Showing United Kingdom · 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 UK 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 (mi/kWh) over the miles you drive, times your electricity price; the petrol or diesel car is worked out from its MPG and the pump price per litre. CO₂ avoided compares the emissions of the fuel you'd burn (petrol 2.31 kg/L, diesel 2.68 kg/L) against the power you'd use — the GB grid averages about 0.21 kg CO₂ per kWh and keeps falling as renewables grow. The default home rate (~25p/kWh) tracks the Ofgem price cap, but a dedicated EV tariff can cut overnight charging to single-digit pence, so set yours. Estimates only, not financial advice.
For most UK drivers, charging at home is dramatically cheaper than filling up — how big the saving is depends on your tariff.
On the price cap (~25p/kWh) an efficient EV runs roughly 6–7p a mile, versus about 18–22p a mile for a petrol car at ~£1.40–1.60 a litre — and on a dedicated overnight EV tariff like Octopus Go (about 7–9p/kWh) it drops nearer 2p a mile. The catch is public rapid charging: the UK networks average around 79p/kWh (Tesla is usually cheapest near 63p; InstaVolt and BP Pulse sit near 89–92p), which can cost as much per mile as petrol. So the savings are biggest if you can charge at home overnight.
This tool covers running costs only — not the purchase price, insurance, VED road tax or the EV salary-sacrifice schemes many UK employers offer, which can change the picture significantly. Use it to understand the energy savings, then weigh them against the upfront cost.
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.
