2023 Tesla Model 3 RWD for Uber: what a mile of electricity costs

"Is an EV worth it for Uber" comes up every week. The efficiency half of that question has a published answer. The price half does not — it depends on your power bill and where you charge.

So this page does the part it can do honestly: the EPA-measured consumption, and the arithmetic set up for you to drop your own rate into.

The EPA measurement

25.5 kWh per 100 miles — 24.5 city, 26.7 highway. Rated range: 272 miles. That is the Auto (A1), rear-wheel drive.

EPA also publishes 132 MPGe for this car. MPGe is an energy equivalence, not gallons burned — multiplying it by a gas price means nothing at all. That is why the number this page uses is kWh.

City figures beat highway ones here, which is the reverse of a gasoline car. Regenerative braking is why, and city crawling is most of what rideshare is.

EPA record for this exact vehicle — EPA #46206, Midsize Cars, Automatic (A1).

The arithmetic, with your rate

(25.5 kWh ÷ 100) × your rate per kWh = cost per mile.

That is 0.255 kWh per mile. At a rate of $0.15/kWh it works out to $0.038 a mile — but use your own rate off your own bill. A DC fast charger on shift costs far more than an overnight plug at home.

Why there is no state table on this page

The gasoline pages cross EPA mpg with EIA's published weekly pump prices, state by state. For electricity I have no equivalent per-state series I can cite, and I will not swap in a fuel price to make the page look symmetrical with the others.

The day there is a per-state kWh series worth citing, the table goes in. Until then the rate is the one number you bring.

The deadhead costs the same either way

Uber and Lyft pay for the trip and neither pays for the drive to the rider. Going electric does not change that — it only changes the size of the number. The mile to the pickup draws exactly what a paid mile draws.

What does change is charging time. Twenty minutes at a charger is twenty minutes not taking pings, and that never shows up in a kWh calculation.

What this page can't know

Your electricity rate. Whether you charge overnight at home or fast-charge mid-shift — the gap between those two prices is large.

It also cannot know battery degradation, what a replacement pack will cost you later, or your insurance, which tends to run higher on an EV.

And it cannot tell you whether a specific offer is worth taking. That depends on time as much as distance.

Common questions

Is an EV worth it for Uber?

On energy alone, usually yes: 0.255 kWh a mile is very little, and at a residential rate the per-mile cost lands well under a comparable gasoline car. What actually decides it is everything else — purchase price, where you charge, how much shift time you lose charging, and insurance.

What is the efficiency of the 2023 Tesla Model 3 RWD?

25.5 kWh per 100 miles combined, EPA measured, with a rated range of 272 miles. EPA also lists 132 MPGe, which is useful for comparing EVs to each other and useless for working out what a shift costs.

Why don't you show a cost per mile directly?

Because I would need a published per-state electricity rate to cite, and I do not have one. What I can do without inventing a number is give you the measured consumption and the formula. Using a gasoline price to compute an EV's running cost would be wrong, so this page does not do it.

Is MPGe good for anything?

Comparing EVs to each other. It is not good for working out spending, because the car buys no gallons. For money, use kWh and your own rate.

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