People who drive electric vehicles (EVs) have a certain amount of environmental bragging rights – but there are plenty of other reasons why it might be worth buying one.

Elon Musk’s Tesla is the most well-known EV brand on the market for a reason – and if you’re really canny, there are ways to basically avoid ever having to pay to charge your car, whether it’s a Model Y, Model 3 or a brand-new Cybertruck.

Step forward X (formerly known as Twitter) user @Tesla_GTownTX, whose affinity for Tesla is demonstrated right there in their username.

First time i’ve had a bill within the last 12 months. this sucks. pic.twitter.com/OSGdu1QbcN

— RG (@Tesla_GTownTX) January 17, 2024

They shared a screenshot today of what they say is the first time they’ve had to actually pay a bill to charge their Tesla in a whole year – and the total owed is pretty surprising.

The balance due is just $2.37 (£1.89) – rather than the hundreds of dollars you might assume it costs to charge your car regularly over a month.

If you take a look at their Twitter profile you can get a pretty big clue as to how they might have managed to only pay a few bucks to charge their car this year,.

Their cover photo shows a Tesla Powerwall – that’s a massive battery you can buy and loop into your home’s power to store charge, and it’s at its most useful when paired with solar panels, to create a potentially self-sufficient power loop.

This means your solar panels can power your home, but also store excess charge in your Powerwall, which can then use this charge to keep your car topped up when you plug it in.

It’s a bit of a dream scenario, but it requires a pretty high buy-in cost to set up, between the panels, the battery and the car itself.

There are still quite a lot of environmental factors that play into how well it works – @Tesla_GTownTX seems to be in the Texas area, which would normally get loads of sunshine to bank plenty of power, but the ongoing cold snap has probably slowed that to a trickle.

The X user jokingly captioned their post: “First time I’ve had a bill within the last 12 months. This sucks.” And people have replied with plenty of jokes – including the Tiger King meme, where Joe Exotic says: “I am never going to financially recover from this.”

One user replied: “That’s horrible. My condolences.” While another joked: “Damn my dude post a GoFund Me the community will rally around you I’m sure.”

According to Forbes, these Tesla Powerwalls can cost you well over $11,000 per battery, and the more you have, the more electricity you are likely to save. If you want to reduce this price, you’d have to buy five batteries for $40,500, which amounts to a still-gargantuan $8,100 per battery.

So, while it may seem like the man lucked out on having such a low bill, he certainly didn’t get off easy when it comes to making a large payment.