EV Charging Cost at Home in Pakistan: The 200-Unit Trap

Bring an electric car home and your electricity bill can go from about Rs 2,900 to about Rs 18,000 in a single month. That sounds like a reason not to buy one, yet the same household still saves around Rs 22,700 a month against petrol. Karim Yousaf worked through the sum in our latest short (watch it on YouTube), and this guide takes it slowly: what EV charging costs at home in Pakistan, why the 200-unit line matters more than anything else on your bill, and how to work out your own figure. The numbers below are a worked example, not a quote. Your distance, your car and your bill will be different. The method is the part worth keeping.

The Example: 1,300 km a Month

Say you drive 50 km a day, six days a week. That is about 1,300 km a month, a cross-town commute with the school run and a few errands on top.

The petrol side is simple: 100 litres at Rs 378 is Rs 37,800. Petrol was Rs 377.71 a litre when the short went out on 26 October. Since July, OGRA has set the price on most working days rather than once a fortnight, and in October alone it moved between about Rs 378 and Rs 399. Thirteen km per litre is a fair city figure for a manual 1,300 cc car. An automatic in traffic with the AC on does worse (Autocar India's test of a Honda City CVT managed 10.1 km/L in town), which makes petrol dearer and the saving bigger.

The electric side is where most people get the sum wrong, because the answer isn't a price per unit. It depends on what your house already uses.

How Many Units Does an EV Use?

A unit on your bill is one kilowatt-hour (kWh). How many units your car takes depends mostly on its size, and on how you charge it.

These are figures from the wall, so they include what charging loses as heat on the way into the battery. How much that is depends on the charger. Germany's motoring club ADAC measured losses of 5 to 7% on an 11 kW wallbox and 13 to 24% on an ordinary household socket, so the slow 3-pin charger in the boot is the dearest way to charge at home.

Our example uses 200 units, the figure for a compact car. A mid-size SUV taking 250 units would take the same house's bill to about Rs 22,000, an extra Rs 19,100 a month, which is still about half the cost of the petrol. Every car in our catalogue, from the Honri VE to the BYD Seal, lists its rated consumption on its page. Treat that as the floor: real driving with the AC on usually takes a little more.

The 200-Unit Line: Who Counts as a Protected Consumer

Pakistan's residential electricity tariff gives much cheaper rates to protected households. A protected household is one on an ordinary (not time-of-use) meter that has used 200 units or less every month for the past six months. Everyone else pays the un-protected rates, which start at roughly double:

These are the base rates for homes with a sanctioned load under 5 kW, from the tariff notified in SRO 279(I)/2026 in February 2026. K-Electric customers in Karachi are on the same tariff. A real bill adds a fixed charge for each kW of sanctioned load (Rs 200 to Rs 675 a month, rising with the slab), a per-unit surcharge, the monthly fuel and quarterly adjustments, and 18% sales tax.

Two rules make the 200 line expensive to cross:

• Un-protected homes pay one rate on every unit. A protected home pays the lower rate on its first 100 units and the higher one only on the rest. An un-protected home pays the rate of the slab its total lands in on all of its units, so at 380 units every unit is billed at Rs 36.46.
• One month over 200 costs you six. To be protected again you need six months in a row at 200 units or less. NEPRA has upheld a DISCO removing protected status after a single 305-unit month.

What Happens to the Bill

Back to the example. The house uses 180 units a month, so it is protected and its bill comes to about Rs 2,900. Add the car's 200 units and it uses 380, it is no longer protected, and the bill comes to about Rs 18,000. That is the sixfold jump in the short.

Both figures are at base rates for a home with a 1 kW sanctioned load. An October 2026 bill, with that month's fuel and quarterly adjustments, would be a few hundred rupees higher on each, and a larger sanctioned load adds a few hundred more in fixed charges. The shape of the sum doesn't change.

What surprises people is where the Rs 15,100 goes. Part of it isn't the car's electricity at all: it is your fans, fridge and lights, which cost Rs 11 to Rs 13 a unit last month and now cost Rs 36. Spread over the car's 200 units, charging at home is costing this household roughly Rs 75 a unit.

Petrol vs EV: The Monthly Saving

Even at Rs 75 a unit, the car wins comfortably.

Put the other way round, charging would have to cost about Rs 189 a unit in this example before the EV stopped saving money.

Want to run this for a particular car? Open its page on PakNEV and scroll to What It Costs to Run.

If Your House Already Uses More Than 200 Units

Plenty of homes cross 200 units every summer once an AC is running, and they have no protection to lose. For them the car's units are cheaper, so the saving is bigger. Here is the same 200-unit car added to homes of different sizes:

All of these are worked out the same way as the example: base rates, a 1 kW sanctioned load, the surcharge and 18% sales tax, before the monthly adjustments. The pattern is the useful part. A protected home that loses its status pays roughly Rs 70 to Rs 75 for each unit the car uses. A home that is already un-protected pays roughly Rs 60. Even the dearer figure is under half of what the same kilometres cost in petrol.

The Six-Month Catch

This matters most for the half-measure: plugging in at home now and then, or a plug-in hybrid that is charged only some weeks. A single month over 200 can cost nearly as much over the following months as that month saved on petrol. Sitting just under the line is worth knowing about too: at base rates, a protected home at 200 units pays about Rs 3,200, while an un-protected one at 201 pays about Rs 9,000.

So decide before the car arrives. If you will charge at home, charge at home properly and count the full saving. If you won't, keep your house under 200 and charge elsewhere.

How to Work Out Your Own Rate

1. Find your units. Your bill shows the last twelve months. Note your usual figure and whether any month crossed 200.
2. Work out the car's units. Multiply your monthly kilometres by the car's units per 100 km from the table above (or your own car's real figure), then divide by 100.
3. Price the bill with the car. Multiply your new total by the rate of the slab it falls in, from the table above. Add the fixed charge for that slab times your sanctioned load (printed on your bill), a surcharge of Rs 3.23 a unit for an un-protected home, and 18% sales tax on the lot. Do the same for your bill without the car, remembering that a protected home pays the lower rate on its first 100 units.
4. Divide. The difference between the two bills, divided by the car's units, is your real rate per unit.
5. Put it in the calculator. On any car's page on PakNEV, or in the PakNEV app, What It Costs to Run starts at Rs 50 a unit. Change it to your rate, then add your monthly kilometres, today's petrol price and your current car's average.

Ways to Keep the Charging Bill Down

• Be consistent. The six-month rule punishes occasional home charging more than anything else in this guide.
• Use a wallbox rather than the 3-pin charger if you charge at home every week. It wastes less of what you pay for.
• Charge off-peak if you have a time-of-use meter. Homes with a sanctioned load of 5 kW or more are on time-of-use meters, with an off-peak rate of Rs 34.53 a unit against Rs 46.85 at peak. Peak runs from 6 pm to 10 pm in autumn and spring, 7 pm to 11 pm in summer and 5 pm to 9 pm in winter, so set the car's charging timer to start after it. A home charger needs no separate meter, but a 7 kW wallbox can take a house past 5 kW of load, and NEPRA's

This May Change in 2027

The protected category is due to be replaced. Under its IMF programme, the government has committed to move the subsidy to a targeted scheme for low-income households through BISP by the end of January 2027, with households linked to the national socio-economic registry by the end of November 2026. Separately, Power Division is reviewing a proposal to charge the higher rate only in the month a household crosses 200, which the National Assembly's power committee has backed, Samaa reported in September.

Neither is in force yet. If either goes ahead, the 200-unit catch in this guide gets smaller, and we will cover it when it does.

The PakNEV Take: Judge the Extra, Not the Bill

The sixfold bill is real, and it will be the first thing your family notices. But it is the wrong number to judge an EV by. The figure that matters is the extra on the bill and what it replaces, and in our example even the worst case, at Rs 75 a unit and nearly six times what a protected home pays, works out at Rs 12 a km against petrol's Rs 29. If your house is already above 200 units, the sum is better still.

The one trap is the half-measure. Charge at home for a month or two, lose your protection for six, and you can end up paying for an EV's electricity without driving one. Decide how you will charge before the car arrives, put your own figures into What It Costs to Run, and compare the cars on running cost as well as price.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to charge an EV at home in Pakistan?

It depends on your bill as much as the car. A home already above 200 units pays roughly Rs 60 for each extra unit once fixed charges and tax are included, and a protected home that loses its status pays about Rs 75. For a compact EV at about 15 units per 100 km, that is roughly Rs 9 to Rs 12 a km.

How many units does an electric car use in a month?

A compact EV in town takes about 15 units per 100 km from the wall, so 1,300 km a month is about 200 units. A mid-size crossover or SUV takes 18 to 22 units per 100 km, or 235 to 285 units for the same distance.

Will charging an EV at home make me lose protected status?

If your house uses anywhere near 200 units now, almost certainly. A home stays protected only while it uses 200 units or less every month, and a typical commute adds 150 to 200 units on its own.

How long do you lose protected status after crossing 200 units?

Six months. You need six months in a row at 200 units or less on an ordinary meter to be protected again. A proposal to charge the higher rate only in the month you cross is under review but not in force.

Is an EV still cheaper than petrol if I lose protected status?

In our example, yes: about Rs 15,100 a month of extra electricity against Rs 37,800 of petrol, a saving of about Rs 22,700 a month. Charging would have to cost around Rs 189 a unit before the saving disappeared.

Is there a special electricity tariff for charging an EV at home?

No. NEPRA's EV tariff of Rs 23.57 a unit is for public charging stations, not homes. Home charging is billed at your normal residential rates, or at time-of-use rates if your sanctioned load is 5 kW or more.

How do I work out my own EV charging cost?

Price your bill with and without the car's units using the slab rates, then divide the difference by the car's units. Enter that rate, your monthly kilometres and today's petrol price in What It Costs to Run on any car's page or in the PakNEV app.