EV vs Petrol: The Real Cost Comparison Over 5 Years

I manage 80 vehicles — here’s what I actually know about EV costs

I run logistics for a regional distribution company. Eighty vehicles across the fleet — box trucks, cargo vans, sedans for the sales team. Over the past three years, we’ve phased in 22 electric vehicles alongside the existing petrol fleet, and I can tell you that the real-world numbers look nothing like the brochure numbers. They’re not worse, necessarily. They’re just different in ways nobody warned us about.

On weekends I’m under the hood of a ‘72 Chevelle, so trust me when I say I have zero tribal loyalty in the combustion-versus-electric debate. I love a carburetted V8 as much as anyone. But when the boss asks me whether the next batch of fleet replacements should be EVs or petrol, I don’t answer with feelings. I answer with spreadsheets.

This article is the framework I use to do that analysis, broken down so anyone can run the same comparison for their personal vehicle. No hand-waving, no cherry-picked stats. Just the numbers you need to plug in and the calculators to crunch them.

Start with what you’re actually paying to charge

The single biggest misconception about EVs is that electricity is basically free compared to petrol. It’s cheaper, yes — but how much cheaper depends entirely on how and where you charge.

Home charging on a Level 2 setup at off-peak rates? You might pay the equivalent of $1.00–$1.50 per gallon of petrol in energy costs. DC fast charging at a commercial station during peak hours? That number can climb to $3.00 or more per gallon-equivalent. I’ve seen fleet drivers rack up charging bills that made me do a double-take, all because they were exclusively using highway fast chargers instead of plugging in overnight at the depot.

The variables that matter: your local electricity rate (cents per kWh), your vehicle’s efficiency (miles per kWh), and how you split your charging between home, work, and public stations. Those three inputs change everything.

Use the EV Charging Cost Calculator to figure out what you’re actually spending — or what you would spend — on electricity per mile:

Run this with your real electricity rate, not the national average. Rates vary wildly by state and utility. A friend of mine in California pays $0.38/kWh on his top tier. A colleague in Tennessee pays $0.10. Same car, wildly different operating costs.

Now measure what your petrol vehicle actually delivers

Here’s the other side of the ledger, and it’s the one where most people kid themselves. Your car’s EPA fuel economy rating is a laboratory number. Real-world mileage is almost always lower — sometimes significantly.

In our fleet, the sedans rated at 32 MPG average closer to 27 in mixed city-highway driving. The cargo vans rated at 24 MPG are pulling 19–20 when loaded. That gap between rated and actual fuel economy compounds over five years and tens of thousands of miles. If you’re basing your cost comparison on the sticker number, you’re understating the petrol side of the equation.

Track your real mileage for a couple of tanks. Fill up, reset the trip odometer, drive until you need fuel again, fill up, and divide the miles driven by the gallons pumped. It’s a two-minute exercise that gives you a number you can actually trust.

The Gas Mileage Calculator does exactly this — enter your odometer readings and fuel fill-ups to get your true MPG:

Once you know your real MPG, you’ve got half the petrol cost equation. The other half is the price at the pump — and that’s where the next calculator comes in.

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Calculate the actual fuel bill over five years

Here’s the math that matters. Take your annual mileage, divide by your real-world MPG, multiply by the price per gallon, and repeat for five years. Simple in concept, but most people never do it — and the totals are sobering.

Let’s walk through an example from our fleet. A sales rep drives 18,000 miles a year. Their sedan gets 27 MPG in practice. At $3.40 per gallon, that’s 667 gallons per year, costing about $2,267 annually. Over five years, that’s $11,335 in fuel alone — and that’s assuming gas prices stay flat, which they never do.

Compare that with the EV equivalent in our fleet. Same 18,000 miles, an efficiency of 3.5 miles per kWh, charged mostly at the depot at $0.12/kWh. That works out to 5,143 kWh per year, costing about $617 annually. Over five years: $3,086.

The fuel cost difference alone is over $8,000 in this scenario. That’s real money, but it’s not the whole story — which I’ll get to in a moment.

Use the Fuel Cost Calculator to project your own petrol costs based on your actual driving patterns:

Plug in your real numbers — your actual mileage, your actual MPG from the calculator above, and a realistic fuel price. Don’t use last month’s low. Average it across the year or use a slight upward projection if you want to be conservative.

The costs the calculators won’t show you

Energy costs are the easiest part to quantify, but a five-year comparison has to account for several other line items that change the picture.

Maintenance. This is where EVs pull further ahead. No oil changes, no transmission fluid, no timing belts, no exhaust system. Brake pads last dramatically longer because regenerative braking does most of the work. In our fleet, maintenance costs per mile on the EVs are running about 40% lower than the equivalent petrol vehicles. Over five years, that adds up to thousands in savings.

Depreciation. This one is trickier and cuts against EVs right now. Battery technology is advancing fast enough that a three-year-old EV can feel outdated in ways that a three-year-old petrol car doesn’t. Resale values on used EVs have been volatile. This is improving as the market matures, but it’s a real factor in a five-year cost analysis.

Insurance. EVs tend to cost more to insure because repair costs are higher — replacement battery packs and specialised body panels aren’t cheap. In our fleet, insurance premiums on the EVs run about 10–15% higher than comparable petrol models.

The upfront price gap. Even with incentives, most EVs still cost more to purchase than their petrol equivalents. That premium has been shrinking every year, but it hasn’t disappeared. Whether the fuel savings offset it over your ownership period depends entirely on your mileage and local energy prices — which is exactly why you need to run the numbers yourself instead of relying on somebody else’s averages.

My bottom line after three years of running both

If you drive a lot of miles, charge at home or at a depot with reasonable electricity rates, and plan to keep the vehicle for at least four years, the EV will almost certainly cost less to operate. The fuel savings are substantial and the maintenance gap is real.

If you drive fewer miles, rely heavily on public fast charging, or plan to trade in after two to three years, the math gets much tighter — and in some cases, a fuel-efficient petrol car still wins on total cost of ownership.

Don’t let anyone — EV enthusiast or petrol loyalist — tell you there’s a universal answer. There isn’t. The answer is in your numbers: your mileage, your electricity rate, your fuel price, your driving patterns. The three calculators above give you the foundation to build that comparison honestly.

Run them. Compare the results. Then make the call based on your situation, not someone else’s marketing deck.

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