV with a smaller battery size.
You’ll therefore need to factor a Level 2 charger into your purchase plans, which runs off a 240-volt outlet and averages $1,500 to $3,000 or more depending on where you live and what upgrades may be required for your home’s electrical system. Some provinces offer a rebate incentive for this to help reduce the cost.
Once that’s done, you’ll be ready to fill up your EV battery at home. How much this will cost depends entirely on where you live and your province’s electrical rates. Below are a few examples.
Example EV Charging Costs
Domestic charging costs do depend to a certain extent on where you live. In Ontario, your electricity bill comes in one of two ways: based on the time of day you use the power, or through tiered rates where the price goes up after you use a set amount of electricity within a billing period.
An EV owner using Ontario’s time-of-use plan and who charges a vehicle on a home charger between 7pm and 7am — these are off-peak hours, when it’s cheaper to charge an electric car — pays 7.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. According to Natural Resources Canada, a Ford Mustang Mach-E Extended Range AWD requires an average of 23.1 kWh to travel 100 km. To add 400 kilometres to its 446km battery, it would therefore require 92.4 kWh of electricity, which would cost $7.02 before taxes and fees. If that same driver is billed on Ontario’s tiered program and is below their monthly threshold, the cost of electricity is 9.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, which brings the charging cost for the same session to $8.59 and would require an overnight charge.
In Quebec, the household electricity rate is 6.704 cents per kWh for the first 40 kWh used in a day, averaged over a monthly cycle. A Ford F-150 Lightning Extended Range averages 29.8 kWh/100 km, so adding 400km to its 515km battery would cost $8.
Public Charging
The other way you’re likely to charge your EV is via public charging infrastructure, especially if you’re on a longer road trip. Many EV owners find convenient public chargers using NRCan’s charging locator or apps such as PlugShare.
The same types of Level 2 EV chargers you’ll use at home can often be found in public spaces such as malls or parks. These charge at a similar rate, meaning they’re intended for drivers who will stay for a few hours. Sometimes, these stations offer free charging. In other cases, you may be charged a small fee, often roughly $1.00 per hour (so not far off what you’d pay at home). However, because it’s still relatively slow, this isn’t always convenient.
If you need to juice up more quickly, look for EV charging stations that offer DC fast charging, also known as Level 3 charging. This is the EV equivalent of stopping at a gas station: you arrive with a nearly depleted battery and plug in to recover your charge relatively quickly, then you move on. Most EV drivers will spend 30 minutes to an hour at a Level 3 fast charger to get the driving range they require and will be billed for the time their cars are connected.
Not all Level 3 chargers are created equal. The Tesla supercharger network uses a proprietary system that’s exclusive to Tesla vehicles (at least for now) and has outputs of 72 kW, 150 kW, or 250 kW. Most other public Level 3 chargers use universal EV connectors, such as CCS, which is the present-day standard, or CHAdeMO, an older style of connector that is becoming obsolete. Stations with these connectors range in output from 50 kW to as high as 350 kW, though most cars are not yet capable of accepting the highest speeds. The actual speed of delivery can be affected by external factors, most notably ambient temperature, because charging is less efficient when it’s very hot or very cold.
In terms of costs, since February 2023, level 3 EV DC charging can be billed by the amount of energy used rather than the previous method of by-the-minute charging. As an example, a B.C. driver stopped at a Petro Canada charging station will pay 0.50/minute. If the car’s charge takes 45 minutes to go from 10 to 80 percent, the driver will pay $22.50 plus taxes (some networks may also charge fees).
Many charging operators, however, are moving to work on the cost-per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) basis. For example, a charger operated by ChargePoint costs $0.50 per kWh, so the cost of filling a 75kWh battery from 10 to 80 percent would be $26.25 plus taxes.
Overall, the cost per kWh varies from $0.25 per kWh to around $0.60 per kWh.
Don't be Caught by Idling Fees
To reduce premature battery wear, Level 3 charging stations slow down their charging rate once the battery reaches 80 percent. The relative cost per kWh therefore goes up the longer you leave your car on the charger. Don’t forget most public stations will charge you an idling fee if you don’t move your vehicle within a few minutes of reaching a full charge. Be sure to monitor your session so that you don’t get hit with extra costs. Most major charging networks offer an app to make it easier to keep an eye on your charging session while you’re away from the vehicle.
Conclusion
There’s no easy formula for determining the cost of charging an EV in Canada. It depends on the car you choose, where you live, and which type of vehicle charging you use most often.
For generalized figures, we can once again turn to Natural Resources Canada. According to NRCan’s 2024 Fuel Consumption Guide, the least expensive zero-emission battery electric vehicle to run is a BMW i4 eDrive35 with 18-inch wheels, which costs $557 per year over a 20,000-kilometre average—though a Tesla model 3 would run this close. The most expensive EV to charge is a a Hummer EV2X on mud tires, which has an average cost of $1,427 annually. Charging a Hyundai IONIQ 5 wwill carry an average price of $688 per year for a long-range AWD, while a Nissan Leaf SV Plus costs $605 annually on average and a Kia EV6 long range AWD would cost $694.
Even with fluctuating charging costs, that’s still a far cry from the low of $1,798 (Mitsubishi Mirage) and high of $8,874 (Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport) NRCan lists for gas-powered cars, while more fuel-efficient hybrids and plug-in hybrids fall somewhere between. Those fuel costs are based on gas prices of $1.45 per litre or $1.70/litre for premium fuel.
When you crunch your own numbers, you may find that the higher up-front cost for a battery electric vehicle is recovered within a few years through the savings you’ll see by using electricity instead of constantly refuelling a gas tank.
FAQs
How much does it cost to charge an electric car at a public charging station in Canada?
The cost of public charge points in Canada varies depending on the operator, the speed of the charger and even the time of day. It is also sometimes charged by how much time you spend hooked up and sometimes by how much energy you use.
Until 2023 all public charging points in Canada charged based on how long you were charging for. This is good if your vehicle delivers a fast charge rate, at a level 3 DC charging point, but not so great if your EV's charge rate is limited to, say 50kW. If, for example, you're at a Petro Canada charger and paying 50 cents per minute, and you're charging a car with a 75kWh battery from 10 to 80 percent, then at a draw of 50kW it will take you 62 minutes – or $31 to get that 52.5kWh of energy. If you are drawing at 200kW, the same amount of charge will take 16 minutes and so cost $8.
If, however, you're paying to charge the same battery based on how much energy you use, then the calculations change again. Most charging stations that operate in this way cost between $0.25 and $0.60 per kWh. So the same 52.5 kWh will cost between $13.13 and $31.50.
How much does it cost to charge an electric car in Canada at home?
How much your car costs to charge at home depends on the specific tariff in your area, but at time of writing and if you can take advantage of off-peak energy prices, you should be able to charge up your EV for between six and nine cents per kilowatt hour.
This means that to get around 400km of range in an average EV, you can expect it to cost somewhere between $8 and $10.