Electric Bill

I've been driving a 2011 Nissan Leaf for the past few months as a long-term rental.

The week of Thanksgiving, I moved into a 3 bedroom home with a roommate.

After I had been there about a month, she got her electric bill. The electric bill covered the period from Nov 11 to Dec 11, and she says that it was over $200. She said that was $100 more than her bill would normally be, and she was attributing the increase to the car.

Well, I noted the fact that I didn't move in until Nov 23, so how could my car add $100 to her electric bill over a two week period? I suggested that she call her electric company and find out how much the bill was from Nov 11 until the date I moved in on Nov 23. She never got back to me.

Then today, she says that she got her new electric bill, which covered from Dec 11 to Jan 11, and it was $379! Which she blames on the Nissan Leaf.

My argument was that I did not drive the car much from Dec 19 to Jan 5, because I'm a teacher and we were on Winter break during that time. HOWEVER, her sister and I had the heat on while she was out of town. We're in Houston and this is an older home. Her sister and I tend to prefer it to be warmer in the house than my roommate does.

However the heat works very strangely. When it comes on the house becomes uncomfortably hot. So much so that I have to put the ceiling fan on. But when the heat cuts off, within two hours the house is drafty again. I'm always cold in here and can't wait until the weather warms up again. The thermostat is set to 69 degrees but it behaves as though it is set to 85 degrees.

She says she has lived in the house for a year and recently switched her electric company, and that when the bill goes over $200, it causes the delivery charges to also increase. Hence a higher bill.

One point she made is that the Leaf kept using current even though I wasn't driving it much, because I kept it plugged in. I'm taking the time to write all of this out because we just had a big argument about it and now I have to pay half of the electric bill. Even though my rent that I pay her each month was supposed to include all utilities, though I agreed to pay $50 a month extra to cover the car.

Sorry so long, just looking for input from people with more experience. I'm also disappointed because I'm going to have to give the Leaf back at the end of this rental period rather than pay such a high bill. Thanks in advance.

Wow; what is your utility charging for electricity, and how many miles are you driving a month, at what average miles per KWh? What arrangement do you have for charging your LEAF? Some EVSE units measure and report the amount of energy they dispense; if yours is one of these, add up the useage for a few weeks or a month, and see what fraction of your household total that is. If that's not possible, maybe your utility is keeping time-of-day energy useage statistics for your service, like Portland General Electric does for me. They offer various online graphs that are about as badly organized as you could imagine; Ithe only way I can see my energy vs time is to inspect each day's record - there's no "cumulative for week/month" display. But picking a weekday at random, I can easily see the7KWh draw from my 5:00 AM charge timer session against the roughly 1KWh-every-four-hours or so. If you set up your LEAF to charge exclusively on a timer during the wee smalls, it's not too hard to see the car's use against the background of the normal household consumption.

I drive a pretty consistent 20 miles per day, at somewhere around 4miles/KWh (reported by the car consumed from the battery, so not including charging inefficiency) recharged at home, for about $25 to $30/month.

Your car is costing a few cents per mile, maybe even 5 cents a mile if your electricity is expensive. If your roommate thinks it is costing more than that he/she is ignorant and possibly stupid.

You can try to educate or you can look for another place to live.

Either way I wouldn't be paying for heat based on the fact that I had an electric car.

How many kWhs does the bill show for the month?
How many miles did you drive?
What state?
What electric company?
Get a copy of last years bill to compare it to this year.

I think something else is in play.

dhanson865 said:

Your car is costing a few cents per mile, maybe even 5 cents a mile if your electricity is expensive.

Click to expand...

The marginal rate of driving an EV of 5 cents/mile is way too low if you live in PG&E land. http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is our current non-TOU schedule. I'm on E-6 Smart (http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false.

We've had some discussion of rate tiers and baselines at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=17109&start=10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I'm in area X, code B (http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/saveenergymoney/financialassistance/medicalbaseline/understand/index.page" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false so in "winter" my allocated baseline is 11.7 kWh/day. So, if in a month, I use more than 351 kWh, the portions above start getting more expensive and get quite high once I'm past 201% of baseline.

Care to list a typical month's usage in kWh and the total cost for the electric portion? I can recalculate for you as if you were on PG&E tier 1 for my area. You'll then probably understand the ire about PG&E.

OP, we REALLY need more information. Please answer smkettner.

If the utility has time of use rates with peak demand charges, charging on peak can be expensive. For example, I have peak demand charges that would increase my bill by about $50.00 if I charged the 2011 LEAF (3.3 kW charger with input demand of 3.7 kW) for an hour on peak once during the month. The 2015 SL that I will be getting soon would result in a demand charge of about $90.00 (over 6 kW input) for an hour of on peak charging. Needless to say, I only charge off peak at home and use a public DCQC if I need to charge during on peak hours. I drive about 1,200 miles per month for between $30.00 and $45.00 in off peak electricity.

If you post details about your utility's residential rate plan, we can help you estimate how much your LEAF is adding to the monthly bill.

Gerry

You have an ignorant, or dishonest roommate, man. :?

A long term rental? That's a new one on me. Normally, I'd say use a sub-meter, but not in your case. How much longer will you have it?

Houston? Look on http://www.plugshare.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for public EVSE, there are plenty in your area. Sounds like you don't drive much anyway, so why not just charge it away from home while you still have it and remove all source of conflict? It may be more effort to charge at a public station, but you won't have stress about it at home.

I didn't notice Houston until now, but TX (IIRC) has traditionally pretty cheap electricity, unlike PG&E.

Wow, thank you for all the replies!

Keep in mind I'm just renting the car so there's a lot I still don't know. I have been learning though from Googling and in forums like this.

As far as my usage, my job is about 11 miles from the house. However the mileage on the display seems to go down a lot faster than my actual mileage, especially when I do highway miles and/or have the heat on.

The last two days have warmed up, but otherwise it's been pretty chilly in Houston the last two months or so.

I try not to turn on the heat, but there were a few mornings when even the windshield was frosted over.

As far as the electric bill, it's her account so I'm not sure. I wish there was a way that I could find out details about how much the utilities were at this address last year.

As far as the car, I don't know how to check the kwh usage. Maybe someone can "point" me in the right direction.

A few more details:

I'm a teacher so I work during the day, most days late. I get home in the evening, and I'm using the simple plug-in charger that came with the car. I plug it into the outlet by the front door.

The next morning, I get up and go to work.

On the weekends, I'm usually home all weekend, or I get up early and I'm back in the evening.

So most of my charging is at night.

However, I do tend to leave the plug in. She says this may be part of the problem.

You don't say how much your electricity costs per kWh, or how many miles you drive per week/month, but up here in Dallas I pay about $.02 - $.03 per mile for electricity for the LEAF, depending on efficiency. I can't imagine that your cost per mile is higher than $.05 per mile.

You could use $.05 as a high number for estimating your monthly electricity costs, so 500 miles = $25.00, and 1,000 miles = $50.00. Any more than $.05 per mile would be ridiculous.

Okay, let's say on a typical day, I drove to work, stopped off to pick up groceries, then drove home.

Let's be generous and say it was 45 miles a day. It wasn't, but I want to look at a "worse-case scenario".

So 45 miles a day multiplied by 30 days is 1,350 miles per month.

Multiplied by 0.05 cents per mile would be $67.50 per month.

She says the name of her electric company is Gexa Energy. I'm checking out their rate plan now.

She really should just show you the bill IF she expects you to pay half.
Leaving the Leaf plugged in shouldn't add much, if any power.

How much colder has it been this winter than last?
Any neighbors with similar houses? If so, see if they are willing to share their electric costs.

Finding out the rate structure will tell you a lot.

Your car doesn't use any electricity when it's plugged in and fully charged. Think about a lamp - it's always plugged in, right? It doesn't use any electricity when it's plugged in and not turned on.

Your car has an odometer. It will tell you how many miles you've driven. Don't take your longest day and multiply by 30. If this is a long term rental, your paperwork tells you how many miles it had on it when you picked it up.

Unless your battery is too cold or you have setup the automatically climate control, the car will not demand any additional charge once is fully charged. Is the house heating electrical or gas? If it is electrical, this could be the problem. The house may not be insulated enough and not efficient. When you get home, check how long will take your car to charge via the car on board calculator. Multiply this by 1.44 kw and you will know how many kw it used. Multiply this by how much your company charges for the kwh during the time your car is charging. I am not sure if you could install a kill a watt device on the evse. http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe other members can let you know about the kill a watt device using the leaf evse. Good luck

The car isn't the main driver here. In a normal situation, the cost of heating water and washing/drying clothes goes up quite obviously when additional folks move in. On top of that it sounds like the home has a bad thermostat that doesn't hold the heat steady which is a major drain on the electric heating bill. There could also be unsealed ducting.

Try calling the electric company and see about an audit or survey of the home's systems. I wouldn't get into a blame and counter blame situation as there are more than likely various factors involved here of which the car is a minor contributor although it has become the focus of the matter.

There is a metering device that will show how much electricity you are using. A Killawatt meter will measure and accumulate the total KWHr of whatever is plugged into it for around $20. It will lose the information when you unplug the Killawatt from the wall so read it before you unplug. There is a version of the Killawatt that retains the readings for a while after it's unplugged.

Good luck and measurements may help you understand the energy use of your rental LEAF.

The power company should be able to tell you what days had the heaviest usage, and perhaps even what times. That should allow for some detective work. If the bill is high on days/times you didn't charge, then the Leaf is not the culprit.

Gexa Energy? What is that some 3rd party reseller that promised her the bill would drop in half?

I would ask to see the past 14 months of bills if she wants to collect more than the stated $50.