EV COST CHECKER

EV Cost Checker started with a simple problem: working out whether an electric car would actually save money was harder than it had any right to be. Fuel costs were easy enough, but once you tried to account for home charging tariffs, public charging rates, road tax, insurance and servicing differences, you ended up with a spreadsheet that took an evening to build and was out of date a month later.

So we built the calculator we wished existed. You put in how far you drive, what you pay for fuel and electricity, and how you expect to charge, and it gives you a straight monthly and yearly comparison between your current car and an EV. No sign-up, no email address, no "request a quote" form at the end. The tool is free and runs entirely in your browser.

The site is run independently from the United Kingdom. It is not owned by a car maker, an energy company or a charging network, and nobody pays us to make EVs look cheaper than they are. Sometimes the calculator will tell you an EV costs more than your current car. That answer is just as useful as the other one.

Where the numbers come from

The calculator works from figures you enter, so the result is only ever as good as your inputs. But the defaults, guidance ranges and tax calculations are sourced as follows:

• Road tax (VED): UK Vehicle Excise Duty bands and rates are taken from the official GOV.UK tables and updated after each Budget. The same applies to the equivalent registration and circulation taxes for the US, German, French and Indian versions of the calculator.
• Electricity tariffs: our tariff guidance uses published supplier rates, and where suppliers offer a public API (such as Octopus Energy) we fetch current rates automatically. Pages that show tariff figures display when those figures were last updated.
• Fuel prices: the calculator asks for the price you actually pay at the pump, because that varies by region and retailer. Default values are reviewed against UK government published fuel price data.
• Carbon savings: CO2 figures use national grid carbon intensity factors for each country, compared against tailpipe emissions for an equivalent combustion car.
• Vehicle efficiency: we encourage real-world miles-per-kWh and MPG figures rather than laboratory (WLTP) numbers, and the guides explain how to find yours.

How the site is funded

EV Cost Checker is funded by advertising and reader donations. Advertising never changes the results the calculator produces, and we mark anything that is a partner link as such. If the site has saved you some homework, the donate button in the footer of the calculator keeps the servers running.

Spotted a problem?

If a tax band has changed, a tariff figure looks stale, or a calculation doesn't look right, please tell us via the contact page. Corrections are usually live within a few days.

The site is built and maintained by Joe McNicholas from the United Kingdom.