EV vs Gas Savings Calculator

Examples retain the currency, units and country rules stated in each example. Use your own local inputs in the calculator above.

EV vs petrol and gas: how the comparison works

The calculator prices the same annual driving two ways — electricity for an EV and gasoline for a comparable car — using your local electricity price and your vehicle efficiency, then projects cost per mile, cost per month, net savings, and a break-even year if you add both purchase prices.

Why cost per mile is the fairest comparison

Electricity and gasoline are sold in different units — dollars per kWh against dollars per gallon — so their prices cannot be compared directly. Converting both to a cost per mile driven puts them on the same footing: divide your electricity rate by the EV's efficiency in miles per kWh, and the pump price by the gas car's MPG. Multiply either by your annual mileage and you have an annual fuel cost you can hold against the other.

On the U.S. average residential rate of 18.44¢/kWh, a 3.5 mi/kWh EV costs 5.3¢ a mile. A 28-MPG gas car at $4.06 a gallon costs 14.5¢ a mile — nearly three times as much. Another way to read the same figure: that EV costs the same to run as a 28-MPG gas car would if gasoline sold for $1.48 a gallon. The calculator reports this equivalent pump price with every result, because it is the easiest version of the comparison to sanity-check against what you actually pay.

EV vs gas cost per month

Most people budget monthly, so here is the same comparison divided by twelve. At 13,500 miles a year on the US average residential rate, charging an EV at home runs about $59 a month. The same driving in a 28-MPG gas car at $4.06 a gallon costs about $163 a month — a difference of roughly $104 a month, or $1,246 a year.

Two things to keep in mind about the monthly figure. It is an average: charging costs rise in winter, when cold cuts efficiency, and fall in mild months. And the EV number lands on your electricity bill rather than at a pump, which is why the increase can be a surprise even when the total is lower — $59 a month on top of a typical household bill is a visible jump. Our EV charging cost calculator prices a single session or a monthly charging mix if you want to see that side on its own.

What an EV costs to run in every state

Electricity prices vary more across the United States than gas prices do, so where you live changes an EV's running cost far more than it changes a gas car's. The table below runs the same driver through this calculator in every state — 13,500 miles a year, a 3.5 mi/kWh EV, and a 28-MPG gas car at the $4.06 national average pump price — changing only the state's average residential electricity rate. Select your state in the calculator above and the figures will match exactly.

Annual fuel savings range from $1,481 in Idaho down to −$48 in Hawaii, with a median around $1,330. In Hawaii the arithmetic actually reverses at these assumptions — electricity is expensive enough that charging costs slightly more per mile than gasoline. Bear in mind that pump prices in Hawaii also run well above the national average used here, so a local gas price is essential before drawing a conclusion there. The last column is the pump price at which a 28-MPG gas car would break even with the EV; wherever gas costs more than that figure in your area, the EV is ahead.

These are statewide averages, and the spread inside one state can rival the spread between states — a customer of a high-rate investor-owned utility and a customer of a low-rate municipal or co-op utility in the next county will get very different answers. Treat the table as a starting point, then enter the effective rate from your own bill. Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (May 2026), reviewed August 2026; gas price from the AAA national average, August 2026.

Grouping the same table another way: the ten states where an EV saves the most on fuel are Idaho, Utah, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Missouri, New Mexico, Iowa, Louisiana, all of them above $1,412 a year. The ten where it saves least are Hawaii, California, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Alaska, Connecticut, New Hampshire, District of Columbia. Even at the bottom of that second list the EV still wins on fuel — Hawaii is the only state where the arithmetic reverses at these assumptions — but the margin in a high-rate state is small enough that a local gas price and your own utility rate decide the answer, not a national average.

Home charging vs public fast charging

This is the single largest variable on the page, and the one most often left out of EV savings estimates. Every figure above assumes you charge at home on a residential rate. Public DC fast charging is a different product at a different price: around 48¢/kWh as of August 2026, roughly 2.6 times the U.S. average residential rate. Networks are recovering hardware, grid connection, demand charges, and site rent, not just the energy.

The bottom row is the important one. A driver who charges exclusively on public fast networks saves about $106 a year against a 28-MPG gas car — next to nothing, and easily negative against an efficient hybrid. The EV savings case is really a home-charging case. If you rent, park on the street, or live in a building without charging, that is the first question to settle, ahead of which model to buy.

Most owners land somewhere in between, charging at home for daily driving and using fast chargers on road trips. To model that, enter a blended rate: if roughly 80% of your charging happens at home on the U.S. average rate and 20% on a fast network, the blended figure is about 24.4¢/kWh. Workplace charging, which is often free or heavily discounted, pulls the blend the other way. Our EV charging cost calculator prices a single charging session if you want to check one stop rather than a year.

EV vs hybrid: does an EV still win?

A 28-MPG gas car is the fair comparison for most crossovers and midsize sedans, but plenty of buyers weighing an EV are really choosing between an EV and a hybrid. That is a much closer race. A 50-MPG hybrid at $4.06 a gallon costs 8.1¢ a mile, against 5.3¢ a mile for a 3.5 mi/kWh EV on the US average electricity rate — about $385 a year at 13,500 miles, roughly 31% of the saving against a conventional gas car.

Set MPG to 50 in the calculator above to run your own version of this. Two conclusions tend to follow. Against a hybrid, home charging is no longer a nice-to-have — on public fast-charging prices an efficient hybrid is genuinely cheaper to fuel than an EV. And because the annual saving is smaller, any purchase-price gap takes proportionally longer to repay, so the break-even year is where an EV-versus-hybrid decision is usually settled rather than on cost per mile.

Running cost by EV model

Efficiency decides charging cost, not battery size — a bigger pack buys range, not cheaper miles. The table below prices 13,500 miles a year on the U.S. average residential rate for each model in the calculator, using rounded real-world efficiency figures rather than EPA sticker numbers, which most drivers do not match in practice.

The gap between the Tesla Model 3 (RWD) and the Ford F-150 Lightning is about $509 a year — a wider spread than many buyers expect between two electric vehicles. Electric trucks still beat gasoline on running cost, but by a far narrower margin than an efficient sedan, and they are the models most sensitive to a high electricity rate. Every figure is editable in the calculator, since trim, wheel size, climate, and driving style all move real efficiency.

Worked example: the average U.S. driver

Worked example: adding the purchase price

Two things move break-even more than anything else: mileage and the price gap. A driver covering 25,000 miles a year reaches it in roughly half the time shown above, while a 6,000-mile-a-year driver may never get there. And because the price gap is the numerator, an EV that costs the same as its gas equivalent after incentives is ahead from the first mile — which the calculator reports as "already ahead" rather than a break-even year.

What changes your real-world number

The arithmetic is simple; the inputs are what move. These are the factors that most often make an actual fuel bill differ from an estimate, in rough order of impact.

What this calculator doesn't include

The model covers fuel cost and, optionally, purchase price and maintenance. It does not model insurance premiums, which typically run higher on an EV because parts and repair labor cost more; registration and annual EV road-use fees; financing interest, which can exceed the fuel savings on a long loan; resale value, which varies with battery health and market conditions; or home charger installation, commonly $500–$2,000 for a Level 2 unit and considerably more if your panel needs upgrading. Each varies too much by model, state, lender, and property to estimate generically. If any of them matter to your decision, add them to the purchase-price side of the comparison yourself.

It also compares against a conventional gas car, not a hybrid. A 50-MPG hybrid costs about 8.1¢ a mile at the national average pump price — close to what an EV costs on public fast charging, and well under half a 28-MPG car. If a hybrid is on your shortlist, enter its MPG in the gas car field for an honest three-way view.

Common ways to use this calculator

Privacy and appropriate use

Your inputs are processed directly in your browser and are not sent to a database. The result is a planning estimate for budgeting and comparison, not financial advice — verify current gas and electricity prices, incentive eligibility, and vehicle pricing before making a purchase decision.