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searealisttoday at 5:04 PM1 replyview on HN

It's easy to have your EV only charge off-peak, though. It's just a setting.


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rootusrootustoday at 5:21 PM

My point is that the tradeoff to get off-peak pricing is that on-peak is way, way more expensive. So you can charge the EV off-peak to maximize the savings, but everything else you do during on-peak time costs way more.

Using myself as an example:

I adjust my A/C to run outside of 5pm-9pm (peak) if at all possible, we try to avoid pointless high-draw usage during that same window, and both of our EVs hold off charging until after 9pm.

My rate from 5pm-9pm is 0.43/kWh. My rate after 9pm is 0.09/kWh. The flat rate alternative, if I did not want to worry about time of day, would be 0.21/kWh. These prices are all-in, including transmission and distribution/whatever.

It would be dishonest to say that my EVs only cost me 0.09/kWh to operate, which on it's face is a claim to paying over 50% less. In reality, time of day pricing typically saves me somewhere between 10% and 15% in an average month compared with flat rate.

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