Why is no one talking about how much public EV charging costs?

(KRON) — Can you believe how much gas costs? It’s become almost as common an ice breaker as talking about the weather.

Despite California having more than 1.2 million electric vehicles, what does not get a lot of talk is how much public EV charging stations are charging.

While most drivers with EVs primarily charge at home, in California, approximately 17% of EV owners don’t have access to a home charger. Those drivers must rely on public charging, just like drivers of gas cars are forced to rely on gas stations.

For those not immersed in the EV world, while gas is sold by the gallon, electricity is sold by the kilowatt-hour. Just like a gas vehicle’s tank holds a certain number of gallons, an EV’s electricity capacity is determined by the size of its battery. Typically, the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the battery (with higher range vehicles having larger batteries). Battery capacity ranges from 40 – 60 kWh for some smaller cars to 80 – 120 kWh for bigger vehicles and longer range vehicles.

When it comes to public charging, the prices vary not only from charging station to charging station, but also vary by time of day. Also affecting the price is how fast the charger can charge your car.

For example a Level 2 charger gives you up to 19.2 kW of charge per hour, while a Level 3 charger can deliver upwards of 350 kW of charge per hour. Some chargers also charge a session fee as well just for plugging in.

Combine the time of use pricing, the speed of charging, add in terminology foreign to many and take away the giant billboard style signage telling you the current price on street corners — it doesn’t make for the best water-cooler talk.

If you do want to dive into EV charger prices, here is the average public charging costs by state compiled by AAA as of July 22. They are listed in order from most expensive per kWh to least expensive. If you want to use the numbers below to figure out the fill-up, you would multiply the cost per kWh with the size of your EV battery.

For some local context, in the Bay Area, the current price as of July 22 at the Tesla charger in Mill Valley between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. is .86 cents per kWh. The station delivers charging speeds of up to 350kW.

For those who charge at home, PG&E rates are as low as .23 cents per kWh, depending on your electricity plan and the time that you charge.

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