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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

These days with even off-peak being 40-80c / kWh the best way to charge EVs (which are mostly owned by homeowners) seems to be to bypass the grid and charge using rooftop solar during the middle of the day (or time shifted using battery storage).

Obv. not possible for renters or condo owners or for people who can install solar.

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> Obv. not possible for renters or condo owners or for people who can install solar.

That can be as much as 67% or more of the households in large Metro areas. This is really why I think EV adoption is a pipe dream. It is probably a boon for the grid as well.

65-70% of all dwellings are single-family homes. So most will be eligible for EVs.

I couldn’t actually believe it but I guess the default state of the vast majority of the country is sprawl.

Where do you live with power costs that high? My power is about 11c/kWh (Chicago).

California - where the power utilities are being bailed out by their customers through massive rate hikes

Chicago has some of the cheapest electricity in the world. Thanks comed for building all the nukes.

What? Lots of states have cheaper rates than that:

https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/

And none of them are anywhere near 40-80c, so maybe that commenter is in another country.

Although your bill might only show one bundled price depending on who supplies and delivers your electricity, the cost of electricity in the US usually includes both a "supply" or "generation" charge and a "delivery" charge. Based on what I'm seeing on that page I think it's almost certainly only showing the electric supply rates, not the combined total of supply + delivery.

I don't live in California so the nuances are lost on me, but it looks like for SF county the residential delivery rate is about 19c/kWh, the supply rate ranges from roughly 12-16c/kWh, and "surcharges" are 0-1c/kWh, for a total of 31-37c/kWh. For San Diego county the delivery rate is 25-26c/kWh, the supply rate is 15-18c/kWh, and surcharges are 2-5c/kWh, with a total of 45-46c/kWh.[1]

[1] https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/RateComparison

Fair point, but SD in particular also has some of the highest electricity costs in the US. This BLS data seems to be the actual cost to consumers, and the average is $0.17: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...

To be clear when I said 0.11/kWh in Chicago I was giving the total price, including both the supply and delivery.

California has some ridiculously expensive power costs. I moved to Chicago in 2021 after living in the bay area for 11 years, and the amount I spent on electricity absolutely plummeted.

I’m speaking about ComEd in Chicagoland specifically.

I’m currently paying 1.1 cent per kWh.

https://hourlypricing.comed.com/live-prices/five-minute-pric...

Many cars are not at home during the middle of the day though.

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