The math of buying a battery-powered car can be daunting. Electric vehicles tend to cost more than gas cars up front, but they also can cost a lot less over time when you factor in things like fueling and maintenance costs. Crunching all those numbers can be a headache.
A handy tool from the climate think tank Energy Innovation helps clear up one part of the equation. The newly updated EV Fill Up Tool clearly illustrates how much you can save on gas by going electric in each state. It offers one big takeaway: No matter where you live in the U.S. or which specific model you buy, an EV will likely save you money on fuel.
Get Fully Charged
Electricity is cheaper than gas
EVs tend to cost more than their gas-powered counterparts, but you can make up some or all of that difference over time. Gas is more expensive on a per-mile-driven basis than electricity is. Plus, it's more prone to price volatility.
That’s the big picture, but Energy Innovation also lets you get granular by comparing the fueling costs of specific vehicles in specific states. Click on a state, and you can learn about the price of gas, the cost of residential electricity and how much you'll save by picking, for example, a Tesla Model 3 instead of a Toyota Camry.
What’s especially helpful is that all of the figures are adjusted to account for discrepancies in range between EVs and combustion vehicles. So the fill-up cost quoted for each EV isn’t just the cost to fill its battery pack, which might only be good for 200 or 250 miles of range. Rather, it’s the outlay needed to achieve the same driving range as a gasoline-powered equivalent.
“The whole point of the tool is to do a true, fair, apples-to-apples comparison,” said Jack Conness, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation who created the tool.
Gallery: Energy Innovation EV Fill Up Tool
Thanks to a combination of higher-than-average gas prices and cheap electricity rates, Washington State offers the biggest savings overall. Let’s say you live there and are shopping for a midsize SUV. Consult the EV Fill Up Tool and you’ll find that filling a Honda CR-V's gas tank will run you $59.92 and allow for 420 miles of driving. Meanwhile, going the same distance in an electric Kia EV6 will cost an average of $21.62. Recharging a Ford Mustang Mach-E will run you $25.48. All told, Washingtonians who reject a CR-V in favor of an equivalent electric model will save an average of $36.11 on every fill up, Energy Innovation estimates.
Even in places where gas is relatively cheap, driving an EV can still be a big win for your wallet, the firm's data suggests. In Texas, where gas costs $3.16 per gallon, filling up a Ford F-150 costs around $72.68. Getting the same mileage out of an electric Ford F-150 Lightning costs a whole lot less: around $45. In general, EVs are wildly efficient at using energy for forward motion. On the other hand, the majority of the gas that combustion-engine vehicles burn goes toward generating noise and heat.
The tool’s gas prices come from AAA’s latest monthly data. When calculating charging costs, Conness assumed an 80/20 split between residential and public charging. The cost per kilowatt-hour for home charging came from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2023 figures. He pegged the typical price for public fast-charging at $0.48/kWh. And, unlike when the tool debuted last year, the new version that launched in July now assumes some energy losses from charging, so it’s truer to the costs people will see in the real world.
The tool shows that when it comes to potential savings, the type of vehicle you choose matters just as much as where you live. It lets you compare SUVs, pickup trucks, large SUVs and sedans. Each category offers a gas-powered benchmark—one of the most popular vehicles in the segment—along with the costs to refuel several electric equivalents.
What stands out is that it pays off especially handsomely to buy a large electric SUV instead of something like a Ford Expedition. That’s because big gas SUVs have terrible fuel economy. Of course, full-size electric SUVs like the Rivian R1S and Kia EV9 still consume more energy than more modestly sized EVs. But they beat out gas-fueled equivalents by a huge margin, offering at least $50 in savings per fill up in many states.
“Pick any of the large trucks or SUVs. Their fuel efficiency more or less hasn’t changed in 10, 20, 30 years,” Conness said. “So when you’re not seeing any fuel efficiency improvements there, and you have the efficiencies of an electric vehicle, you’re going to have really big savings between those vehicles.”
But far and away the cheapest EV to recharge is an electric bike, which Conness added to the EV Fill Up Tool for this year’s update. They require next to no energy and, in much of the country, can go hundreds of miles for less than a single dollar. So, if you’re concerned about the planet and your wallet, take a hard look at whether you can make do with two wheels instead of four.
Contact the author: tim.levin@insideevs.com
