- EIA-861 reports average retail prices for four customer sectors: residential, commercial, industrial and transportation. In 27 of the 29 states that report a transportation-sector price, it is below the residential price.
- The gap is largest in Massachusetts (20.1 cents per kWh less) and California (15.2 cents less). Nationally, the transportation-sector average is 3.7 cents per kWh below the residential average (12.75 against 16.48).
- Only 50 customer accounts nationwide are billed in this sector, buying 1.61 billion kWh in 2024. The data does not say who they are or what the electricity is used for, so it cannot be read as the price of public EV charging.
- This site has no federal dataset of prices at public chargers, so this article does not compare public and home charging prices.
01 What the Transportation Sector Is
EIA collects retail electricity sales, revenue and customer counts from utilities on Form EIA-861 and publishes average prices by customer sector. EIA's glossary defines the transportation sector as "an energy-consuming sector that consists of all vehicles whose primary purpose is transporting people and/or goods from one physical location to another," and lists trains, subways and other rail vehicles among them. In the electricity data, the transportation sector is a customer class of its own, next to residential, commercial and industrial.
EIA Form EIA-861 (2024), Table 4; EIA Glossary, "Transportation sector."The utility-level table for this sector lists 40 utility rows in 2024 with 50 customer accounts in total and 1,612,799 MWh sold, at prices from 1.1 to 26.3 cents per kWh. The rows cover several kinds of seller (federal, investor owned, municipal, political subdivision, retail power marketer, state); for example, the City and County of San Francisco row has 1 customer and 97,793 MWh at 19.5 cents per kWh. The table does not say who the customers are or what the electricity is used for. This article therefore does not assume that the class represents EV charging, and the rates below should not be read as what anyone pays to charge an electric vehicle.
EIA Form EIA-861 (2024), Table 9: Utility Bundled Retail Sales, Transportation Sector; customer count and MWh are sums of the table's utility rows.02 Residential vs. Transportation Rates by State
Only 29 states (including D.C.) report a transportation-sector price in the 2024 data; for the others EIA withholds the value. Among those 29, the transportation price is below the residential price in 27. The table shows the seven largest gaps and the U.S. total.
| State | Residential (¢/kWh) | Transportation (¢/kWh) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 29.35 | 9.22 | −20.13 |
| California | 31.97 | 16.79 | −15.17 |
| Connecticut | 28.75 | 17.77 | −10.98 |
| Texas | 14.94 | 4.35 | −10.59 |
| New York | 24.43 | 14.70 | −9.73 |
| Ohio | 15.99 | 7.32 | −8.67 |
| New Jersey | 19.34 | 11.11 | −8.23 |
| U.S. Total | 16.48 | 12.75 | −3.73 |
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Use the Calculator03 What This Data Does Not Show
The transportation-sector price is what 29 states' utilities report charging a small number of customer accounts, and it is not a price list for charging an EV. This site's data files contain no federal dataset of retail prices at public EV chargers, so this article does not say whether public charging costs more or less than charging at home. For home charging, the calculator uses each state's residential electricity price and the vehicle's own EPA efficiency rating; see EV charging cost by state.
04 Where the Transportation Rate Is Not Lower
In 2 of the 29 reporting states the transportation price is at or above the residential price, the reverse of the national pattern. Utah is shown as the state where the transportation price is closest to the residential price without exceeding it.
| State | Residential (¢/kWh) | Transportation (¢/kWh) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin | 17.18 | 18.36 | +1.17 |
| Arkansas | 12.32 | 13.23 | +0.91 |
| Utah | 12.22 | 12.07 | −0.14 (closest to parity) |
05 Data Sources
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. Form EIA-861, Annual Electric Power Industry Report, 2024: Table 4, Total Electric Industry Average Retail Price, and Table 9, Utility Bundled Retail Sales, Transportation. eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. Glossary, "Transportation sector." eia.gov/tools/glossary