Electric Car Savings Calculator
What switching to electric saves on fuel and servicing, and when the price difference pays back.
An electric car costs more to buy and less to run. The saving arrives in three places: the fuel or charging bill, the servicing bill, and sometimes tax or congestion charges.
Enter the price difference, the annual running costs of each car and how long you keep it, and this calculator shows the annual saving, the payback period and the total over the period you own it.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Distance driven per year, Fuel cost per mile now, Charging cost per mile, Extra price of the electric car, Servicing and tax per year, combustion car, Servicing and tax per year, electric car, Other annual savings, Years you will keep the car
- What you get
- Saving per year, Saving per month, Payback period, Total saving over the period, Saving per mile
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Electric Car Savings Calculator
- 1 Enter Distance driven per year (miles)
- 2 Enter Fuel cost per mile now
- 3 Enter Charging cost per mile - About four cents on domestic electricity, considerably more on public rapid charging.
- 4 Enter Extra price of the electric car
- 5 Enter Servicing and tax per year, combustion car
- 6 Enter Servicing and tax per year, electric car
- 7 Enter Other annual savings - Congestion charges, parking permits, toll discounts, home charger grants.
- 8 Enter Years you will keep the car (years)
- 9 Press Calculate. You get Saving per year, Saving per month, Payback period, Total saving over the period, Saving per mile, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 10 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
14,000 miles a year with $7,000 of extra purchase price
Fuel at $0.14 a mile against charging at $0.05, plus a servicing difference.
You enter
- Distance driven per year
- 14,000 miles
- Fuel cost per mile now
- $0.14
- Charging cost per mile
- $0.05
- Extra price of the electric car
- $7,000.00
- Servicing and tax per year, combustion car
- $950.00
- Servicing and tax per year, electric car
- $350.00
- Other annual savings
- $150.00
- Years you will keep the car
- 6 years
You get
- Saving per year
- $2,010.00
- Saving per month
- $167.50
- Payback period
- 3.48 years
- Total saving over the period
- $5,060.00
- Saving per mile
- 0.14 per mile
Fuel for the combustion car costs $1,960 a year against $700 of charging, so the fuel saving is $1,260. Servicing and tax are $600 cheaper and the other saving adds $150, making $2,010 a year in total, or $167.50 a month. The $7,000 price difference is recovered in 3.5 years, and over six years the net saving is $5,060. The saving works out at $0.14 a mile including the servicing contribution, so around 48,756 miles cover the price difference.
6,000 miles a year with $4,000 of extra purchase price
Low mileage and a smaller servicing gap, which stretches the payback period.
You enter
- Distance driven per year
- 6,000 miles
- Fuel cost per mile now
- $0.11
- Charging cost per mile
- $0.06
- Extra price of the electric car
- $4,000.00
- Servicing and tax per year, combustion car
- $700.00
- Servicing and tax per year, electric car
- $400.00
- Other annual savings
- $0.00
- Years you will keep the car
- 4 years
You get
- Saving per year
- $600.00
- Saving per month
- $50.00
- Payback period
- 6.67 years
- Total saving over the period
- -$1,600.00
- Saving per mile
- 0.10 per mile
The combustion car uses $660 of fuel a year and the electric car $360, a saving of $300. Servicing and tax save another $300, so the annual saving is $600, or $50 a month. The $4,000 price difference takes 6.7 years to pay back at that rate, and over four years the total is minus $1,600: you would still be $1,600 short of recovering the extra price. The saving per mile of $0.10 would cover the difference after 40,000 miles, which at this mileage is nearly seven years.
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Frequently asked questions
How is the extra purchase price treated?
It is divided by the annual saving to get the payback period, and it is subtracted from the saving over the whole period you keep the car. A $7,000 price difference against $2,010 of annual saving pays back in 3.5 years, and over six years the net saving is $5,060.
The total saving line is the honest summary: it is the running and servicing saving for every year you own the car, minus the extra you paid at the start. If it is negative, the car has not paid back the difference within the period you entered, however good the monthly figure looks.
Do I use home charging prices or public charging prices?
Whatever you will actually use. Charging at home on a domestic tariff is the cheapest option by a wide margin, and a driver who relies on public rapid chargers pays several times as much per mile. If you cannot charge at home, put the public rate in and expect the saving to shrink sharply.
The break even distance line shows how many miles of driving recover the price difference at the rates you entered, which is the same information expressed per mile rather than per year. Low annual mileage stretches the payback out in years even when the saving per mile is good.
Is depreciation part of this comparison?
No, and it is the largest gap on the page. The two cars will not be worth the same amount after five years, and the difference can be larger than every running saving added together. What an electric car is worth after four or five years depends on battery health, the market for used electric cars and the price of new ones, none of which this calculator can know.
Treat the figures here as the running cost case only. The Car Depreciation Calculator works out what a given retention rate costs you, and running both cars through it is the way to add the missing piece.
Where do purchase incentives and tax breaks go?
In the other annual savings field if they arrive every year, and off the price difference if they are a one-off grant or credit. A congestion charge exemption, a cheaper parking permit or a reduced annual tax belongs in the annual field. A grant paid at purchase reduces what you actually pay, so reduce the price difference by that amount before entering it.
These schemes change often and differ by state and by city, so check the current rules rather than assuming last year's incentive still applies. The same applies to electricity tariffs, where an off-peak rate can halve the charging cost.