Still not doing it? Here’s the trick that can make charging your electric car cheaper

It’s already a lot cheaper to run an electric vehicle (EV) than a gas-powered car, with a 2020 Consumer Reports study indicating that EV drivers shell out around 60 percent less a year on fuel costs than their fossil fuel driven equivalents.

But if you want to make that difference count even more and ensure the lowest costs for charging your electric car, you’re going to want to have a think about employing this one neat trick.

How to lower charging costs for your EV

One slow, but sure, way to lower EV charging costs is to install a slow charging point at home (if you can of course). First of all, slow chargers are generally cheaper to install than their fast charging brethren, but more importantly, they charge less per unit of energy as you charge your car.

To make it work well you need to be charging your car over a number of hours, so it needs to be parked there for a while, but that just happens to work to most people’s advantage. The cheapest electricity costs are overnight, when the power grid is under less demand. So if don’t use your car at night, plug it into your slow charger while you’re recharging your batteries and wake up in the morning to a fully charged car, and lower charging costs. Note that it can take up to five hours to fully charge your car, so you’ll need to plan around that.

Of course a slow charger is far slower than top of the range fast chargers, which can boost batteries by 50% in half-an-hour, but provided you can live without that, it’s a cheaper option, and to top it all off, slow charging is reckoned to be better for battery life. Win, win.

Other tips to get cheaper EV charging

Another thing you could install at home to get cheaper charging are solar panels. Charging your car in the middle of the day when solar energy production is at its peak could nearly eliminate the cost of electricity, and if you connect your system to a battery you can also charge at night by storing the power of the sun.

While you’re out and about make sure you take advantage of free and cheap charging where available. There is often free public charging stations at places like hotels, shopping centers, or even national parks.

Download apps such as Plugshare, Zapmap and Recargo, which are aimed at helping you find your best, nearest charging point.