The sticker price is only the start. Our calculator estimates the true cost of ownership by modelling six components — and each one behaves differently for an electric car than for a petrol or diesel one.
Depreciation is the value your car loses while you own it — the gap between what you pay for it and what it's worth when you sell. For most drivers it is the single biggest cost of ownership, often dwarfing fuel and servicing combined. We estimate it from residual-value data specific to each country, model, age and mileage, so a car kept three years and 45,000 km is treated very differently from one kept eight years.
Electric and combustion cars depreciate on different curves. EV resale values have been more volatile — affected by battery-life perceptions, fast-moving technology and changing incentives — while established ICE models often follow steadier, well-understood curves. Because we use powertrain-specific residual data, the calculator reflects whichever pattern actually applies to the cars you compare.
This is the cost of the energy you put into the car. We take the vehicle's consumption — kWh per 100 km for an EV, litres per 100 km for an ICE — and multiply it by the local energy price (€/kWh of electricity or €/L of fuel) and by the distance you drive over the ownership period. Both prices and consumption figures are country-specific.
EVs are usually cheaper to "refuel". An electric motor turns far more of its stored energy into motion than an engine does, and home electricity per kWh is typically cheaper than petrol or diesel per equivalent distance. The size of that advantage depends heavily on local tariffs — it shrinks where electricity is expensive or fuel is heavily subsidised.
Combustion cars need regular servicing — oil and filter changes, spark plugs, exhaust and transmission wear — so we model a per-km maintenance cost for them based on the brand. EVs have far fewer moving parts and no oil changes, which usually means lower scheduled maintenance. Tyres are modelled for both: heavy, instant-torque EVs can wear tyres faster, so this cost is never assumed away on either side.
Insurance is an annual premium that varies by country and by powertrain. We use country-level insurance figures for electric, petrol and diesel cars, applied across your ownership period. EVs can carry higher premiums in some markets — repairs and battery costs play a role — so the difference here is rarely fixed and depends on where you live.
Road tax — the annual vehicle tax you owe to use the car on public roads — varies by country and by fuel type. Many governments tax higher-emitting vehicles more heavily, so for EVs the figure is often lower than for an equivalent petrol or diesel car, and in some countries it is zero. We apply the rate for the relevant powertrain in the country you select, every year you own the car.
If you buy on a loan rather than paying cash, you also pay interest — the extra cost of borrowing on top of the car's price. This component is optional: leave financing off and it's zero. When it's on, we calculate the total interest from the amount financed, the annual percentage rate (APR) and the loan term, so a larger loan, a higher rate or a longer term all increase what you pay. It captures only the interest, not the purchase price itself, which is already counted through depreciation.
The calculator adds these components together for each car and shows the result as a single total — plus per-year, per-month and per-km figures — so you can see not just which car is cheaper overall, but where the difference actually comes from.
Compare the true cost of owning electric vs petrol and diesel cars. Figures are estimates for comparison only — not financial advice.