How to charge your EV for free — at home
Understand electricity tariffs, charging speeds, and cost-saving strategies for smart EV charging with our guide to free home EV charging.
Want to get started smart charging? Get a quote now.
Thinking about ditching petrol and going electric? Good call. EVs don’t just cut emissions — they can cut your power bill too. With the right charger and electricity plan, you can charge your EV for free, or close to it.
Estimating your potential cost savings isn’t always straightforward. Educational online resources like this one from the Electric Vehicle Council offer help
But to help you build a more accurate picture of the costs of charging your EV, we’ve answered a list of frequently asked EV charging questions; including methods to lower your EV electricity bill while reducing reliance on non-renewable electricity sources.
Where is the cheapest place to charge an electric vehicle?
Free public charging stations do exist around Australia — often at shopping centres or council car parks — but they’re usually slow, in awkward spots, or not always available when you need them.
The real win is at home. Charging in your driveway is convenient, reliable, and with solar or the right power plan, very cheap. Some Australian retailers (like AGL and Origin) now offer EV-friendly tariffs that include free off-peak hours.
Pair that with a solar set-up, and you can cover most of your driving for nothing more than a few photons from the sun.
Of course, not every EV driver owns a home solar system, and those electricity cost savings will change depending on the time of day and year you’re charging from solar. So for this remainder of this article we'll focus on making the most of your home electricity plan.
But if you'd like the run-down on charging your EV with solar energy, you can learn all about it here.
What are the best electricity rates for EV home charging?
In Australia, there are a huge number of electricity providers; and just as many electricity plans (tariffs). These can be as simple as a single electricity rate or as complicated as four different rates that differ between weekdays and weekends. The most common types of electricity tariffs are:
- Anytime rates: a single "all day, every day" cost per kilowatt-hour rate that does not fluctuate during the day, night, or weekend.
- Day/night rates: two separate electricity rates for two separate times; usually day and night. These rates might apply across all seven days of the week, or sometimes the whole weekend is priced at the lower "night" rate.
- Peak/off-peak/night rates: three separate rates for three separate times. These rates may apply across all seven days of the week or there may be no "peak" rate over the weekend.
When you’re shopping around, ask yourself two questions:
- What are the rates between 9pm and 7am? That’s when most EVs are parked and demand on the grid is low.
- Does the plan include recurring free power hours? If yes, you’re laughing.
How valuable are free hours of power for electric car charging?
If you're aiming to spend nothing on charging, we need to look at how your free power hours line up with your daily range.
Range is the difference between sailing past the servo and panicking halfway down Parramatta Road. A 3-pin plug dribbles about 10km per hour into your EV — which is fine if your big outing is to the letterbox.
But most Australians have a daily commute of around 32-40km per day. One of the Evnex E2 range can give you up to 50km per hour, knocking over the average Aussie commute in under an hour. Jump to the X22 on three-phase and you’re adding 120km per hour — enough to wake up road-trip ready.
Now layer in electricity plans with a free power hour. On a wall plug, that’s maybe a quarter of your day’s driving covered. On an E2, it’s the whole thing done and dusted while you make dinner.
Want to learn more about EV charging speeds? Learn about how long to charge your EV here.
Tracking the cost of charging your electric vehicle
Knowing your tariff is half the battle; sticking to it is the other half. That’s why the Evnex app includes both charging insights and charge scheduling : it links your charger to your electricity plan and shows your real costs in real time. It also makes sure you’re charging during your cheapest, cleanest hours — automatically.
For solar households, the app can dial charging up and down to match your rooftop production, so you’re sipping sunshine, not coal.
It’s not only important to understand the electricity tariffs available to EV drivers but also track your charging habits. If you’re not following a charging schedule that makes the most of your electricity rates, then you’re missing out!
At Evnex, we make charging EVs easy, affordable, and safe. All our chargers are:
- Compatible with any solar set-up or battery system
- Made with built-in overload protection to keepy our home safe
- Made, designed, and supported from New Zealand, so help is just a quick call away
If you have any questions about charging your electric vehicle at home, reach out to sales: sales@evnex.com
Or go ahead and get a quote.
