Given that inflation in the UK is surging (largely driven by the price of oil and gas) we felt it would be interesting to take a look at EV running costs. More and more people are purchasing electric vehicles in the UK every month… but how do the numbers stack up?
Fuel sources
First, a brief look into fuel sources in the UK.
Unleaded petrol and diesel are both fossil fuel products made from refined oil – therefore, their prices are closely linked to the oil price. This is currently $94/barrel, compared to $68/barrel at the start of 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic. This increase is part of why filling up is now so expensive.
Electricity in the UK comes from multiple different sources – while we are making great progress in renewable energy, we still need some fossil fuels to keep the lights on. During 2020, 41% of our electricity came from renewables such as wind and solar, with 36% coming from gas-fired turbines [1]. For this reason, the UK electricity price is closely linked to the gas price which is currently reaching all-time highs.
So, although electric vehicles don’t directly burn fossil fuels, some of the electricity that we use to charge them comes from gas (or coal or oil) making them vulnerable to the same price increases as internal combustion vehicles.
Efficiency
However, fuel sources aren’t the whole story. How efficiently your car uses its fuel is a big part of the equation. Internal combustion engines are only around 40% efficient as they generate a lot of heat – most of which is wasted forever; wheras electric vehicles are around 85% efficient, meaning that they waste far less power.
Not only is this much better for the environment, it also means that you get more miles for your money.
Which is cheapest to run?
First, we will look at the running costs of an electric vehicle. Most electric vehicles acheive a claimed efficiency of around 250 Wh/mi, so this is the figure that we will use. The current cost of electricity in the UK is capped at 28p/kWh for domestic customers – although the price used to be much lower than this, we will use this number as a fair comparison.
250 Wh/mi is equal to 0.25 kWh/mi. To work out the cost per mile we just need to multiply this by the cost of electricity: 0.25 [kWh/mi] x 28 [p/kWh] = 7 pence per mile for EVs
Doing the same exercise for a petrol car, we will assume that the cost of fuel is 165 pence per litre (which is about right for supermarket petrol in the UK right now) and that the car gets 45 mpg (a fairly efficient, modern petrol car). The maths here is a bit more tricky, but the answer works out at 17 pence per mile for petrol cars using those numbers.
If you were to drive a diesel car getting 60 mpg at 180 pence per litre, your fuel cost would work out slightly cheaper at around 14 pence per mile.
So, even as electricity prices surge, the cost of running of an electric car is much lower than that of a petrol car!
It’s worth stating that EVs are more expensive to buy in the first place – so if you don’t do many miles it’s likely that you would still be better off buying a petrol car. It’s up to you to decide what makes the most sense for your lifestyle.
Other costs
Charging isn’t the only EV running cost – EVs typically also have cheaper road tax, BIK tax for business users, and servicing (no more oil changes!). Although bear in mind that EVs are generally a little bit heavier meaning that they could go through more tyres and brakes. These costs are all fairly minimal when compared to the the price of the car and fuel/electricity so we have chosen not to analyse them here.
Hopefull this has given you some more insight into the cost benefits of running an EV. Remember that it is almost always cheaper to charge up your EV at home, and for Glasgow EV charger installation the Milebox team will be happy to assist you in any way that we can.
If you have any questions about the above please feel free to call us on 0141 345 2885.
[1] UK Energy in Brief 2021, BEIS, p. 28
