Charging

What it costs to charge a Tesla

There is no single answer, because the price of a kilowatt-hour depends on where you plug in, when, and on which tariff. There is a method that works for any car in any country, though. Here it is, with worked examples priced from official tables we checked on 7 October 2026.

By DashM8 · Published 7 October 2026

The method

Cost equals the energy drawn from the charger, in kWh, multiplied by the price per kWh, plus any fixed fee for the session.

The word that matters is drawn. What a charger bills, and what your home meter counts, is the energy that left the wall, not the energy that reached the battery. Some is lost on the way: in the car's on-board charger, in heating or cooling the battery, and in keeping the car's systems running while it charges. If you price the percentage your battery gained, you are pricing the energy that arrived and leaving the losses out, so the answer comes out too low.

We found no charging-loss figure on Tesla's own pages, and the loss changes with the charger, the power and the temperature, so we will not quote one. The way to know yours is to measure both ends of the same session.

Home charging, worked out

Each example below prices 50 kWh drawn from the wall. That is an example quantity, not a measurement of any car; put your own number in its place.

United States: the Energy Information Administration puts the average residential price at 18.31 cents per kWh for July 2026, a preliminary figure. 50 kWh × $0.1831 = $9.16. Your own rate can be far from the national average, so use the one on your bill.

United Kingdom: Ofgem's price cap sets the average direct-debit electricity unit rate at 26.32p per kWh from 1 October to 31 December 2026, and Ofgem notes there is no VAT on electricity in that period. 50 kWh × 26.32p = £13.16. The standing charge is paid every day whether you charge or not, so it does not belong in the cost of a session.

Türkiye: EPDK's residential low-voltage tariff, in force since 4 April 2026, is published excluding taxes. On the three-time tariff it is 4.376 TL per kWh in the day band (06-17), 6.172 TL at peak (17-22) and 2.939 TL at night (22-06); on the single-time tariff, 2.919 TL per kWh up to an average of 8 kWh a day and 4.321 TL for the part above it. The same 50 kWh costs 146.93 TL at night and 308.62 TL at peak, before taxes: the hour you plug in more than doubles the price.

Three details from the same EPDK table: your bill adds taxes on top of these prices; meters not yet set to permanent summer time use bands one hour later between the last Sunday of October and the last Sunday of March (07-18, 18-23, 23-07); and households above a consumption limit buy their energy at a separate last-resort price, which regular home charging can push you into. Check your own bill.

Supercharging

Tesla's support page says Supercharger prices differ from site to site. Owners are billed per kWh wherever possible and per minute elsewhere, some sites have peak and off-peak rates, and the rate is fixed when you plug in rather than changing during the session. Each site's price is shown on its pin on the car's touchscreen and includes taxes and fees.

Tesla does not publish one national per-kWh price on that page, for Türkiye or anywhere else, so we do not quote one either: read it off the pin before you plug in. The sum is the same, energy billed times the price on the pin, or minutes times the per-minute rate. Afterwards, Charging History in the Tesla app gives you both numbers session by session and lets you download the invoices.

Cost per kilometre

To compare with fuel, divide what a period of charging cost by the distance you drove in it. Do it over a month rather than a single session, since one charge rarely lines up with one stretch of driving, and use the energy you paid for rather than what the battery gained, or the figure will flatter the car.

How DashM8 does the sum

During each session DashM8 reads two counters from the car's stream: energy at the charger input and energy added to the battery. Where both were recorded cleanly, the session shows the loss between them; where they were not, the loss stays blank rather than guessed.

The price comes from a cost you typed, your Supercharger invoice, or the tariff you set for that place and time, all three Turkish bands included, and it is applied to the charger input whenever that was observed. Every price says where it came from. Typing a cost per session is free; tariffs by place and time are part of Pro.

Sources

Every source below was checked on 7 October 2026. Prices, tariffs and Tesla's pages change; check the source before you rely on a figure.

U.S. Energy Information Administration: Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A (July 2026 data)
Ofgem: Energy price cap: standing charges and unit rates by region
EPDK: Elektrik faturalarına esas tarife tabloları (4 Nisan 2026)
Tesla Support: Supercharging
Tesla Destek: Supercharger