Published 4 July 2026 · EV Costs Comparison
Short answer for 2026: a full charge of a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y costs roughly $9 to $19 at home depending on your tariff and battery size — and as little as $3–4 if you charge from rooftop solar. Here's exactly where those numbers come from, so you can adjust them to your own bill.
Current Teslas sold in Australia use two battery packs: the Model 3 and Model Y RWD carry about 57.5 kWh, while Long Range and Performance variants carry about 75 kWh. Charging isn't perfectly efficient — roughly 10% of the electricity is lost as heat on the way into the pack — so a full 0–100% charge actually draws about 64 kWh and 83 kWh from your meter respectively.
Multiply that energy by what you pay per kilowatt-hour and you have your answer. At a typical mixed home rate of about 25c/kWh, a full charge of the smaller pack costs about $16, and the 75 kWh pack about $21. On an off-peak overnight rate around 15c/kWh those fall to roughly $9.60 and $12.50. And if you charge during the day from your own solar — where the real cost is just the ~5c feed-in tariff you give up — a full charge runs about $3.20 for a RWD and $4.20 for a Long Range.
In practice you'll rarely charge from empty. A more realistic daily top-up of 20–80% on a Model Y RWD is about 34.5 kWh into the battery — call it $5.75 on off-peak or under $2 on solar. That's the "fuel" for around 215 km of driving.
Home charging is by far the cheapest option. Public DC fast chargers in Australia average around 45–65c/kWh in 2026, and Tesla Superchargers sit near 70c/kWh for non-scheduled charging — meaning the same full charge that costs $9.60 on your off-peak tariff can cost $40 or more on the highway. Fast charging is for road trips; home is for everyday.
A Model Y uses roughly 15–16 kWh per 100 km in mixed driving. On off-peak power that's about 2.6c per km — versus roughly 14c per km for a comparable petrol SUV at $1.90 a litre. Over a typical 13,000 km Australian year, that gap is worth well over a thousand dollars.
Every figure above is an average, and your tariff is the thing that moves the answer most. Our free home charging calculator lets you set your exact battery size, tariff and charge window — and the EV vs fuel calculator shows what the difference adds up to over a year of your driving. If you're weighing up buying, the break-even calculator tells you how long an EV takes to repay its purchase premium.
Sources: battery and charging figures cross-checked against Zecar's 2026 Tesla charging guide and Solar Calculator Australia. Estimates only, not financial advice — check your own tariff.
