An EV charger for a short term rental pencils out on one number: the spread between what you pay per kilowatt-hour and what the public chargers down the street charge. Residential electricity runs roughly 14 to 30 cents per kWh depending on the state. Commercial charging runs 35 to 80 cents, with 60 to 70 cents typical. That gap is the entire business case, and it is also why an unmetered outlet quietly costs you money.
Frank Scrozafava and Mike Canzoneri, founders of Buffalo-based Boba Charge, spent three years building a Level 2 unit with an owner-controlled payment system after Frank got tired of Venmo-ing Airbnb hosts $20 a night to trickle-charge his Tesla. Their numbers on install cost, per-charge economics and payback are the backbone of what follows.
This guide covers what a guest charge actually costs you, the difference between trickle and Level 2 in usable overnight range, what the electrical work involves, how to price the kilowatt-hour so guests do not push back, and where the payback comes from — per charge or per booking.
Key takeaways
- Residential power runs about 14 to 30 cents per kWh; nearby public chargers typically run 60 to 70 cents. Pricing a few cents under the local public rate captures most of that spread while still reading as a bargain to the guest.
- A Tesla Model 3 charged zero to full costs the owner roughly $20 in California. A 200 kWh vehicle like a Hummer EV runs closer to $50 — and you find out weeks later when the lagging electric bill arrives.
- A 120V trickle outlet delivers about 5 miles of range per hour. Level 2 delivers about 30. Only Level 2 actually solves the problem for a guest checking out in the morning.
- Two payback paths: on a $30 charge with $10 of electricity you net $20, so a $399 unit breaks even in about 20 charges. Or at a $300 nightly rate, two extra booked nights from EV drivers cover the hardware outright.
- Commercial providers like ChargePoint will not underwrite a single-family rental. They want a bank of chargers and multiple parking spots, and even then the property owner may see only a small revenue share.
From the Real Estate Pros Show
This article draws on an interview with Mike Canzoneri and Frank Scrozafava of Boba Charge (Radial Ventures) on the Real Estate Pros Show, hosted by Cody Crabb.
Why Unmetered Charging Is a Hidden Cost on Short-Term Rentals
The problem with a standard Level 2 unit bought off Amazon is not the hardware. It is that your electricity becomes open and free to whoever plugs in, and you have no visibility into it until the bill lands.
Run the numbers. A Tesla Model 3 charged from zero to full costs the property owner roughly $20 in California. A large-battery vehicle — Scrozafava’s example is a Hummer with a 200 kWh pack — puts about $50 on your bill for a single charge. Multiply by a guest who plugs in every night of a week-long stay.
Residential rates vary enough that geography matters here. Scrozafava’s Buffalo bill runs about 22 cents per kWh. Parts of New York sit at 22 to 25 cents. Parts of California reach 30 cents. Some states are as low as 14 cents. Whatever your rate, the exposure is asymmetric: the guest has no reason to moderate consumption, and you have no meter separating vehicle charging from the rest of the house.
The timing is what makes it sting. Utility billing lags. Your guest checked out three weeks ago, the review is posted, the money is banked, and then the statement shows a number you cannot attribute to anything.
Scrozafava’s own origin story is the workaround most people improvise. Staying at an Airbnb with a Tesla, he texted the host, got permission to plug in, and Venmo’d $20 a night on the honor system. That works exactly as long as both parties are unusually conscientious. It is not a system.
Trickle vs Level 2: What Guests Can Actually Use Overnight
There are three tiers, and only one of them fits a residential rental.
- DC fast charging (“superchargers”). The units outside Walmart, Whole Foods, highway stops and major Marriotts. Roughly $20,000 apiece installed. The power requirements alone rule out a residential setting.
- Level 2. The 240V unit you mount in a garage when you buy an electric car. Delivers about 30 miles of range per hour.
- 120V trickle. A standard household outlet and the cable that came with the car. About 5 miles of range per hour.
The range math is the whole argument. A guest who plugs into a regular outlet at 9 p.m. and leaves at 8 a.m. picks up roughly 55 miles. That does not cover a day of driving in an unfamiliar area, so they still have to sit at a public charger — which is precisely the outcome an EV-driving guest is trying to avoid when booking.
The same overnight window on Level 2 is closer to 330 miles. That is a full charge for most vehicles, and it removes the trip planning problem entirely.
Canzoneri describes the pattern they hear repeatedly: the dad parked at a commercial charger paying retail rates while the rest of the family is at the pool. That is the specific frustration driving EV owners toward hotels, which have essentially all added chargers. As Canzoneri put it, there aren’t any major hotels left without them. For a week-long stay, a guest still wants a kitchen and a house — they just are not willing to give up charging to get it.
Residential electricity is anywhere between 14 cents and 30 cents per kilowatt hour in the United States, while commercial charging rates run from 35 cents up to as high as 80 cents. That’s how you profit from the gap.
— Frank Scrozafava, co-founder, Boba Charge
The Install: 240V Outlet, Amperage, and Property Value
If you already have a 240V NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage, the unit mounts to the wall in 10 to 15 minutes. Plug-in models exist alongside hardwired versions, and plenty of properties already have the receptacle — it is the same outlet an electric range or a welder uses.
If you do not have one, an electrician installs it. Treat that spend as a property improvement rather than a cost of the charger. A number of states now require the outlet in new residential construction, which tells you where the code is heading and what the next buyer will expect. A garage with a 240V circuit is worth more than one without, whether or not a charger is hanging on the wall.
On amperage: the residential unit is 48 amps, which Scrozafava describes as more than adequate for a single-family Airbnb. There is a 60-amp commercial model, but he is direct that it is total overkill for a house. Save it for a small motel, a duplex or fourplex with shared parking, or a business with several vehicles cycling through.
What you will not get is a commercial provider doing the work for you. Call ChargePoint about a single Airbnb and the math does not work on their side. Their model needs scale — a 50-unit building, five dedicated parking spots, a direct grid connection. In that arrangement they take the revenue and the owner may see a small kickback. For a single property or a fourplex, no commercial operator is going to spend the time, because they will never recover the investment.
Pricing Guest Charging: Profiting From the Gap
Scrozafava calls the pricing framework “profit from the gap,” and it is a two-number calculation. Number one is what you pay per kWh. Number two is what the nearest public charger charges. You set your rate in between.
His own worked example: his Buffalo electricity runs about 22 cents per kWh. A mile down the street, the commercial rate is 65 cents. With the nearest public chargers at 60 to 65 cents, he would set his own rate at 55 cents. The guest sees a price below what they would pay in town and does not have to spend an hour sitting at a charger before checkout. That five-cent discount plus the convenience is enough that nobody argues about it.
Nationally the spread is 14 to 30 cents residential against 35 to 80 cents commercial. Go look up the two numbers for your specific market before you set anything — the gap in Buffalo is not the gap in Los Angeles.
You do not have to maximize it. Three legitimate strategies:
- Price to profit. A few cents under the nearest public rate. Standard for most STRs.
- Price at cost. Set your rate equal to your utility rate and break even. Canzoneri mentions a small business owner who did exactly this for employees — he did not want to give electricity away, but he was not trying to earn on it either.
- Bake it into the nightly rate. On a high-end LA property where the guest is already paying thousands, metering a $20 charge may not be worth the friction. Toggle billing off and market it as included.
The owner app also has a personal-use toggle, so an owner who rents half the year charges their own vehicle for free the other half.
Payback: Charge Count vs Incremental Bookings
Two ways to get your money back, and they run in parallel.
Per charge. On an average charge billed at $30 where the electricity cost you about $10, you net $20. At a $399 unit price, that is roughly 20 charges to break even. Everything after covers your power and puts the remainder in your pocket. For a property that hosts EV drivers regularly, 20 charges is not a long horizon.
Per booking. This is the larger number and it depends entirely on occupancy. At a $300 nightly rate, two extra booked nights from EV-driving guests who would otherwise have picked a hotel more than cover the hardware. Scrozafava frames it as three or four such guests over the course of a year for full payback — after that, as he puts it, everything else is cake.
The reason the occupancy path is credible right now is scarcity. Frank went looking for Airbnbs with EV charging and found it almost non-existent across Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com. An EV driver filtering for the amenity is choosing from a very short list, which is a real advantage while it lasts. It is the pet-friendly dynamic: a small amount of upfront work opens a segment of guests who will pick you over a comparable listing.
Two caveats worth holding. Both paths depend on EV drivers actually booking your market, so a property in an area with heavy EV traffic pencils faster than a remote cabin. And the occupancy argument weakens as more hosts install chargers — which is an argument for moving sooner rather than later.
Beyond STRs: Long-Term Rentals, Fourplexes, and Small Commercial
Metered charging solves a specific problem anywhere a vehicle parks for a few hours and someone other than the driver is paying for power.
College-town rentals. Four or five students in a house splitting the power bill three or four ways. One of them drives an EV and charges nightly, adding roughly $200 to $300 a month to that bill. Canzoneri points out that the split-the-bill convention breaks down completely under those conditions. A metered charger on the side of the house separates vehicle charging from household use and removes the argument entirely.
Duplexes and fourplexes. This is where the higher-amp commercial model earns its price. Multiple tenants, shared parking, and no commercial provider willing to install at that scale.
Small businesses and roadside properties. Boba Charge has sold into campgrounds, pubs, cafes, libraries and small motels — the roadside operators a large charging company will never visit. Anywhere cars sit for a couple of hours, charging is both a revenue line and a reason to stop.
Two operational details matter if you run more than one property. The owner app controls one charger or a thousand, and the same app manages residential and commercial units side by side. That means a portfolio owner sets rates across the whole book from one place.
On the guest side, there is no app to download. Scan the QR code with a phone camera, land on a web payment portal, pay with a card or one-click Apple Pay or Google Pay, and plug in. The whole transaction runs about 30 seconds — which matters, because any friction at the plug turns into a support call to you.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a guest charging an EV actually add to my electric bill?
Roughly $20 for a Tesla Model 3 charged zero to full at California residential rates, and closer to $50 for a large-battery vehicle with a 200 kWh pack. Your actual cost scales with your utility rate, which ranges from about 14 cents per kWh in the cheapest states to around 30 cents in parts of California.
The practical problem is timing. Utility billing lags, so a guest who plugged in nightly during a week-long stay shows up on a statement weeks after checkout, mixed in with the rest of the house’s usage and impossible to attribute.
Can I legally resell electricity to my guests at a markup?
Rules on reselling electricity vary by state and utility, and some jurisdictions treat per-kWh billing differently than a flat fee or a bundled amenity charge. Check with your utility and a local attorney before setting a per-kilowatt-hour rate.
If billing per kWh is a problem in your area, the alternatives are to price at your own cost to break even, or to bake the charging into your nightly rate and turn metered billing off entirely.
Do I need an electrician, or can I use an existing outlet?
If the property already has a 240V NEMA 14-50 outlet — common in garages, and increasingly required in new residential construction in some states — a plug-in Level 2 unit mounts to the wall in 10 to 15 minutes with no electrician needed.
If there is no 240V receptacle, an electrician has to add one. That is real money, but the circuit itself is an improvement that stays with the property and shows up in resale value as more buyers expect it.
What per-kWh rate should I set so guests don’t complain?
Set it a few cents below the nearest public charger. Scrozafava’s example: with local commercial chargers at 60 to 65 cents per kWh, he sets 55 cents. The guest sees a lower price than they would pay in town and avoids sitting at a charger before checkout, so the rate does not read as a gouge.
Look up two numbers before deciding — your own utility rate per kWh and the posted rate at the closest public charger. Typical public rates run 60 to 70 cents, but the spread differs a lot by market.
Is a commercial charging company like ChargePoint an option for a single rental property?
No. Commercial charging companies need scale to justify the install — a large building, a bank of chargers, several dedicated parking spots. Call one about an Airbnb or a fourplex and they will decline, because they will never recover the investment.
Even at scale the economics favor the provider. They connect directly to the grid and collect the payments, and the property owner may see only a small revenue share in exchange for giving up parking spots. For small properties, a DIY Level 2 unit with its own payment system is the workable path.
The bottom line
Before buying anything, pull your last utility statement for your per-kWh rate and check the posted price at the nearest public charger. If that gap is 30 cents or more and your market sees EV traffic, the install pays for itself well inside a year — and if it is narrower, you now know to price at cost and treat charging as an occupancy play rather than a revenue line.
