Petrol vs Home EV Charging: The Melbourne Maths at $2.30 a Litre

If you've filled up in Melbourne this month, you've felt it. Industry price tracking put the national capital-city average for Unleaded 91 at about $2.37 a litre in the week of 21 September 2026, and market analysts have been warning that east-coast prices would push from around $2.10 toward $2.30 as the global oil spike flows through to the pump. On a typical 55-litre tank, that climb alone is roughly $15 extra per fill. It's the moment a lot of households do the sum they'd been putting off: what would the same driving cost on electricity? We install the chargers, so we get asked this weekly - here are the honest numbers, and what it actually takes to make the switch.

How much does it cost to charge an electric car at home?

Fuel cost per kilometre is consumption times price. A petrol car using 8L/100km at $2.37 a litre costs about $19 per 100km - call it 19 cents a kilometre. A thirstier SUV or ute at 10L/100km is around $24 per 100km. An EV works the same way, just in kilowatt-hours: a typical EV uses about 15kWh/100km, so on a general household tariff of roughly 30c/kWh that's about $4.50 per 100km. The ATO's official benchmark for home EV charging - the rate it lets you claim for work travel - is 4.2 cents per kilometre, which says the same thing: home charging runs at roughly a quarter of petrol's cost, and that's before you get clever with tariffs.

Getting clever is where it compounds. Several retailers now offer dedicated EV plans with cheap overnight charging windows - worth checking with your own retailer, because a car that charges while you sleep is the easiest load in the house to shift. And if you have rooftop solar, the cheapest electricity you can put in the car is the excess your roof is exporting: at Victoria's minimum feed-in rate of 4.9c/kWh, the solar you divert into the battery instead of the grid costs you about 74 cents per 100km. Under one cent a kilometre.

• →Petrol, 8L/100km at $2.37/L - about $19 per 100km
• →Petrol SUV or ute, 10L/100km - about $24 per 100km
• →EV at home on a general tariff - roughly $4.50 per 100km, and the ATO's official benchmark works out at $4.20
• →EV charged from your own excess solar - about 74c per 100km at the minimum feed-in rate

Over a year, the gap is a holiday

The ABS motor vehicle use survey puts the average Victorian vehicle at about 12,400km a year. At today's pump prices that's roughly $2,350 in petrol for an average car - over $2,900 for the SUV. The same distance charged at home on the ATO's benchmark rate is about $520. Charged mostly from your own solar, it's under $100. The difference lands somewhere between $1,800 and $2,300 a year, every year, and unlike the petrol price it doesn't move with events on the other side of the world. If you're already weighing up solar, the car is the strongest reason yet to size the system properly.

The catch: you need a proper home EV charger

All of these numbers rest on home charging, and that's where the electrical work comes in. Trickle-charging from a standard powerpoint works, but at around 2kW it's slow and it ties up a circuit that was never designed to run at full load all night. A dedicated 7kW home EV charger charges three times faster, runs on its own protected circuit, and lets you actually use a cheap overnight window or a solar-diverting charger like the Zappi we wrote about in melbourne ev charging boom zappi 2026. The installation side of a typical Melbourne home install runs $1,200-$2,500 depending on the cable run and the state of your switchboard - and the switchboard is the honest caveat, because many older Melbourne boards need electrical work before they can safely take a charger. We check that first and quote everything fixed-price.

EV charger installation cost in Melbourne: the Zappi guide

Since the Zappi is the charger we install most, here's the honest guide from our own quoting: most Zappi setups land between about $2,000 and $5,000 all-in - charger, dedicated circuit, CT sensor and commissioning - with where you land coming down to the cable run, whether the switchboard needs work first, and single versus three-phase. Whatever the configuration, the number on our quote is fixed before work starts, and with $1,800-plus a year coming back in fuel savings, the setup typically pays for itself in one to three years, wherever in that range you land. The maths on waiting is just as simple: at this month's prices, a typical driver spends about $150 more each month on petrol than they would charging at home.

Get the number for your own driveway

Your consumption, tariff and commute will shift the exact figures - but the ratio doesn't really change: home charging costs a quarter of petrol or less, and solar charging is close to free once the panels exist. So picture the version that's yours: the car full every morning before you've had coffee, and a fuel budget that doesn't flinch at the headlines. For most homes, getting there is one visit. Tell us your car, your commute and your suburb at contact us and we'll come back - typically within 2 business hours - with a free, fixed-price quote covering the EV charger installation, any switchboard work, and the solar pairing if you want those numbers together. Our ev charging page covers single-phase versus three-phase, and we install Zappi, Tesla Wall Connector and Ocular chargers across metropolitan Melbourne. Licensed A-Grade electricians, REC 37142. The pump price will keep moving; your charging cost doesn't have to.