EV Charging Cost Inflation Report 2021–2026: Public Charging vs. Gasoline vs. Home Electricity

Since 2021, the average price of public DC fast charging in the US has risen about 54%, while home electricity rose 33% and gasoline rose 23% — meaning fast charging has out-inflated both of the energy sources it competes with. An EV charged exclusively at public fast chargers now costs about $18.56 per 100 miles, versus $12.32 for a 30-mpg gasoline car and $6.28 for the same EV charged at home.

By Petra Halvorsen, Energy & E-Mobility Cost Analyst · Published August 17, 2026 · Data current to Q2–Q3 2026

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That is the core finding of this report, first compiled July 7, 2026 and re-verified against primary sources on today's publication date. Below, three price trendlines are built from primary data — gasoline and residential electricity from the US Energy Information Administration, public DC fast charging (DCFC) from network pricing history and market-measured averages — then converted into cost per 100 miles, and checked against everything that has moved since the original data pull: newer quarterly market data, a change in how one major network bills customers, and a federal charging-infrastructure program still working through the courts.

Building the three trendlines

Regular gasoline and residential electricity prices come directly from the EIA — clean, official series updated monthly, and both have risen faster than headline inflation since 2022 [1][2][4][5][8]. Public DCFC has no official government price index, so this report constructs one: 2024–2026 values come from measured market data (Paren and Stable Auto, which aggregate posted prices across tens of thousands of chargers) [21][22][23][25], while 2021–2023 values are ChargeCostLab estimates anchored to documented network list prices — Electrify America's flat national rate and Tesla's reported state-level rates and price increases [10][11][12][13][15][16]. Every estimated cell is marked [ESTIMATE] with its basis given below the table.

Year	Regular gasoline ($/gal)	Home electricity (¢/kWh)	Public DCFC ($/kWh)
2021	$3.01 (EIA annual avg) [1]	13.72 (EIA) [4]	$0.35 [ESTIMATE]
2022	$3.95 (EIA annual avg) [1]	15.04 (EIA) [5]	$0.39 [ESTIMATE]
2023	$3.52 (EIA annual avg) [1]	16.00 (EIA) [5]	$0.43 [ESTIMATE]
2024	$3.30 (EIA annual avg) [1]	16.48 (EIA) [5]	$0.46 [ESTIMATE]
2025	$3.10 (EIA annual avg) [1]	17.47 (EIA) [5]	$0.48 (Stable Auto Q2-2025 measured) [25]
2026	$3.70 (EIA, Jan–Jul YTD avg) [2]	18.2 (EIA STEO forecast; 18.19 actual Jan–May) [5][7]	$0.538 (Paren, Q2 2026 measured avg) [23]

Basis for estimated cells (2021–2024 DCFC):

Electrify America charged a flat $0.43/kWh nationally for non-members from late 2020 until March 2023 [10][11][12][13]. Tesla Superchargers were far cheaper — reported rates before the September 2022 hikes were around $0.12/kWh in Oregon and $0.20/kWh in California [15][16]. A usage-weighted national average near $0.35/kWh for 2021 is ChargeCostLab's central estimate, with a plausible range of $0.30–$0.38/kWh. In September 2022, Tesla raised Supercharger prices 20–40% in most regions and up to 100% in some — Oregon doubled from $0.12 to $0.24/kWh, California went from $0.20 to $0.26/kWh, with many stations exceeding $0.50/kWh at peak — while Electrify America held at $0.43, giving a 2022 blended estimate of $0.39 [15][16]. In March 2023, Electrify America raised its non-member rate to $0.48/kWh (+11.6%) and its Pass+ member rate from $0.31 to $0.36/kWh, while raising the Pass+ subscription from $4 to $7/month [10][11][12]; combined with Tesla's post-2022 levels, that gives a 2023 estimate of $0.43. The 2024 figure of $0.46 is back-cast from Stable Auto's measured series, which shows DCFC at $0.47/kWh in Q2 2025 after rising just one cent between July 2024 and June 2025 [25].

2026 update. The 2026 gasoline figure has been revised upward from the original draft's $3.66 (a Jan–Jun average) to $3.70, adding EIA's confirmed July monthly average of $3.932/gal [2]. Weekly data through mid-August shows prices easing slightly but staying elevated — $4.079/gal on August 3 and $4.006/gal on August 10 [3] — consistent with the spring 2026 spike that drove the year-to-date average up, not a return to January's $2.81. Notably, EIA's own January 2026 outlook had forecast a 6% decline in gasoline prices for 2026 and 2027; that forecast has not held up against the actual data six months later [9]. The 2026 DCFC figure is revised from $0.53 (Paren's Q1 2026 average) to $0.538, Paren's newer Q2 2026 (April–June) measured average — a small, real increase, not noise [22][23].

Cumulative change, 2021 → 2026

• Public DC fast charging: +54% ($0.35 → $0.538/kWh, Q2 2026)
• Home electricity: +33% (13.72 → 18.2 ¢/kWh forecast, confirmed by an 18.19 ¢/kWh actual Jan–May 2026 average)
• Regular gasoline: +23% ($3.01 → $3.70/gal, Jan–Jul 2026 year-to-date average)

Even with generous error bars on the 2021 DCFC estimate — using $0.38 as the starting point instead of $0.35 still yields +42% — fast charging has out-inflated both alternatives. The character of each curve differs, too: gasoline spiked in 2022 and 2026 and partially mean-reverted both times; home electricity climbed steadily through utility rate cases; public fast charging ratcheted up in discrete steps during 2021–2023 and has mostly held at the higher level since, ticking up only slightly in 2026.

Cost per 100 miles: the parity erosion

Assumptions: average EV efficiency of 2.9 mi/kWh (34.5 kWh per 100 miles); average gasoline car at 30 mpg (3.33 gallons per 100 miles) — the same assumptions as the original report, held constant for comparability. Charging losses at home (~10%) and DCFC session or idle fees are excluded; including them would make public charging look modestly worse, not better.

Year	Gas car ($/100 mi)	EV, home charging ($/100 mi)	EV, public DCFC ($/100 mi)	DCFC premium vs. gas
2021	$10.02	$4.73	$12.08	+21%
2022	$13.16	$5.19	$13.46	+2%
2023	$11.72	$5.52	$14.84	+27%
2024	$11.00	$5.69	$15.87	+44%
2025	$10.31	$6.03	$16.56	+61%
2026	$12.32	$6.28	$18.56	+51%

Three things stand out.

First, DCFC-only EV driving has been more expensive per mile than a 30-mpg gasoline car in every year of this series. The gap nearly closed in 2022 — when gasoline hit its $3.95 annual average — and widened in every year since except where gas itself spiked. By 2025, an EV refueled exclusively at public fast chargers cost 61% more per mile than the average gas car; 2026's elevated gas prices pulled that premium back down, but only to +51%, not below parity.

Second, home charging never came close to losing its advantage. Even after five years of above-inflation utility rate increases, home charging in 2026 costs $6.28 per 100 miles — 49% less than gasoline and 66% less than public fast charging.

Third, the "EVs are cheaper to fuel" claim is now a claim about where you charge, not what you drive. In 2021 that nuance mattered less because fast charging was closer to gas parity. In 2026 it is the whole story — a driver's actual fuel savings from owning an EV depend almost entirely on driveway access.

Why fast-charging prices rose faster

Public fast charging is not priced like a fuel; it is priced like infrastructure with a payback schedule. Four forces pushed rates up.

Commercial electricity costs rose — then partly eased. Networks buy power on commercial and industrial tariffs, which climbed alongside residential rates: the US commercial average hit 14.37 ¢/kWh in February 2026, up 10.7% year over year [29]. That figure has since moved: EIA's most recent published data shows commercial rates at 13.54 ¢/kWh in May 2026, up a smaller 4.7% year over year [5] — a reminder that commercial power costs move seasonally, and that Electrify America and Tesla both explicitly cited rising energy costs when announcing their 2022–2023 increases locked in rates that haven't followed the seasonal dip back down [10][15]. Separately, Utility Dive reported blended all-sector US electricity prices up 9% year over year as of February 2026, a distinct figure from the commercial-only rate and worth not conflating with it [30].

Demand charges dominate at low utilization. Utilities bill DCFC sites for their peak power draw, not just energy consumed — a 350 kW cabinet can trigger thousands of dollars in monthly demand charges regardless of energy sold. NREL research found the effective electricity cost for a DCFC station ranges from under $0.10 to over $2.00 per kWh depending on utilization and rate design [27], and RMI's rate-design study for Colorado documented how demand charges make per-kWh costs wildly utilization-dependent [26]. A 2026 case study of California investor-owned-utility territories put a number on it: a station drawing just above a 20 kW demand-charge threshold at an $8/kW rate faces over $1,150 a month in demand fees alone, before a single kWh is sold, and modeled potential savings of up to $20,000 a year from peak-shaving strategies like on-site batteries [31]. National average DCFC utilization was 15.76% in Q2 2026 [23] — better than the low single digits of 2021, but still low enough that fixed grid costs are spread across relatively few sessions.

Hardware amortization. A multi-stall 150–350 kW site represents high six to seven figures of capital. Early networks, subsidized by dieselgate settlement money and automaker capital, underpriced; as networks pursue standalone profitability, posted prices have converged upward toward full-cost recovery. NASEO's research on demand charges makes the same structural point: at low utilization, fixed infrastructure and grid costs — not the electricity itself — are what a DCFC price actually has to recover [28].

The convenience premium got priced in. Tesla's move to peak/off-peak and utilization-based dynamic pricing, and Electrify America's shift from one national rate to station-level pricing, both let networks charge what high-demand locations will bear. 2026 non-member Electrify America rates reach up to $0.68/kWh in high-cost states, against $0.36–0.55/kWh for Pass+ members [32][33].

One honest counterpoint: the steepest increases are behind us. Stable Auto measured DCFC prices rising only one cent from July 2024 to June 2025 [25], and Paren describes the market as broadly stable through the first half of 2026 [21][22][23]. The 2021–2023 period did the damage; 2024–2026 has been a plateau at the higher level.

The plateau, checked against August 2026 data

Paren's newer Q2 2026 report — covering April through June, published after the original July 7 draft — shows the national DCFC average moved from $0.53/kWh in Q1 to $0.538/kWh in Q2: a 1.5% quarterly increase, essentially a continuation of the plateau rather than a new inflationary leg [22][23]. The market also grew in absolute terms: total US public DC fast ports reached 77,776 across 14,514 locations by Q2 2026, with 62% of new non-Tesla ports installed that quarter rated at 250 kW or higher — networks are still investing in faster hardware even as per-kWh pricing holds roughly flat [23].

Electrify America's most consequential 2026 move wasn't a price change at all. On June 2, 2026, the network announced it is eliminating prepaid account balances and auto-reload in favor of direct card billing with $20 temporary authorization holds per session [14] — a billing-methodology change that affects how a driver pays, not what they pay per kWh. It's a useful data point on its own: a network under margin pressure has more than one lever to pull, and simplifying (or complicating) the payment flow is a cheaper move than a rate increase that risks driver backlash.

Tesla and EVgo pricing is harder to pin down precisely because neither network publishes a single national rate. Tesla's one-year free Supercharging promotion for Model 3 Premium and Performance buyers — the story behind the April 2026 "stabilizing" narrative — ended June 15, 2026 [18][24]. Independent tracking from DCFC Tracker, a third-party sampler rather than a network's own pricing page and flagged here as a lower-confidence secondary source, put Tesla's national average Supercharger rate at $0.605/kWh in July 2026 and EVgo's at $0.641/kWh in June 2026 [19][20] — both plausible given SolarReviews' independently reported $0.41/kWh Tesla peak average from mid-2025 [17] and the general upward drift documented across 2022's hikes [15][16], but treated as directional rather than exact given the source.

NEVI: active litigation, negligible effect on the national average

Federal infrastructure money is a plausible confounder for a national DCFC price trend, so it's worth checking directly: has the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program moved the average this report tracks? The evidence says no, for two separate reasons.

First, NEVI's funding and legal status has been genuinely turbulent since the original July 7 draft. A federal judge ruled in January 2026 that the Department of Transportation's earlier funding freeze was unlawful, unlocking apportioned money for states [42][43]; the Federal Highway Administration's formal notice confirms roughly $1 billion in NEVI formula funding apportioned for fiscal year 2026 [35]. As of the most recent public accounting, only about 121 NEVI-funded stations were open and roughly 2% of the program's five-year authorization had actually been reimbursed to states [34]. On July 23, 2026, environmental groups were granted intervenor status in the ongoing Washington v. DOT litigation, seeking broader relief — the legal fight continues, but funds are currently flowing under the FY2026 apportionment [34][43].

Second, and more directly relevant to this report's trendline: even if NEVI-funded stations carried a different price than everywhere else — and ChargeCostLab's dedicated pricing review found no evidence they do — NEVI-funded stations remain under 1% of the roughly 77,776 DC fast ports open nationally in Q2 2026 [23][34]. A subsidy program that small cannot be what's driving a national average from $0.35 to $0.538/kWh; the structural forces above — commercial electricity, demand charges, hardware amortization and convenience pricing — are doing essentially all of that work.

Who actually pays the DCFC premium

Most EV charging in the US already happens at home: Department of Energy modeling puts the split at roughly 64% of charging at home Level 1/2, 20% at public DCFC and 8% at public Level 2 [37], which is why the inflation this report tracks lands so unevenly across the driver population. A separate 2024 ChargeLab survey found 86% of EV drivers report having home-charging access — yet 59.6% still use public chargers on a weekly basis, meaning home access doesn't eliminate public-charging exposure so much as reduce its share of total miles [38]. That's consistent with the road-trip-and-apartment pattern this report's economics predict: home charging absorbs the bulk of routine miles at $6.28 per 100 miles, while the minority of miles that go through a public DCFC session carry the full $18.56 premium.

J.D. Power's 2026 public-charging satisfaction study found overall satisfaction at a record high, driven largely by non-Tesla drivers gaining Supercharger access via NACS adapters [39] — a reliability and access story, not a pricing one, and a reminder that "is charging good" and "is charging cheap" are measuring different things. A driver can be more satisfied with public charging in 2026 than in 2021 while still paying meaningfully more per kWh for it.

Network economics under pressure: consolidation, not just price

The pricing plateau of 2024–2026 has coincided with real strain on network profitability, which helps explain why prices have held near their higher level rather than come back down. Shell announced in mid-2025 that it would dismantle its Volta Charging network — more than 2,000 US sites that had been losing roughly $140 million a year — a concrete example of a major operator concluding that its pricing and volume model didn't work and exiting rather than continuing to subsidize sessions [41]. On the demand side, EV sales themselves cooled through 2026: Cox Automotive's Q2 2026 report put EV sales down about 20.5% year over year, the third consecutive declining quarter, following the federal Clean Vehicle Credit's expiration on September 30, 2025 [36]. Fewer new EVs on the road, spread across a growing count of DC fast ports, keeps per-site utilization low — the same utilization figure (15.76% in Q2 2026) that drives demand-charge economics in the first place [23]. Networks facing a shrinking-or-flat customer base and fixed-cost pressure have little incentive to compete on price the way a commodity-fuel retailer would.

The US isn't an outlier

The UK's public rapid-charging price rose roughly 5% year over year to 80p/kWh in July 2026, per Zapmap's charging price index [40] — for context, not a full comparison, this confirms that public fast-charging costs have been under similar upward pressure across markets with very different electricity structures and subsidy programs, even if the year-over-year move there has been smaller than some points in this US series. The underlying economics — demand charges, hardware amortization, low utilization relative to fixed costs — aren't specific to US commercial electricity tariffs.

What this means for buyers: the home-charging moat

For a driver covering 12,000 miles per year in 2026:

• Home-charged EV: ~$754/year
• 30-mpg gasoline car: ~$1,478/year
• DCFC-only EV: ~$2,227/year

A home-charged EV saves about $724/year versus gasoline; a DCFC-dependent EV costs about $749/year more than gasoline. The spread between the cheapest and most expensive way to run the same vehicle is now roughly $1,473 per year — and it has widened since 2022, because home electricity inflation (+33% since 2021) has run slower than DCFC inflation (+54%) even in absolute per-mile terms.

Practical implications:

1. If you can charge at home, EV fuel economics remain excellent and durable. Even with continued residential rate growth near 5% a year, home charging sits at roughly half the per-mile cost of gasoline. ChargeCostLab's home-vs-public comparison works through the math for mixed-charging households.
2. If you cannot charge at home, run the numbers honestly. Apartment dwellers relying on public DCFC should not expect fuel savings versus an efficient gasoline or hybrid car at 2026 prices. Network subscriptions (Electrify America's Pass+ at $7/month for roughly 25% off) and off-peak or time-of-use windows can cut 15–25% off the DCFC figures above, narrowing but not closing the gap — ChargeCostLab's full network-by-network comparison breaks down which membership pays off fastest.
3. Road-trip charging is a rounding error for home chargers. A driver who charges mostly at home and fast-charges just 10% of their miles pays a blended ~$7.51 per 100 miles in 2026 — still 39% below gasoline. ChargeCostLab's savings calculator runs this for a specific vehicle and driving mix.
4. Tesla owners have the widest pricing range to navigate. With Tesla's national average now estimated near $0.60/kWh on non-member or off-peak-miss sessions, the state-by-state Supercharger cost breakdown matters more than it did when Tesla's rates were flatter and lower in 2021.

Key findings

This report's core numbers: fast charging is up 54% since 2021, versus 33% for home electricity and 23% for year-to-date gasoline. Six findings summarize the evidence, each traceable to the sources cited:

• ChargeCostLab's 2026 analysis finds US public DC fast-charging prices rose approximately 54% from 2021 to Q2 2026 (from an estimated $0.35/kWh to a measured $0.538/kWh), versus a 33% rise in residential electricity and a 23% rise in year-to-date gasoline prices [1][4][5][23].
• An EV charged exclusively at public fast chargers costs about $18.56 per 100 miles in 2026 — roughly 51% more than the $12.32 per 100 miles of an average 30-mpg gasoline car [23].
• Home EV charging cost $6.28 per 100 miles in 2026, less than half the per-mile fuel cost of the average gasoline car in the same year [5][7].
• The annual fuel-cost gap between a home-charged EV and a public-charging-dependent EV reached about $1,473 at 12,000 miles per year in 2026 — ChargeCostLab's own calculation from the cited per-kWh and per-gallon figures.
• Public fast-charging price inflation was concentrated in 2021–2023 (Electrify America +11.6% in one step in March 2023; Tesla Supercharger increases of 20–100% by region in 2022) and has since plateaued, moving only from $0.53/kWh to $0.538/kWh between Q1 and Q2 2026 [10][15][22][23].
• Neither NEVI funding nor a June 2026 Electrify America billing-method change moved the national DCFC price trend — NEVI-funded stations remain under 1% of national ports, and the EA change affected payment method, not the per-kWh rate [14][23][34].

Frequently asked questions

Did public EV fast charging really get more expensive than gasoline per mile? Yes, for an average vehicle comparison, and the gap has been wide for years. At Paren's Q2 2026 measured average of $0.538/kWh, an EV getting 2.9 mi/kWh costs about $18.56 per 100 miles on public DC fast chargers, versus roughly $12.32 per 100 miles for a 30-mpg gasoline car at 2026's year-to-date gas price — a 51% premium. Efficient EVs, network memberships and off-peak rates narrow that gap but don't close it.

How much did home EV charging costs rise from 2021 to 2026? US residential electricity rose from 13.72 ¢/kWh in 2021 to an EIA-forecast 18.2 ¢/kWh for full-year 2026 — up about 33%, and actual data through May 2026 (18.19 ¢/kWh average) confirms that forecast is on track. Per 100 miles, that's a rise from $4.73 to $6.28 for an average EV — still less than half of gasoline's per-mile cost.

Why is public fast charging so much more expensive than home electricity? Networks pay commercial electricity rates, which run higher than residential rates, plus demand charges — fees on a station's peak power draw that can dominate its utility bill at today's ~16% average utilization. One 2026 case study of California charging sites found a single demand-charge tier adding over $1,150 a month in fixed fees regardless of how much electricity was actually sold. On top of that, networks are amortizing six-to-seven-figure hardware costs per site.

Are fast-charging prices still rising in 2026, or has the increase leveled off? Mostly leveled off. Paren's national average moved from $0.53/kWh in Q1 2026 to $0.538/kWh in Q2 2026 — a 1.5% quarterly change, essentially flat. Electrify America's most visible 2026 move was a billing-method change (eliminating prepaid balances in favor of card holds), not a price increase. The steep increases happened in 2021–2023; 2024–2026 has been a plateau at the higher level.

What did Electrify America and Tesla charge in 2021 versus 2026? Electrify America charged a flat $0.43/kWh nationally for non-members from late 2020 to March 2023, when it raised that to $0.48/kWh and began shifting to station-specific pricing; 2026 guest rates typically run $0.48–0.69/kWh depending on state, with member rates around $0.36–0.55/kWh. Tesla Superchargers were far cheaper in 2021 (around $0.12–0.20/kWh by state) before 20–100% regional hikes in 2022; third-party tracking puts Tesla's 2026 national average near $0.60/kWh, though Tesla doesn't publish that figure itself.

Does NEVI federal funding make public charging any cheaper? No, and it isn't designed to. NEVI money reimburses networks for building stations, not for the electricity they sell — none of the major NEVI-participating operators publishes a NEVI-specific discount. NEVI-funded stations are also still under 1% of the national DC fast-charging port count, so even a hypothetical NEVI discount would barely move the national average this report tracks. ChargeCostLab's dedicated analysis has the full pricing evidence.

Is an EV still cheaper to run than a gas car in 2026? If you charge mostly at home, decisively yes — about half the per-mile fuel cost of gasoline in 2026. If you depend entirely on public fast charging, no — you'll likely pay more per mile than an average gasoline car. A driver who fast-charges just 10% of their miles and charges at home the rest still comes out about 39% ahead of gasoline.

Methodology and assumptions

Scope. Three US price series — regular gasoline, residential electricity, public DC fast charging — tracked annually from 2021 through 2026 and converted to cost per 100 miles for an average vehicle, first compiled July 7, 2026 and updated with primary-source verification on August 17, 2026.

Prices. Gasoline and residential electricity are EIA annual, monthly and weekly series [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. DCFC has no official index; 2021–2023 are ChargeCostLab estimates anchored to Electrify America and Tesla's documented list-price history [10][11][12][13][15][16], and 2024–2026 are measured averages from Paren and Stable Auto [21][22][23][25]. Every estimated figure carries an [ESTIMATE] tag and its basis is stated inline where it first appears.

Vehicle assumptions. 2.9 mi/kWh (34.5 kWh/100mi) for an average EV; 30 mpg (3.33 gal/100mi) for an average gasoline car — held constant across all years for comparability, not re-optimized to flatter either technology in any given year.

Update verification. Every load-bearing 2026 figure in this report — gasoline (weekly and monthly), residential and commercial electricity, DCFC network pricing, and NEVI program status — was independently re-checked against primary or named-publisher sources on August 17, 2026, six weeks after the original draft. Figures that moved are shown with their new value and effective date; figures that didn't move are re-cited to confirm they still hold.

Flagged uncertainty. The 2021 DCFC starting estimate carries a $0.30–$0.38/kWh plausible range; a sensitivity check using the high end of that range still shows fast charging out-inflating gasoline and home electricity, just by a smaller margin (+42% instead of +54%). Tesla and EVgo's 2026 network-specific rates are cited to DCFC Tracker, an independent third-party sampler, and are flagged as lower-confidence than the EIA and Paren figures that anchor the main trendlines [19][20]. All cost-per-100-miles and annual-cost figures are ChargeCostLab's own arithmetic from the cited inputs, not quoted figures from any source.

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About the author

Petra Halvorsen is ChargeCostLab's Energy & E-Mobility Cost Analyst. She analyses European retail power markets and electric-vehicle running costs, reconciling regulator data, charging-operator tariffs and real-world consumption into figures drivers can act on. She does not accept payment from charging networks or energy suppliers, and every calculation here is reproducible from the cited primary sources.