Thinking about going electric? See exactly what you'd spend charging an EV versus filling up on gas — per year, per mile, and over five years — plus the CO₂ you'd cut.
The math comes down to two numbers: cost per mile. A gas car at 28 MPG with $3.60 fuel burns about 13 cents of gasoline every mile. A typical EV getting 3.5 miles per kWh on 16-cent electricity spends about 4.6 cents a mile — roughly a third as much. Multiply that gap by 12,000+ miles a year and the yearly difference is real money, which is why the box above usually lands firmly in the EV's favor for anyone who charges at home.
The savings above assume you plug in at home overnight, which is how most EV owners do the vast majority of their charging. Public DC fast chargers are a different story — they can cost two to four times your home rate, sometimes enough to erase the advantage on a road trip. If you can't charge at home, drop your effective electricity price higher in the calculator and watch the gap shrink. The technology that saves you money isn't just the car; it's the outlet in your garage.
This tool compares fuel cost only — the running cost of energy — because that's the number people actually want to see and the one that's easy to get right. It doesn't include the EV's higher purchase price, potential tax credits, insurance differences, or battery-versus-engine maintenance. EVs typically win big on maintenance too (no oil changes, fewer moving parts), while gas cars usually win on upfront price. To weigh the full purchase decision, pair this with a total-cost view like our lease-vs-buy tool below.
Burning one gallon of gasoline releases about 8.9 kg (19.6 lbs) of CO₂ — that's a physical fact, not an estimate. The EV side isn't zero: its emissions come from however your local grid makes electricity, and we use a US-average figure. Even on today's mixed grid an EV comes out well ahead per mile, and unlike a gas car, it gets cleaner every year as the grid adds solar and wind. The tree equivalent is a rough illustration (one mature tree absorbs roughly 48 lbs of CO₂ a year), not a precise offset.
Now compare the whole purchase decision — the total cost of financing and owning a car versus leasing one forever.
Open the lease vs buy tool →