How much does it cost to charge a Tesla at home

Plug a Tesla in overnight in Denver and Xcel Energy prints the bill. Plug the same car in at a Highlands Ranch garage and CORE Electric Cooperative does. United Power covers a lot of the north metro. Longmont Power and Communications bills inside Longmont. How much does it cost to charge a Tesla here isn’t one number. It starts with who meters your wall.

A charging cable plugged into an electric car on a roadside shoulder

Four utilities, four Tesla bills

The Denver metro isn’t one electric company. Xcel Energy covers the core city and most of Boulder County. That’s the Public Service Company of Colorado. That includes Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, Golden, Wheat Ridge, Littleton, Englewood, and Greenwood Village. Boulder, Louisville, Superior, and Lafayette sit on Xcel too. So do Idaho Springs, Georgetown, and Empire along Clear Creek.

CORE Electric Cooperative owns the south-metro Douglas County corridor. Centennial, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Parker, Castle Rock, and Castle Pines usually sit on CORE. So do The Pinery, Stonegate, Roxborough Park, Bennett, and Conifer.

United Power owns much of the north and northeast. It’s the electric utility for Brighton and it serves Commerce City. Thornton, Northglenn, Westminster, Arvada, Broomfield, and Erie are split street by street with Xcel. Two neighbors can see two different Tesla charging bills.

Longmont Power and Communications is the City of Longmont’s municipal utility. Rebate and rate questions there go to the City, not Xcel.

If you live in a split city, confirm the utility by street address. Our panel upgrade guide walks the same four-utility map.

Time-of-use is what actually moves the bill

Each utility publishes its own time-of-use plan. The rate on your statement doesn’t stay put.

Xcel’s residential time-of-use option is RE-TOU. Xcel also lists EV Accelerate At Home, Optimize Your Charge, Charging Perks, and a Residential EV Rebate. Confirm what’s open on Xcel’s EV pages before you count on a program.

United Power’s time-of-use rate is RTD1, with Simple Saver scheduling. United EV is a ChargePoint Home Flex charger on a monthly service agreement. United also names an EV Make-Ready Wiring Rebate and an EV Home Charge Panel Upgrade Rebate. This page won’t guess the credit amounts.

CORE members can enroll in COREV Connect, which ties an EV or charger to CORE’s platform. CORE’s own page says COREV Charge is at capacity and closed to new applications. CORE also publishes COREV Community Charge as the member rate at CORE public chargers. Check core.coop before you assume it’s still open.

Longmont’s program is the LPC EV Charger Rebate, plus City public Level 2 charging.

Run the math on your own statement

Take pack size in kilowatt-hours. Multiply by the per-kWh rate on your latest bill. Then add charging losses between the wall and the pack.

A Model 3 Long Range sits around 75 kWh. A Model Y Long Range is in the same neighborhood. A Model S or Model X pack runs closer to 100 kWh. Heat and conversion eat roughly 10 to 15 percent of wall energy. Add that before you multiply.

That’s the number that belongs to your house. It isn’t a statewide average, and it isn’t last year’s figure from a different utility. Pull the rate from the bill you already get. Then rerun it when the utility updates the schedule.

How empty you start matters as much as pack size. A 20-to-80 percent top-off on a Model 3 is a smaller draw. Filling a Model X from near empty is a bigger one.

What else moves a home Tesla charge

Timing is the biggest lever most owners control. Overnight windows on time-of-use plans are usually cheaper than late-afternoon peak. Xcel’s RE-TOU and United Power’s RTD1 both exist so that shift is possible. CORE and Longmont publish their own peak and off-peak hours. Don’t borrow a friend’s schedule from another utility.

January nights along the Front Range sit near an 18-degree normal low. Recurrent Auto studied more than 30,000 U.S. EVs in winter. Packs kept about 78 percent of max range at 32 degrees. At 20 degrees that was about 70 percent on average. You use more kilowatt-hours to cover the same commute. The bill follows the kilowatt-hours.

A Level 1 overnight plug can cover a short daily loop. A 240-volt Level 2 is what most owners use for a real fill. Home 240-volt versus a roadside boost is compared here.

Superchargers, public stalls, and a different bill

Home Level 2 on your off-peak rate is usually the cheapest path. A Tesla Supercharger or another DC fast stall is priced for speed.

Tesla Superchargers sit in Denver, Park Meadows, Centennial, Highlands Ranch, Boulder, Castle Rock, and Idaho Springs. EVgo and Electrify America add DC fast coverage as well. Those networks set their own per-session pricing. This page won’t invent it. Check the app on the stall in front of you.

For dwell time, see how long a Tesla takes to charge.

A roadside charge isn’t your utility bill

If the pack hits zero on I-25, Peña Boulevard, or C-470, you’re not on a home rate. A mobile rescue operator brings a 240-volt Level 2 source to the car. That typically adds 10 to 20 miles of range in 15 to 30 minutes of charging. Those minutes are charging time, never an arrival time.

The operator quotes you before starting and bills you directly. Distance, range needed, and charge time move that quote. Charge Pro DEN is a referral line. We match you with independent local operators. We don’t set the price. Who quotes a mobile charge covers that split.

CDOT Safety Patrol can jump a 12-volt and change a tire on covered freeway segments. Its published pages don’t mention bringing a charge to a stranded EV. For the metro map, start at EV charging in the Denver metro.

If you’re already stuck, call (720) 738-6950 and we’ll connect you with an operator who can quote the boost before they start.

Frequently asked questions