EV vs Gas Calculator
Compare the yearly fuel cost of an electric car against a gas car — and see how much you would save (or spend).
How to use this calculator
Enter how many miles you drive in a year, then describe both cars. For the gas car, set the local pump price per gallon and the car's fuel economy in miles per gallon (MPG). For the electric car, set your home electricity rate per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and the car's efficiency in miles per kWh — most modern EVs travel roughly 3 to 4 miles on a single kWh. The result updates instantly as you move the sliders, so you can try different prices and driving habits and watch the savings change.
How this is calculated
The math is simple. For the gas car we divide your annual miles by its MPG to get gallons used, then multiply by the pump price: miles ÷ MPG × price per gallon. For the EV we divide annual miles by its miles-per-kWh efficiency to get kilowatt-hours used, then multiply by your electricity rate: miles ÷ efficiency × price per kWh. The yearly saving is the gas cost minus the EV cost, and the five-year figure simply multiplies that by five. This compares running fuel and energy cost only — not the purchase price, insurance, registration, or maintenance of either car.
A worked example
Suppose you drive 12,000 miles a year. Your gas car gets 28 MPG and gas costs $3.50 a gallon. That is about 429 gallons, or roughly $1,500 a year at the pump. The electric car you are eyeing does 3.5 miles per kWh, and home electricity costs $0.17 per kWh. That is about 3,429 kWh, or roughly $583 a year to charge. The EV saves you around $917 per year — close to $4,600 over five years on energy alone.
What changes the answer
Three numbers move the result the most: how far you drive, the gap between pump prices and your electricity rate, and how efficient each car is. Drive a lot of highway miles and the EV's lead shrinks slightly; drive mostly in town, where electric motors shine and gas engines sip, and the EV pulls ahead. If you can charge at home overnight on a cheap rate, the savings grow; if you rely on public fast chargers that often cost two to four times the home rate, the picture narrows or even flips. Maintenance is another factor not shown here — EVs skip oil changes and have fewer moving parts, which tends to add to their long-run edge.
Reading the result
A positive savings figure means the EV is cheaper to fuel; a negative one means the gas car wins on energy cost — usually because electricity is expensive or the gas car is very efficient. Either way, remember this is only one slice of total ownership cost. To plan a single road trip rather than a year of driving, try our gas trip cost calculator.