It’s Not EVs Running Up Your Power Bill. It’s Data Centers.

Source: Recurrent Motors, Inc., September 16, 2025. EV charging estimates based on U.S. fleet projections (23.5 TWh/year). Data center energy estimates (230 TWh/year) from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, December 2024 report.

Everywhere we go, we hear the same question: “Aren’t electric cars driving up our utility bills?”

The short answer: no.

According to Recurrent Motors, Inc. (September 16, 2025), all EVs on U.S. roads today use less than 1% of America’s annual electricity consumption. Less than one percent.

The real story is data centers.

The Numbers That Matter

Recurrent’s analysis shows:

• EVs (2025): About 23.5 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year
• Data centers (2025): About 230 TWh a year, based on Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
• That is ten times more than all EVs combined, and growing fast

Why It Matters

Recurrent reports that electricity prices, stable for decades, are now rising twice as fast as inflation. A big reason is demand from AI data centers.

In Virginia, bills could rise 25% by 2030. In Ohio, utilities will be powering 30 new data centers, pushing demand equal to Manhattan’s. PJM, the grid operator serving both states, added $9.4 billion in costs last year from data centers.

The Myth vs. Reality

Recurrent found that 31% of people think EVs use as much or more power than data centers. That is exactly backwards.

EV charging is flexible. It can shift overnight, spread across neighborhoods, and work with renewables. Data centers run 24/7 on chips that use up to ten times more power than normal processors. The demand never sleeps.

So next time someone blames EVs for rising bills, remember:

• EVs = under 1% of U.S. electricity use
• Data centers = 10 times higher and climbing

The real challenge is not plugging in cars. It is powering the explosive growth of data centers.

(All figures and analysis cited directly from Recurrent Motors, Inc., September 16, 2025.)