Costs to charge electric cart (Power bill)
 

Well, I retire today! It is 0200 in Ca and I'm too excited to sleep. Luckily I work the 3p-11p shift.

We just bought our 2nd electric golf cart. We have a cute little Ca Roadster and a much more practical STAR . Bought both late models used and they look and run great!!

Please no debate on gas versus electric. We have made that decision. What I am interested in is:

what is the approximate cost to charge 2 carts daily?

One is a 36 volt, the other a 48 volt. Both have great range and newer batteries.

I have searched for this info, and can't find it.

If anyone has a ball park figure or formula to use to calculate the cost, I would appreciate it!!

I have no idea asI have gas
Just wanted to say HORRAY for retirement and living here full time
Debbie

There is a small device called a Kill A Watt about $20 on Amazon. SECO sold them at one point. Plug it into your receptacle and plug your cart in to it. It will tell you exactly how many watts you are using to charge your cart.

Dottie, the three largest costs of electricity in a TV household are AC, refrigerators and then television DVR's

I do not have a statistic for the average cost per charge but I'll wager that there is at least one enterprising resident who will respond to you with valid numbers

I seem to recall that someone put a meter on their charger and came up with 2 cents/mile.

I have a gas cart so I really do not know, but it would seem that it would all depend on how much you drove and how long it then took to charge the batteries. I would bet that that length of time to charge would get longer as the batteries age.

Electrical costs are based upon wattage used and here is a brief lesson regarding electricity that I found on the web.


Volts is the measure of electric Potential (higher voltage more potential) and Amps is a measure of "flow" of electric current

Watts is the measure of power/energy in electricity

Watts = amps x voltage.

Kilo watt hours (watts x time) is a a measure of power used in an hour and KWH measurements is actually how your electricity company charges you for the electricity you use.

Your battery charger would indicate the AMPS you are drawing and I suspect limit the draw to your 48 Volt system.

That said I also found a statement which agreed with a previous poster which said 1 or 2 cents per mile. :posting:

The big cost is replacing the batteries periodically.

I just ordered a Kill A Watt from Amazon. Thanks for the info, I never knew one existed. There are lots of things in my house that I wish I knew how much it costs to use.

When we were looking at golf carts, one of the questions I had was cost per mile. I received one estimate for battery life of 8000 miles. Assuming $800 for new batteries, this works out to 10 cents per mile for batteries plus 2 cents per mile for electricity for a total of 12 cent per mile. For gas carts, gas will be maybe 8 cents per mile plus maintenance (oil, filters, belts, and starter battery). A properly maintained engine will last a long time so engine replacement is really not part of the equation. All other parts are essentially the same for gas and electric (i.e tires). They are probably pretty close overall and is an economical way to travel - you can travel 4000 mile for roughly $400 plus depreciation of the cart.