Electric vehicle owners would be right to complain that figuring out the cost of car charging can be confusing. Our research addresses this problem head on, so policymakers can take action to avoid “pain at the pump” and ensure that electric vehicle adoption is a good financial decision.
A cornerstone of advancing electric vehicle (EV) adoption is investment in public charging stations. Charging stations are fundamental for accommodating long-distance travel, including along major highways and at destinations. Though the majority of EV charging currently happens at home and overnight, as EVs become more popular, the share of drivers who are entirely dependent on public chargers (e.g., due to lack of a home garage) will only increase. The price at the charger therefore will affect the cost of operating an EV, whether for daily use or vacation travel. Because EV adoption generally is promoted as a money-saving opportunity, if the charging prices are high enough, those savings could evaporate, in turn reducing the rates of adoption.
But what exactly are the prices that people find when they charge their EVs in public? That question currently is hard to answer, mainly because prices are not being tracked in a systematic manner. Also, charging operators have choices about how to price their services: flat rates per session, dollars per kilowatt-hour (kWh) consumed, dollars per minute or hour charged, and more. Some operators, such as Tesla, even choose to vary the charging price over the course of the day based on fluctuations in demand. Furthermore, many of these EV charging prices are not available to view online or on a phone app. For prices that actually are listed online, the display format depends on the operator’s decision of how to price their services, which produces inconsistency and reduces the ability of drivers to compare prices within and across charging networks.
Given the lack of price transparency and consistency across stations, understanding what price people actually will pay when they access a public charging station becomes important. To that end, we gathered data to evaluate charging prices across the country and how these prices vary across locations. We seek to explore two major lines of inquiry with these data:
How does the cost of public charging compare to the cost of at-home charging?
If the price difference is large (with prices at public chargers outpacing lower costs for home charging), challenges can arise with how benefits and costs get distributed across different types of households—with greater disadvantages for households that don’t have access to private charging. Specifically, EV owners who have access to a private garage are more likely to be wealthier, while those who live in multi-unit housing are less likely to have access to at-home charging and more likely to have lower incomes. Thus, higher prices paid at public chargers means that wealthier drivers likely will benefit financially much more from the adoption of an EV.
How does the cost of EV charging compare to refueling a gasoline vehicle?
Many analyses which conclude that EV charging is cheaper than gasoline fueling rely upon the assumption that individuals will charge only at home, though this assumption ignores those EV owners who have no at home charging opportunities and those who will occasionally charge en route. Quantifying how costs truly compare when EV owners access public charging will be fundamental to understanding how public-charging prices may affect the adoption of EVs, given competition with gasoline.
To begin to answer these questions, we gathered a snapshot of public data from the Alternative Fuels Data Center, which lists public pricing at a subset of charging stations across the country, from January 23, 2025. The data list the speed of the charger: either direct current fast chargers (DCFC; much faster than other options, these can almost fully recharge a vehicle in 20 minutes to an hour) or Level 2 chargers (L2; these chargers usually take 4–10 hours to recharge the battery). Because price formats are listed inconsistently, we make assumptions about battery capacity and the time required to recharge, and we convert all listed price formats as $/kWh.
Though a substantial number of chargers are listed as free in the Alternative Fuels Data Center database, station operators may stop offering free charging as demand for EVs grows, and some of these free charging stations may not be fully accessible to the public. Thus, for the purposes of this article, we focus our analyses only on stations that offer positive (non-free) prices when we calculate the cost differential for residential EV charging rates relative to gasoline refueling. By focusing only on positive prices, we can provide a more accurate depiction of how costs compare for current EV drivers who may not be able to access the free public-charging options.
Electric Vehicle Charging Prices Across the Country
We first explore how prices vary spatially. Free DCFC and L2 charging stations can be found throughout the country (Figure 1). Many of these free charging stations are subsidized by local governments or utilities to promote local EV adoption or as a public good, and some businesses may still offer free charging as an incentive for their customers. However, while charging technically may be free at these charging stations, some may require additional membership or payment for parking and use that is not reported online or in apps. For example, free charging stations may be in a parking garage with paid parking, require a purchase at the host business, or be accessible only by the employees of an office building. Notably, fewer DCFC stations are available for free because the capital costs and operational costs of these stations are much higher than for L2 chargers. Including the existing free DCFC stations in our analysis drops the average price to $0.24/kWh for DCFC chargers and $0.02/kWh for L2 chargers.
Figures 2 and 3 show prices for a subset of non-free DCFC and L2 charging stations that offer the information to the Alternative Fuels Data Center database, either averaged by county or at the station level. These maps show significant variation across locations, with prices varying from just a few cents to over $1/kWh for DCFC, and to over $0.40/kWh for L2. Excluding free stations, the average price to charge an EV is $0.43/kWh for DCFC chargers and $0.30/kWh for L2 chargers.
Comparing Prices for Public and Private Charging
We now look at how these prices for public EV charging compare to residential electricity rates, which represent the price of at-home charging. We utilized data from the US Energy Information Administration, which provides electricity prices at the level of electric service providers, to calculate prices at the county level. Our analysis ignores the fact that home pricing may be subject to much lower overnight rates through time-of-use off-peak pricing. We calculate average price differentials as the difference between the average $/kWh rate at a public station and the average $/kWh rate for at-home charging. Figures 4 and 5 show significant variation across the country, with lower price differentials found in California and some parts of New York State.
After excluding data from a few stations that offer atypically high prices, we find an average price differential of $0.24/kWh for DCFC and $0.09/kWh for L2 charging relative to at-home charging. Differences in price can be extremely high at some charging stations, such as certain DCFC stations in Warren County, New York ($0.37/kWh); Monroe County, Florida ($0.39/kWh); and Gillespie County, Texas ($0.47/kWh).
Comparing the Cost of Electric Vehicle Charging vs. Gasoline Refueling
Finally, we explore the difference in cost between EV charging and gasoline refueling (Table 1). Most EV owners will use some combination of at-home, DCFC, and L2 charging; however, we assume that the driver uses just one of these options when we calculate the average cost of charging an EV.
We find that the average cost of charging an EV can range from $844 to $1,843 per year, depending on whether the charging happens at home, at a DCFC station, or through L2 charging. On the other hand, refueling with gasoline costs an average $1,655 per year. These results imply that EV owners can save an average $811 per year if they charge at home, whereas an EV owner may end up spending $188 more if they charge their EV only at DCFC stations away from home. The amount saved or incurred can vary significantly across locations (Figure 6). (For these calculations, we’ve used a conservative average EV fuel efficiency of 3 miles/kWh and gasoline vehicle fuel efficiency of 27.2 miles/gallon. The data for average fuel efficiency come from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administration.)
Clearly, home charging is the most financially viable option in terms of reducing the costs associated with EV operation. With public EV charging, and in particular DCFC, the cost is much higher and can exceed the costs associated with operating and refueling gasoline vehicles. Though installing an L2 charger in a garage can cost between $800 and $2,000, the benefits accrue quickly, providing a possible one-year payback period if the EV owner otherwise would use DCFC chargers exclusively.
Conclusions
We have shown that charging at public stations can be costly, yet further research would do well to answer some lingering questions.
Do people know what they will pay to charge their car if they purchase an EV?
Fuel economy labels, which are issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency, provide information for car buyers about the cost of EV charging and potential cost savings. But these labels assume a low refueling price; the agency’s guidance to vehicle manufacturers regarding fuel economy labels for model years 2025 and 2026 assumes an electricity price of $0.17/kWh, which is about half the likely price for public charging. Whether the potential realization of higher charging costs results in buyer’s remorse will be important to understand.
Are EV owners being educated about how costs differ based on where and how they may charge their car?
If sellers do not provide this information to car buyers, a potential outcome may include suboptimal financial decisionmaking about where, when, and at which speed the new owner ends up charging their EV.
What are the biggest contributors to high prices at public charging stations?
Quantifying the role of different policies (e.g., reduced commercial electric tariffs, incentives for market entry, requirements for price transparency and price formatting) in helping to reduce the price of public EV charging can help policymakers understand which policies may facilitate the lowest charging rates. For example, how do underlying commercial electric tariffs affect public charging prices, and what factors can lead to decreased costs for public charging?
Ultimately, does the price of public charging actually matter?
Specifically, are EV owners sensitive to prices at public charging stations? To what extent do EV drivers switch between public and private charging when prices increase? Understanding the degree to which high charging prices reduce demand (or not) will provide charging-station operators with key information to ensure that the stations are profitable and remain in business.
We are in the process of collecting more data for charging prices, charger utilization, and other useful variables, which will allow us to make progress in answering these questions. Unless we see more price transparency, gain a better understanding of the prices that EV owners will pay to recharge their vehicles, and learn how policies will affect these charging prices, “pain at the pump” soon could shift from a gas-station woe to an EV reality.
A version of this article appeared in print in the Spring 2025 issue of Resources magazine.
