EV Off-Peak Charging: Time-of-Use Rates Guide (2026)

If you charge an EV at home, the cheapest fuel you will ever buy is electricity at two in the morning, and time-of-use rates are simply how your utility sells it to you. A time-of-use (TOU) plan prices electricity by the hour instead of charging one flat rate all day: cheap overnight when the grid is idle, expensive in the late afternoon and early evening when everyone gets home and demand spikes. For a car that sits parked in your garage all night, that price difference is close to free money. The catch is that the plan also makes daytime electricity more expensive, so your whole household's usage pattern decides whether you win or lose.

Here is the short answer. On typical US TOU plans in 2026, off-peak hours run roughly 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. (examples only — every utility sets its own windows), with illustrative overnight rates of about $0.08 to $0.18 per kWh, while weekday peak hours, often roughly 4 to 9 p.m., run about $0.30 to $0.55 per kWh. Some utilities add a super-off-peak EV window, often around midnight to 6 a.m., discounted even further. Run the math for a Model-Y-class crossover driven 1,000 miles a month: about $40 on a cheap overnight rate versus about $135 if that same energy were billed at peak prices. Same car, same miles, more than triple the cost. The full assumptions behind that calculation are laid out below so you can rerun them with your own numbers.

But do not switch plans on the EV math alone. TOU discounts the night by raising the price of the day, and a household with heavy daytime air-conditioning, a pool pump, or electric heat running through the peak window can erase every dollar of charging savings. This guide covers how the three rate windows work, what off-peak power really costs in 2026, the charging math with labeled assumptions, how to schedule charging so it always lands in the cheap window, when TOU plans backfire, and a step-by-step method for comparing plans against your actual utility bill.

How time-of-use rates work

Every TOU plan divides the day into pricing windows. Off-peak is the cheap overnight stretch when grid demand bottoms out; as an example, many utilities define it as roughly 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., though some start it at 9 or 10 p.m. and others split the night further. Peak is the expensive window covering the evening ramp, commonly something like 4 to 9 p.m. on weekdays, when air conditioners, cooking, and EV chargers all draw at once. Super-off-peak is a third, deeper-discount window that a growing number of utilities offer specifically for EV charging, often in the dead of night — midnight to 6 a.m. is a common example — sometimes tied to a dedicated EV rate or a managed-charging program.

Two details trip people up. First, windows vary enormously by utility and sometimes by season: one utility may define summer peak as 4 to 7 p.m. while another runs 4 to 9 p.m., and winter schedules often differ from summer ones. Treat every window in this article as an example and confirm your utility's actual schedule before making decisions. Second, many plans price weekends and holidays at off-peak rates all day, which is a quiet bonus if you charge Saturday night into Sunday.

Why do utilities do this? Because electricity is cheapest to produce when demand is low and most expensive — sometimes dramatically — during peaks, when peaker plants fire up. By discounting the night, utilities shift flexible loads like EV charging into hours when they have spare capacity. Your car is the ideal flexible load: it needs six to eight hours of energy and does not care which six to eight hours they are, as long as it is full by morning.

What off-peak electricity costs in 2026

The table below shows illustrative 2026 US residential ranges. These are market ranges for orientation, not quotes — your utility's published rate schedule is the only authoritative number, and actual rates vary by state, utility, and season. Costs are 2026 US market ranges; get itemized local quotes for any electrical work.

Rate type	Typical window (examples)	Illustrative 2026 $/kWh
Flat residential rate	All hours, no windows	$0.15–$0.35
TOU off-peak	Roughly 11 p.m.–7 a.m.	$0.08–$0.18
TOU peak	Roughly 4–9 p.m. weekdays	$0.30–$0.55
EV super-off-peak	Roughly midnight–6 a.m., select utilities	$0.05–$0.12

The spread is the whole story: peak power typically costs two to four times off-peak power on the same plan. That ratio is what makes scheduled overnight charging so powerful and what makes accidental peak charging so punishing. One unmanaged habit — plugging in at 6 p.m. when you get home and letting the car charge immediately through the peak window — can cost more than the entire month of overnight charging would have.

A note on fixed charges: TOU plans sometimes carry a slightly higher monthly service fee than flat plans, and a few utilities layer demand charges onto residential bills — fees based on your highest 15-minute power spike. Check the rate schedule for both before switching. For most households the per-kWh windows dominate the math, but a higher fixed fee still needs to be beaten by real window savings.

The math: a Model-Y-class EV, off-peak vs peak

Here is the calculation with every assumption labeled, so you can substitute your own numbers. Assumptions: 1,000 miles driven per month; vehicle efficiency of 3.3 miles per kWh, a reasonable midpoint of the roughly 3.0–3.5 mi/kWh that Model-Y-class crossovers typically average in mixed driving (check your car's own efficiency display for your number); 12 percent added for charging losses between the wall and the battery; and three illustrative rates — $0.12/kWh off-peak, $0.24/kWh flat, $0.40/kWh peak.

First, energy needed: 1,000 miles divided by 3.3 mi/kWh equals about 303 kWh, plus 12 percent losses brings it to roughly 340 kWh from the wall. Now apply the rates. At $0.12 off-peak: 340 × $0.12 ≈ $41 per month. At $0.24 flat: ≈ $82 per month. At $0.40 peak: ≈ $136 per month. The overnight charge costs less than a third of the peak charge for identical miles.

Two decision rules fall out of this. First, if your car already charges overnight on a schedule, switching to a TOU plan is close to pure savings — you change nothing about your life and pay roughly half. Second, the rate matters more than driving efficiency: a 10 percent improvement in mi/kWh saves about $4 a month here, while moving from flat to off-peak saves about $40. Chase the rate first.

Scheduling charging for the cheap window

Nearly every EV built in the last decade can schedule its own charging. In the car's settings or companion app, set either a start time (begin at 11 p.m.) or a departure time (be full by 7 a.m., and let the car pick when to start). Departure-time mode is usually smarter: the car works backward from your morning and can precondition the cabin on wall power before you leave. If your home charger has its own app with scheduling, use one scheduler, not both — car or charger, never both, or they will fight each other and you will wake up to a half-charged car.

Some utilities sweeten the deal with EV-specific programs: steeper super-off-peak rates or monthly credits in exchange for enrolling in managed charging, where the utility may slow or pause your session during rare grid emergencies. For a car parked eight hours overnight, the inconvenience is usually theoretical and the discount is real money every month. Enrollment is typically a web form plus proof of EV ownership; check your utility's EV page.

After setting the schedule, verify it once. Most utility online portals show hourly usage with a day or two of lag — check that your charging spike actually lands inside the off-peak window and not straddling the peak boundary. A start time of 11:05 p.m. instead of exactly 11:00 avoids any meter-clock mismatch at the window edge. And if your electrical panel needs an upgrade to support a faster charger, have a licensed electrician do the work and pull the proper permits; the rate savings never justify unpermitted panel work.

When time-of-use plans backfire

TOU plans punish daytime consumption, and three household patterns turn the EV win into a net loss. The biggest is air conditioning through the peak window: in hot climates, a central AC running 4 to 9 p.m. can consume 3 to 5 kWh per hour, and moving that load from a $0.24 flat rate to a $0.45 peak rate adds $30 to $60 a month — easily erasing the EV savings. Second is work-from-home: computers, monitors, and daytime cooling shift load into the expensive window. Third is electric water heating or pool equipment on daytime timers.

The honest test is the whole bill, not the charging line. Pull twelve months of usage if your utility portal offers it, estimate what share of your kilowatt-hours falls in each window (many portals now show this split automatically), and price both plans. A useful rule of thumb: if more than about 40 percent of your usage lands in the peak window and you cannot shift it, a TOU plan needs very careful math before it pays.

There is a middle path. Some households keep the flat plan for the house and put the EV on a separately metered EV rate, where the utility offers one — the car gets super-off-peak pricing while the house stays flat. That usually requires a second meter or submeter installed by a licensed electrician with utility approval, so get an itemized quote and compare the installation cost against the annual savings before committing. Many utilities also let you trial a TOU plan and switch back within a few months if the bills disappoint; ask about that before you enroll.

How to compare plans on your utility bill

Comparing plans takes about thirty minutes and beats every online calculator because it uses your usage, not averages. Work through it in order:

• Find the actual rate schedules. On your utility's website, look for residential rates or price plans. You need, for each plan: the $/kWh in every window, the fixed monthly service charge, any demand charge, and any EV-specific riders or programs.
• Map your usage to windows. Your utility's online portal usually shows hourly or 15-minute usage. Total your last few months into peak, off-peak, and super-off-peak buckets. No portal? A month of weekly meter readings at window boundaries gets you close enough.
• Price both plans. Multiply each bucket by each plan's rate, add the fixed charges, and compare the totals. Include the EV's roughly 300–400 kWh per month in the off-peak bucket, since that is where it will charge.
• Check the fine print. Minimum terms, fees to switch back, seasonal window changes, and whether weekend hours are off-peak all live in the tariff document, not the marketing page.
• Call the utility. Most large utilities now have EV advisors or rate-comparison tools; a ten-minute call often surfaces an EV rate you would not have found on your own.

One caution: never let a door-to-door salesperson or a cold caller switch your electricity plan. Third-party energy marketers have a long history of promising TOU savings that evaporate in the fine print. Compare plans yourself from the utility's published tariffs, and only then decide.

An EV that charges while you sleep is the perfect time-of-use customer: it buys a lot of electricity at the exact hours the grid is practically begging someone to take it. Price your plan for the car you have, not the habits you imagine.

The bottom line

Time-of-use rates reward one behavior — charging overnight — with discounts of roughly half off flat rates, and punish one behavior — heavy peak-window usage — with premiums that can erase the gain. For most EV households the playbook is simple: confirm your utility's actual windows, schedule the car (or charger, not both) for the off-peak stretch, verify the first week's usage lands inside the window, and model the whole household bill before switching plans. Do that, and a Model-Y-class crossover costs on the order of $40 a month to fuel — the closest thing to free driving the grid offers.

Frequently asked questions