Average Cost to Charge an Electric Car 2026

The cost to fully charge an electric car is typically around £20, but ranges from as little as £6 (e.g. Fiat 500e Hatchback 24 kWh) up to £30 or more (e.g. luxury Lotus Eletre, Mercedes-Benz EQS, BMW iX xDrive60, etc.), assuming the unit cost of electricity is 27.69 pence per kWh (the effective cap in early 2026). But those with an EV electricity tariff can potentially pay 70% less to charge their cars.

In addition to your EV tariff, charging costs largely depend on the size of the car battery. A smaller battery is like a smaller petrol tank, in that it takes less energy to 'fill up'. (And on a related note: because smaller batteries store less energy, they deliver less range.)

The battery size for EVs in the UK ranges from the smallest batteries at just 24kWh (e.g. Fiat 500e) up to the largest batteries with 118kWh (e.g. Mercedes ESQ 450+) or more as new cars come into the market.

Cost to Fully Charge an Electric Car UK

We've checked the range and battery size on hundreds of UK vehicles, from budget cars to high-end luxury models, and found the following that EV charging costs typically fall around £20, but range from £6 to £33 for a full charge on a standard home electricity tariff.

But those with a special EV/time of use tariff could potentially pay ~70% less to charge their cars, bringing the typical cost for a non-luxury EV down to £4.63 from £18.30:

Luxury cars typically have larger batteries, so cost more to charge—but they deliver more range as a result. On the other hand, non-luxury cars usually deliver less range, having smaller batteries that cost less to charge.

Essentially, the longer the car range, the more it costs to achieve a full charge. The following chart shows how the costs of a full charge increase with car range (notice the strong trend line):

We can also look more into how the cost to charge an electric car changes for specific battery sizes. For example, a car with an advertised battery size of 30 kWh will cost around £8 to fully charge at home on a standard tariff (depending on how much of the battery is 'usable'); a 100 kWh battery would cost up to around £27 to charge (i.e. 100kWh battery times 27.69p/kWh cost of electricity).

An additional consideration is where you charge. Using a public charge point can be very expensive, especially for ultra-fast charging. For example, Ionity ultra-rapid EV charging costs from 79 pence per kWh—around 3X the cost of standard tariff home charging.

Electric Car Charging Cost Per Mile

Per mile, electric cars cost around 8.2 pence to power in the current higher-electricity-cost environment on a regular electricity tariff. (Note, despite rising electricity costs, this is still about half the cost per mile of a petrol car!) Heavy, luxury cars cost more—around 8.4 pence per mile—while lighter-weight, non-luxury cars cost around 8.0 pence per mile to charge, on average.

But if you have an EV tariff (e.g. paying ~7p/kWh for electricity), you might be able to pay as little as 2p/mile, saving ~70% on your charging costs, as you can see in the following comparison:

These figures were calculated in line with the following example:

A vehicle with a 50kWh usable battery can travel an average of around 170 miles. At an electricity price of 27.69p/kWh, a 50kWh battery costs around £14 to fill up (.2769*50). The cost per mile is calculated by dividing the cost to fill the tank (£14) by the range (170 miles) yielding £0.083/mile.

Charging an EV on an EV Tariff

Those with a time of use tariff providing cheaper nighttime electricity rates will be able to charge their EVs for even less. For example, Octopus has an EV tariff of just 7p/kWh, which is around 70% cheaper than the going cost of electricity. This means you could charge your EV for 70% less, or potentially as little as 2p per mile (see more detail in the previous section).

Any questions, please let us know in the comments box below!

Shortcomings

The figures in this article are estimates to give our readers an idea of electric car charging costs. In the sections on luxury and non-luxury cars, we adjusted the battery capacity to reflect 'usable' battery capacity, because not all of a battery is usable. On average, the usable battery is 93% of the battery capacity of an electric car. To calculate the cost to fully charge a car, we therefore multiplied the advertised battery capacity of a car by 93% to find the usable capacity, then applied the unit cost of electricity. This is not an exact science, but should give a good ballpark sense of charging costs.

Data

The following figures are based on home electricity charging costs of 27.69p/kWh: