Anything over about 560 kilowatt hours a month puts you into tier 4 with California’s PG&E. Tier 4 is just over $0.40 per kilowatt hour. Tier 5 was recently lowered from over 49 cents per kwh to be the same as tier 4.
That 560 kilowatt hours per month will run your fridge, a few lights a TV and a computer, but not much else. Certainly not an electric car.
This is why it can actually make economic sense to buy a solar system in CA, but fueling an electric car in CA could end up way more expensive than gas or diesel.
We put in an 8.1 KW solar system at the Easy Street residence last year, which is expected to generate around 11.5 megawatt hours per year, and it took our PG&E bill from over $700 a month down to $100-$200 per month. (Even lower in summer months.) Adding an electric car to our stable would put us right back into the top tiers again.
Also , every few years many thousands goes to having new batteries installed, how many have Ni MHi AA cells laying around that just don’t perform very well anymore?
Outragous! Residential rates around here, including all fees and charges, are around 9.5 cents per KWH. If the tree-hugging commie, eco-fascists in your state were run off, you, too, could enjoy rates near the national average.