kWh/100 km
Electric car efficiency as energy used per 100 kilometers. Lower is better; it is the EV equivalent of L/100 km.
kWh/100 km tells you how much electrical energy an electric car draws to travel 100 kilometers. It is the direct EV counterpart of L/100 km for gas cars: lower means more efficient, and the figure multiplied by your electricity price gives the energy cost of driving 100 km.
Efficiency varies between EVs. A compact car and a heavy SUV can differ by a wide margin, and the thirstier one needs a larger, more expensive battery to reach the same range. That is why CarPairly shows efficiency alongside range: a long range achieved through a huge battery costs more to buy and to charge than one achieved through efficiency.
Internally the site stores efficiency as Wh/km for each test cycle, WLTP and EPA; dividing by 10 gives kWh/100 km. The same quantity appears as kWh/100 mi in the US and mi/kWh in the UK.
Differs by market
CarPairly shows kWh/100 km in Canada, Australia, and the European and Norwegian markets. The US uses kWh/100 mi and the UK uses mi/kWh for the same underlying quantity.