Showing Ireland · real 2026 prices
Plug in how you drive and your local prices. We'll show your real yearly running cost, side by side — using current Irish electricity and fuel figures.
Adjust anything to match your situation.
Estimate only. Excludes purchase price, servicing, registration & insurance. Public fast-charging costs more than home charging. CO₂ is based on standard fuel and grid emission factors for your region.
Transparent maths you can trust — every figure is yours to change.
Your EV's yearly cost is its efficiency over the distance you drive, times your electricity price; the petrol car uses its L/100km and the pump price per litre. CO₂ avoided compares fuel emissions (petrol 2.31 kg/L, diesel 2.68 kg/L) against the grid, around 0.23 kg/kWh in Ireland and falling as wind grows. Irish power is among the priciest in the EU (~35c/kWh day rate), but EV night tariffs are far cheaper, so set yours. Estimates only, not financial advice.
With some of the EU's dearest electricity, the big EV savings in Ireland come from a night-rate tariff.
On a standard day rate (~35c/kWh) an EV still undercuts petrol at ~€1.84 a litre, but a dedicated EV night-rate tariff — where overnight power drops to a fraction of the day price — is where it really pays off. Public charging is dearer: ESB ecars runs about 59c/kWh on AC and 64c on DC, with networks like EZO from 50c and Ionity up to 81c. So home night-rate charging is comfortably the cheapest way to run an EV here.
Quick answers about EV versus petrol running costs.
For a typical driver charging at home, the electricity for an EV costs roughly a third of the equivalent petrol bill — often less on an off-peak tariff or rooftop solar. The gap narrows if you rely mostly on public fast charging, so the honest answer depends on your tariff, which is why every figure in this calculator is editable.
Both cars use the same simple formula: (distance ÷ 100) × efficiency × energy price. For the EV that’s kWh/100km times your per-kWh electricity price; for the petrol car it’s L/100km times the pump price per litre. No hidden assumptions — the full method is shown on this page.
No — this tool compares energy (running) costs only. Purchase price, insurance, registration and depreciation vary too much by model to generalise. EVs do typically save on servicing as well, so the running-cost gap shown here is usually conservative.
Usually, yes. The comparison is: litres of fuel × 2.31–2.68 kg of CO₂ versus kWh used × your grid’s emissions factor. On most grids the EV comes out well ahead, grids get cleaner every year, and charging from rooftop solar is close to zero-emission driving.
They’re drawn from current public data for the country you select — energy regulators, fuel-price monitors and charging networks, linked in the sources note above. Treat them as sensible starting points and set your own numbers for a result that matches your life.
