Budget $12–$18 per 100 miles of DC fast charging. A 1,000-mile road trip runs roughly $120–$180 in charging if you fast-charge everything — about half what the same trip costs in gas for a 30 mpg car, but two to four times what the same miles cost charging at home.
The math
Road-trip cost is consumption × rate. Most EVs consume 28–35 kWh per 100 highway miles (more with a roof box, headwind, or mountain grades). DC fast charging rates run $0.42–$0.49/kWh at Tesla, $0.48 standard at Electrify America, $0.28–$0.32 at EVgo — current rates for all seven networks are in our comparison table.
| Trip | Energy needed | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| 300 miles | ~95 kWh | $38–$48 |
| 500 miles | ~160 kWh | $64–$78 |
| 1,000 miles | ~320 kWh | $125–$160 |
A worked example: Seattle to Spokane on I-90, 298 miles. Leave home at 100% (home-charged, cheap), fast-charge twice en route — roughly 70 kWh of paid charging, $30–$34 total.
The three costs the naive estimate misses
Idle fees. $0.40–$1.00 per minute if you leave the car plugged in after charging completes. Walking back late from lunch can add $15 to a session.
The taper premium. Charging past 80% is slow, and at per-minute-billed sessions or congestion-fee sites it is also expensive. Charging 10–60% twice beats 10–100% once on both time and money.
Membership math you skipped. If your route uses one network three or more times, that network’s monthly membership ($6.99–$7.99) usually pays for itself in a single trip. Activate for the trip month, cancel after. The Tesla-vs-EA version of this math is its own question.
Cutting the number down
Start every day at 100% from the hotel’s Level 2 (free or cheap — and worth choosing hotels for). Fill the middle of the battery, not the top. And route through the cheaper networks when reliability is comparable — on some corridors EVgo undercuts everyone by 30%. Free options that occasionally intersect a road trip are cataloged in our free charging guide.