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EV vs. Gas Cost Calculator

Whether an electric car saves you money depends on four things: your electricity rate, your local gasoline price, how much of your charging happens at home, and how many miles you drive.

Last updated Free, no sign-upHow it works

Your inputs
Your driving

The most important input after your electricity rate. Home charging is where the savings live.

The two vehicles

Around 30 for a midsize sedan, 40 or more for an electric pickup.

Location

Optional. Picks the published price for your state; otherwise the US average is used.

Why we ask

A ZIP code is matched to its state with published postal prefix ranges and used only to look up that state’s row in a federal price table. We never ask for a street address, nothing is stored, and your inputs appear only in this page’s URL.

Results update as you type. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or stored.

Electric saves you this much: $5,100, ranging from $750 to $9,700.

Electric saves you this much

low confidence
$5,100Over 5 years and 67,500 miles, running costs only
$750 lowhigh $9,700
  • United States average
  • Assumptions 2026.07.1

Why low: no state was resolved, so national averages were used; the modeled range spans about 175% of the typical value.

Key figures

Gasoline cost per mile
$0.21
Electric cost per mile
$0.11
Gasoline total
$14,071($11,920 – $17,299)
Electric total
$8,937($7,549 – $11,172)
Difference per year
$1,027
Electricity used
22,606 kWhAt the wall, including charging losses. Your car reports a lower figure because it measures energy reaching the battery.
Gasoline avoided
2,411 gallons

Cost breakdown

Estimated cost of each component, with low, typical, and high values.
ComponentLowTypicalHigh
Electric saves you this much$750$5,100$9,700

The rows above are the figures the electric saves you this much is worked out from, not parts that add up to it.

For reference — already included above

  • Gasoline — fuel$10,000
  • Gasoline — maintenance$4,050
  • Electric — charging$5,100
  • Electric — maintenance$2,650
  • Electric — home charger installation$1,200

What moved your estimate

  • Electric is cheaper here — decreases the estimate

    Over 5 years and 67,500 miles, the electric vehicle costs about $5,134 less on the terms you entered.

  • Running costs only

    Purchase prices are excluded, so this compares what the two cost to operate, not what they cost to buy. Switch the comparison mode above to include the price difference and any incentive.

How this number was produced
  1. Gasoline fuel67,500 mi ÷ 28 MPG × $4.157$10,021
  2. Electric charging20,250 kWh to the battery, grossed up for losses and mixed rates$5,104
  3. Maintenance difference$4,050 − $2,633$1,418
  4. Advantage to electricgasoline total − electric total$5,134

Adjustments applied

  • Gasoline price×1.00

    United States average of $4.157/gal (EIA, Week of 2026-09-07).

  • Electricity rate×1.00

    United States residential average of $0.1834/kWh (EIA, June 2026).

  • Public charging share×1.24

    15% of miles at 2.6× the home rate.

  • Electric maintenance factor×0.65

    Electric vehicles have no oil changes, no spark plugs, no exhaust system, no timing belt, and far less brake wear because regenerative braking does most of the slowing. Tires are the one line that usually runs higher, since electric vehicles are heavier and deliver torque instantly. The 0.65 factor is the net of those effects.

Notes and sources5 notes, 3 sources

Worth knowing

  • The four cost lines are shown for information and are not summed into the headline — the headline is the difference between the two vehicles, which is the number the comparison is actually about.
  • Depreciation is excluded. It is often the largest cost of owning either vehicle, and electric resale values have moved sharply enough in recent years that projecting them would add more noise than signal. The car ownership calculator handles depreciation for a single vehicle.
  • Charging losses are included: about 11% on a Level 2 home charger and 10% on DC fast charging. Your car’s trip computer reports energy leaving the battery, while your meter bills for energy entering the charger, and the difference is real electricity you pay for.
  • Cold weather can raise electric consumption by 20% to 40%, because cabin heat and battery conditioning both draw from the pack rather than from waste engine heat. Gasoline economy also suffers in the cold, but less.
  • Incentives change frequently and eligibility depends on the vehicle, the buyer, and sometimes the dealer. Enter only what you have confirmed you qualify for.

Sources

  • U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices — regular grade, all formulations, by region and selected stateprimaryWeek of 2026-09-07retrieved 2026-09-11
  • U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A — Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by StateprimaryJune 2026retrieved 2026-09-11
  • Fuel economy anchored to the U.S. EPA Automotive Trends Report (model year 2024 real-world values); ownership cost components compiled from IRS Notice 2026-10 and IR-2026-29 standard mileage rates, U.S. DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center guidance, and editorial baselines where no agency publishes a figuremixed2026retrieved 2026-07-31

Change any one of them enough and the answer flips. This calculator uses published prices for your state and lets you set the rest, rather than asserting a national conclusion that fits nobody.

Methodology

How this calculator works

What is being compared

By default this compares operating cost only: fuel against electricity, and maintenance against maintenance. That answers the question most people actually have, which is whether the cheaper running costs are real and how large they are.

Switching to include the purchase price adds the difference between the two vehicles, after any incentive you enter, plus the one-off cost of installing a home charger. That answers a different and harder question, and the break-even year it produces is only as good as the prices you supply.

Why charging location dominates

Home charging is priced at your state’s residential electricity rate. Public DC fast charging typically costs two to three times that, and some networks bill by the minute rather than the kilowatt-hour, which penalises slower-charging vehicles further.

The consequence is stark: a driver charging entirely at home in a cheap-electricity state pays a small fraction of gasoline cost, while a driver relying on public fast charging in an expensive state can pay about the same as gasoline, or more. Adjust the home share slider and watch the conclusion move.

What is deliberately left out

Depreciation is excluded, despite usually being the largest single cost of owning either vehicle. Electric resale values have moved sharply over recent years — battery health, rapid model turnover, and shifting incentive rules all feed into it — and projecting them forward would add far more uncertainty than the comparison can carry.

Insurance is also excluded. Electric vehicles often cost more to insure, because repair costs and total-loss thresholds differ, but the gap varies too much by model and insurer to model honestly at this level.

Location and data

Where the numbers come from

Location is optional, and we only ask for a ZIP code or a state — never a street address. A ZIP code is matched to its state using published postal prefix ranges, and that state is used to look up labor and price rows in the tables below. If you leave it blank, or your ZIP cannot be matched, the estimate falls back to a national average and says so on the result.

Nothing you enter is transmitted or stored. The calculation runs entirely in your browser, and the only place your inputs appear is in the page URL, so you can bookmark or share a result if you choose to.

  • primaryJune 2026v2026.06

    U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A — Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State

    Residential sector average retail price. State averages blend all utilities and rate classes in the state; an individual household bill can differ substantially, especially in deregulated markets and for customers on time-of-use tariffs.

  • primaryWeek of 2026-09-07v2026.09.1

    U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices — regular grade, all formulations, by region and selected state

    EIA publishes weekly retail gasoline prices for the nation, for each Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) sub-region, and for nine individual states. States EIA does not publish separately take their PADD sub-region price, which is the finest published geography available; every result discloses which of the two applied. Prices are a weekly snapshot and move faster than any other figure on this site, so every calculator that uses them lets you type in the price you actually paid.

  • mixed2026v2026.07.1

    Fuel economy anchored to the U.S. EPA Automotive Trends Report (model year 2024 real-world values); ownership cost components compiled from IRS Notice 2026-10 and IR-2026-29 standard mileage rates, U.S. DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center guidance, and editorial baselines where no agency publishes a figure

    Two numbers here come straight from the EPA: the model year 2024 fleet-wide real-world average of 27.2 MPG and the truck SUV average of 25.7 MPG. The other class averages are editorial estimates positioned around those published anchors, and every one of them describes a NEW vehicle — the average vehicle actually on the road is roughly twelve years old and less efficient, which is why each class carries a range rather than a point. Depreciation, maintenance, tires, and registration are assumptions: no federal agency publishes them per vehicle, and the commercial datasets that do are licensed products we have not bought. Each is registered in the assumption registry with its observed range and rationale, and each is adjustable in every calculator that uses it.

Full detail on every dataset is on the data sources page. Spotted something wrong? Report incorrect data.

Calibration

The judgements behind this estimate

These are the figures we chose rather than measured. For each one we record the range of values found across references, what we selected, and why — because an estimate you cannot interrogate is not much better than a guess. The 2 marked high risk are the ones most likely to be wrong and most consequential when they are.

  • Public DC fast charging premium over the residential ratehigh riskmedium confidence
    Observed range
    1.8 — 3.6 (typical 2.6)multiple of the home electricity rate
    Why this value
    Reuses the value already calibrated for the EV charging calculator so the two agree. It is the largest single lever on whether an electric vehicle saves money, which is why it is exposed as an adjustable field rather than buried.
    Applies to
    Varies by network coverage rather than by state.
    Known limits
    Some networks bill by the minute rather than the kilowatt-hour, which penalises slower-charging vehicles in a way a simple multiplier cannot represent. Membership plans change the figure substantially.
    Sources
    Compiled from published network pricing; no federal agency aggregates public charging prices; Consistent with the value used by the EV charging cost calculator
    Last verified
    2026-07-31 · reviewed annual
  • Maintenance, repairs, and tires per mile by vehicle agehigh risklow confidence
    Observed range
    0.04 — 0.26 (typical 0.1)dollars per mile
    Why this value
    Three age bands rather than one figure, because upkeep roughly triples per mile between a nearly-new vehicle and one past ten years old. The typical value shown here is the mid-life band, which covers vehicles four to nine years old. Excludes collision damage and excludes fuel.
    Applies to
    Not modeled regionally, though labor rates for repair work follow the same pattern as other trades.
    Known limits
    These are multi-year averages, not predictions for any particular month. Real maintenance spending is lumpy: nothing for months, then a component failure. The high end of the older-vehicle band is where those years land.
    Sources
    No federal agency publishes vehicle maintenance cost per mile; the commercial datasets that do are licensed products not used here; Cross-checked for plausibility against the IRS business standard mileage rate, which is an all-in federal figure covering this among other costs
    Last verified
    2026-07-31 · reviewed annual
  • Electric drivetrain maintenance relative to gasolinemedium confidence
    Observed range
    0.5 — 0.8 (typical 0.65)multiplier on the gasoline maintenance figure
    Why this value
    Net of two opposing effects. Electric drivetrains remove oil changes, spark plugs, exhaust systems, and timing belts, and regenerative braking means pads often last past 100,000 miles. Tires run the other way: the vehicles are heavier and deliver torque instantly, so they wear faster.
    Applies to
    Not regionally variable.
    Known limits
    The federal source describes the difference qualitatively and does not put a number on it. Battery replacement outside warranty is not modeled at all, and would dominate if it occurred.
    Sources
    U.S. DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center guidance on electric vehicle maintenance requirements (qualitative); Editorial quantification of the qualitative federal guidance
    Last verified
    2026-07-31 · reviewed annual

Cost factors

What changes the price most

Your electricity rate
Varies more than fourfold across states. The single biggest determinant of whether electric wins.
Local gasoline price
Nearly two dollars a gallon separates the cheapest and most expensive states, which moves the comparison substantially.
Home versus public charging
Public fast charging costs two to three times the home rate and can erase the advantage entirely.
Annual mileage
Running-cost savings scale with miles. Low-mileage drivers take much longer to recover any price premium.
Maintenance
Electric drivetrains run about 35% cheaper to maintain — real, but small next to the fuel difference.
Cold climate
Not modeled. Winter can raise electric consumption 20% to 40%, narrowing the gap in northern states.

Questions

Frequently asked

Is an electric car cheaper than gas?

To run, usually yes — often half the cost or better when charging at home. At the national average electricity rate, an electric sedan costs roughly 6 cents a mile against about 15 cents for a 28 MPG gasoline car. The advantage narrows sharply with heavy public fast charging or expensive electricity.

How much does it cost to charge an EV vs fill up with gas?

A 300 mile charge at the national average residential rate costs about $16. Driving 300 miles in a 28 MPG car at current prices costs about $44. The same charge at a public DC fast charger commonly runs $40 or more, which is roughly parity with gasoline.

How long does it take for an EV to pay for itself?

Where the electric vehicle costs more up front, break-even depends almost entirely on mileage and rates. At average mileage with a $6,000 price gap after incentives and typical home charging, five to eight years is common. Heavy drivers get there much faster; low-mileage drivers may never. Switch the comparison mode above to see your own figure.

Do electric cars really need less maintenance?

Yes. There is no oil to change, no spark plugs, no exhaust system, no timing belt, and regenerative braking does most of the slowing, so brake pads often last past 100,000 miles. Tires are the exception — the extra weight and instant torque wear them faster.

Is it cheaper to charge at home or at a public charger?

At home, substantially. Residential electricity averages about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour nationally, while public DC fast charging typically runs two to three times that. If you cannot charge where you park, the financial case for an electric vehicle is much weaker.