Increases in your electricity bills?

[Noplacelikeloam]

I pay 9c off peak which comes out to about $13 0-100%. Each month I probably spend $40 on charging. This is almost free compared to the $300+ I was paying for gas to fuel my raptor.

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[DeafPug]

Curious if anyone has had an extremely large power bill after leaving R1T plugged in over weekend after charging from 50%-70%? I have a ticket open on this but did that 3 weekends and got a huge PGE bill (of course i mention PGE which could tell alot.......

What's a "large power bill" to you? How many kWh was the total bill for you? How many kWh were used in the previous month? How many kWh were used in the same month last year? How many miles did you drive your Rivian (and any other EVs in your household).

Since you mention PGE and are in California, you likely have TOU (Time of Use) electricity rates. If you didn't tell the Rivian to only charge overnight during the off-peak rates, it could have tried topping off the battery during the day, which is the peak rates that are maybe 4x the rates of charging overnight. Even charging during peak rates, electricity should be considerably less than buying gas for a similar pickup.

The Rivian can't just consume electricity. The energy has to go somewhere. If it didn't go into the battery, it would have gone to heat, so your garage would have been hot.

 

[ggood]

All great questions and points i looked at.....think we figured it out will report Monday after PGE visit. They did some remote troubleshooting on the meter and think it is bad. Order put in to replace

Rivian is going over charging history and looking into the charger possibly not shutting off which to me and per your thoughts makes no sense as it has to go to a load of some sort...

It could also be our Powerwall CT configuration got scrambled during a firmware update. Tesla phone rep was a whiz and some! PGE said if meter is bad, full refund of delta over 3 yr avg for the month!

-Bill for one month $3806!
-We have solar and a Powerwall and normally our monthly elect is $11-16 per month with annual true up of $400-480
-Yes I make sure the R1T parked outside is asleep--- no PAK on phone at home and keys in Faraday box ...learned that one 16 mo ago after week 1
-typical monthly use 350-360 kwh
-solar production in this same month year over year (with reduction over time effic of panels 650-675 kwh
we are on time of use via Tesla app.

if you have any other thoughts wide open ears here.....stay tuned but definitely not charging after completion and a sleeping Rivian when not on road driving besides this one off my truck has been a champ #8___. and tonneau works well as long as i lube with dry lube once a month. benefit is that affords a well needed zen 30 minutes when no one can see where i am and its very dark and quiet .

 

[BigSkies]

All great questions and points i looked at.....think we figured it out will report Monday after PGE visit. They did some remote troubleshooting on the meter and think it is bad. Order put in to replace

Rivian is going over charging history and looking into the charger possibly not shutting off which to me and per your thoughts makes no sense as it has to go to a load of some sort...

It could also be our Powerwall CT configuration got scrambled during a firmware update. Tesla phone rep was a whiz and some! PGE said if meter is bad, full refund of delta over 3 yr avg for the month!

-Bill for one month $3806!
-We have solar and a Powerwall and normally our monthly elect is $11-16 per month with annual true up of $400-480
-Yes I make sure the R1T parked outside is asleep--- no PAK on phone at home and keys in Faraday box ...learned that one 16 mo ago after week 1
-typical monthly use 350-360 kwh
-solar production in this same month year over year (with reduction over time effic of panels 650-675 kwh
we are on time of use via Tesla app.

if you have any other thoughts wide open ears here.....stay tuned but definitely not charging after completion and a sleeping Rivian when not on road driving besides this one off my truck has been a champ #8___. and tonneau works well as long as i lube with dry lube once a month. benefit is that affords a well needed zen 30 minutes when no one can see where i am and its very dark and quiet .

I installed a home energy monitor, and it’s been very valuable for finding energy users and troubleshooting various electrical issues.

 

[iansriv]

I have a 14kWh Tesla solar system and three Powerwalls. We charge the Y and R1T about once a week. Peak winter rate here is $ 0.11/kWh. We charge the vehicles from 10pm to 4am when the rate is $.06/kWh. With Net Metering, our bill each month is $15...the grid hook-up minimum.

Effectively the sun charges the vehicles but more importantly the house, shop, garage, well, Starlink and irrigation system pump are all backed-up when the grid goes down.

Snap! I have solar too. Also, have free charging at work. First car that I'm literally driving for free.

 

[TollKeeper]

My bill averages about 230 a month winter, and 350 a month summer.

Although I have only had my Rivian for 4 months now, my electric bill has gone done about $10 a month so far. I got rid of a Jacuzzi at the same time I got the Rivian, so at this point I am saving $10 a month for that trade off.

That said, I drive about 1250 miles a month so far. I am averaging 2.12 kWh on my R1S.
I drive 39 miles a day to and from work.
My cost per kWh is $0.105 (no net metering, its that cost 24 hours a day)
Its costing me about $2.50 a day, Mon-Fri, to drive to and from work.
(if my math is right)

I did have a cost of about $9.00 a day to drive to and from work on my ICE.
Plus, I am no longer spending the $180 a month on my monthly gas bill for the same amount of driving on my ICE.

 

[DeafPug]

-Bill for one month $3806!

OK, I'd agree that almost everyone would call that a "large electric bill". Even with higher than average peak rates in CA, that's something on the order of 10,000 kWh consumed, which is crazy high for a residential account. 10,000 kWh in a month (720 hours - 24 hours, 30 days) is 13.8 kW continuous for the whole month. That sure does sound like a meter issue and it sounds like PGE will make you whole. Good luck!

 

[ggood]

As Chief Dan George said …. “We shall continue to persevere!” thanks all for thoughts and

sharing

 

[Riptide]

I installed a home energy monitor, and it’s been very valuable for finding energy users and troubleshooting various electrical issues.

What energy monitor did you install? Link?

 

[BigSkies]

What energy monitor did you install? Link?

I've used both the Emporia and the Sense.

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with both of them. The Emporia gives you good data at the circuit level so you can see how much the EV is using, hvac, etc. However, their UI is terrible and it's not really useful for tracking down energy-wasters.

The Sense uses AI to try and detect things at the device level based on usage patterns when a device turns on/off. This makes it much easier to set up (you only need sensors on your main power instead of each circuit), and it can get much more granular data when it actually detects something. The UI is really good for both viewing usage and understanding your homes energy use. You can use the energy monitor to see what happens to energy use when you turn a device on/off, even if it's something Sense hasn't detected yet.

That being said, the device detection algorithm isn't great. It will never detect your Rivian. It also struggles with anything that has a variable-speed motor (like my heat-pump). So even though it has detected a lot of devices in my house, the vast majority of my energy usage will never be detected.

 

[jeeden]

Our costs are about 25% of what gas would be so we pay around $50-$60 a month and would normally pay $200-$250 for gas. My wife has a short commute, but we runf the wheels off it on the weekend with errands, kids sports, etc. we do a few road trip each summer, but mostly all of our charging is at home. Our power is pretty cheap at $.127 cents per kwh loaded (includes taxes and fees)

 

[Supratachophobia]

Just wondering what new R1T owners are experiencing in terms of increased electricity bills when charging at home. How often are you charging and how much are your bills increasing? The real question is whether or not I should invest in solar. I know there are many factors to consider, but if our bills are going to increase substantially, it might be worth it. Just curious!

Solar enables me to drive for $0 per mile. My TCO is tires and insurance.

 

[Mathme]

We paid about $150 last month for electricity and that includes two electric cars, the house, swim spa, and a jacuzzi. The only reason we have that low of a rate is because we have solar with a battery backup.

Getting solar just to lower your electric rates to charge your car is a losing proposition when you add in the cost of the system. However, adding solar (and in our case a 10kWh battery backup) does add the following benefits:

1. This is a physical improvement to your house that when time comes to sell it will increase the value of the house AND the amount of profit you can write down as far as taxes.
2. Adding a battery to the system will essentially make your house an independent grid if/when the power goes out. Typically, because of the current cost of batteries, you don't install enough batteries to run the entire house when the power is out, you just run critical circuits (some lights, refrigeration, etc. that you define during the project)
3. We also have the battery configured to power our circuits during the hours when our electric rates go up each day. Currently that's about 4-5 kWh of use that we don't pay to the power company. In the winter, I configure the battery to stay in backup mode (at 100% SoC) as that's when we typically have a greater chance of power outages.

When we looked at solar we asked our broker about the Tesla Powerwall and he said he can do it but he doesn't like it because the batteries, inverters, and controllers and their associated software are all sourced form different companies and usually at the lowest cost. We went with Enphase which builds all three components and they tend to be more stable. Enphase is also a US company based in CA.

Also if you're going to go the solar route, work with a good broker. Ours found us a program that gives a 25 year warranty, and a 25 year loan with 0 down and 0% interest. When we sell of the house, the title company just pays off the balance of that loan (like any other on the house).

 

[gordonherbert]

Just wondering what new R1T owners are experiencing in terms of increased electricity bills when charging at home. How often are you charging and how much are your bills increasing? The real question is whether or not I should invest in solar. I know there are many factors to consider, but if our bills are going to increase substantially, it might be worth it. Just curious!

I talked with a neighbor who is a solar contractor and he said it would take 20
or so years to justify a solar installation for one EV. But if you integrated it into a whole-house installation and live in the right area, it might make more sense.

 

[jbl911]

Solar enables me to drive for $0 per mile. My TCO is tires and insurance.

Solar is not free either. but yes solar is the way to go once you recoup your installation/equipment cost, while utilities continue to increase in price.

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