Is it cheaper to refuel your EV
battery or gas tank? We did the math in all 50 states.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/WaPostImage.jpg)
Gasoline cars are cheaper to refuel than
electric vehicles.
I’ve heard this claim pop up everywhere from Massachusetts to Fox News
over the past two years. My neighbor even refuses to plug in his
hybrid Toyota RAV4 Prime over what he calls ruinous electricity rates.
What gives?
The basic argument is that electricity prices are so high it has
erased the advantage of recharging over refilling. This cuts to the
heart of why many people buy EVs, according to the Pew Research
Center: 70 percent of potential EV buyers report “saving money on gas”
as among their top reasons.
So how much does it really cost to refuel an EV?
The answer is less straightforward than it seems. Just calculating the
cost of gasoline vs. electricity is misleading. Prices vary by charger
(and state). Everyone charges differently. Road taxes, rebates and
battery efficiency all affect the final calculation.
So I asked researchers at the nonpartisan Energy Innovation, a policy
think tank aimed at decarbonizing the energy sector, to help me nail
down the true cost of refueling in all 50 states by drawing on data
sets from federal agencies, AAA and others. You can dive into their
helpful tool here.
I used the data to embark on two hypothetical road trips across
America, delivering a verdict on whether it costs more to refill or
recharge during the summer of 2023.
The results surprised me (and they might really surprise my neighbor).
The cost of a fill-up
If you’re like 4 in 10 Americans, you’re considering buying an
electric vehicle. And if you’re like me, you’re sweating the cost.
The average EV sells for $4,600 more than the median gasoline car, but
by most calculations, I’ll save money over the long run. It costs less
to refuel and maintain the vehicle — hundreds of dollars less per
year, by some estimates. That’s before government incentives, and any
consideration of never visiting a gas station again.
Yet nailing down a precise number is tricky. The average price of a
gallon of gasoline is easy to calculate. Since 2010, the price, in
inflation-adjusted terms, is virtually unchanged, according to data
from the Federal Reserve.
The same applies to a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. But the cost
of recharging, by contrast, is far more opaque.
Electricity rates not only vary by state, but by the time of day and
even the outlet. EV owners may plug in at home or work and then pay a
premium to fast-charge on the road.
That makes comparing the cost of a “fill-up” for a gasoline Ford
F-150, America’s best-selling vehicle since the 1980s, and its
electric counterpart’s 98-kWh battery challenging. It requires
assumptions about geography, charging behavior and standardizing how
the energy in batteries and gas tanks convert into miles. Such
calculations must then be applied to different vehicle classes, such
as sedans, SUVs and trucks.
No wonder almost no one does it. But we saved you the time. The
results reveal just how much you can save — and the few instances
where you won’t.
The bottom line? In all 50 states, it’s cheaper for the everyday
American to fill up with electrons — and much cheaper in some regions
such as the Pacific Northwest, with low electricity rates and high gas
prices.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic1.jpg)
In Washington state, with prices around $4.98 per
gallon of gas, it costs about $115 to fill up an F-150 which delivers
483 miles of range.
By contrast, recharging the electric F-150 Lightning (or Rivian R1T)
to cover an equivalent distance costs about $34 — an $80 savings. This
assumes, as the Energy Department estimates, drivers recharge at home
80 percent of the time, along with other methodological assumptions at
the end of this article.
But what about the other extreme? In the Southeast, which has low gas
prices and electricity rates, savings are lower but still significant.
In Mississippi, for example, a conventional pickup costs about $30
more to refuel than its electric counterpart. For smaller, more
efficient SUVs and sedans, EVs save roughly $20 to $25 per fill-up to
cover the same number of miles.
An American driving the average 14,000 miles per
year would see annual savings of roughly $700 for an electric SUV or
sedan up to $1,000 for a pickup, according to Energy Innovation.
But daily driving is one thing. To put the model to the test, I took
these estimates on two all-American summer road trips.
Tale of two road trips
You’ll encounter two main kinds of chargers on the open road. Level 2
chargers add about 30 miles of range every hour. Prices range from
about 20 cents per kWh to free at many businesses such as hotels and
grocery stores hoping to attract customers (Energy Innovation assumes
just over 10 cents per kWh in the estimates below).
Fast chargers known as Level 3 — nearly 20 times faster — can top off
an EV battery to about 80 percent in as little as 20 minutes. But that
typically costs 30 to 48 cents per kWh — a price equivalent to
gasoline in some places, as I later found out.
To test how this plays out, I embarked on a hypothetical 408-mile road
trip from San Francisco to Disneyland, just south of Los Angeles. For
the journey, I selected the F-150 and its electric counterpart, the
Lightning, part of the wildly popular series that sold 653,957 units
last year. There’s a strong climate case against building electric
versions of America’s gas guzzlers, but these estimates are meant to
reflect the actual vehicle preferences of Americans.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic2.jpg)
The winner? The EV — barely. The savings were
modest because of the substantial premium for using fast chargers,
typically three to four times more expensive than charging at home. In
a Lightning, I arrived at the park with $14 more in my pocket than if
I had driven its gasoline counterpart.
If I decided to make a longer stop at Level 2 chargers at hotels or
restaurants, my savings would have been $57. This trend held for
smaller vehicles, too: Tesla’s Model Y crossover saved me $18 and $44
for the 408-mile journey at Level 3 and Level 2 chargers,
respectively, compared to refueling with gasoline.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic3.jpg)
On the emissions front, EVs pulled well ahead.
EVs emit less than a third of the emissions per mile than their
gasoline counterparts — and they’re getting cleaner every year.
America’s electricity mix emits just under a pound of carbon emissions
for every kWh generated, according to the Energy Information
Administration. By 2035, the White House hopes to drive that closer to
zero. This meant the conventional F-150 spewed five times more
greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than the Lightning. The
Tesla Model Y represented 63 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions on the
trip compared to more than 300 pounds from all the conventional
vehicles.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic4.jpg)
Driving where few EVs go
The true test, however, would be a journey from Detroit to Miami.
Driving from Motown across the Midwest is not an EV dream. This region
has some of the lowest EV ownership rates in the United States.
Chargers are not as plentiful. Gasoline prices are low. Electricity is
dirtier.
To make it even more lopsided, I chose to compare the Toyota Camry
with the electric Chevrolet Bolt — relatively efficient vehicles that
narrow the difference in fueling costs. To reflect each state’s mix of
prices, I measured the distance along the 1,401-mile journey in all
six states, and their respective energy costs and emissions.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic5.jpg)
Did the EV hold its edge? Sometimes. But not
always.
If I was refueling at homes or cheap Level 2 commercial stations along
the way (an unlikely scenario), the Bolt EV was cheaper to refuel: $41
compared to $142 for the Camry.
But fast charging tipped the balance in favor of the Camry. At Level 3
chargers, the retail cost of electricity added up to $169 to complete
the trip on batteries, $27 more than the gasoline-powered journey.
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic6.jpg)
On greenhouse gas emissions, however, the Bolt
was the clear leader, indirectly accounting for just 20 percent of the
emissions coming from its counterpart.
Total emissions for cross-country road trip
![](images/images_08_08_2023/pic7.jpg)
Do EV detractors have a point?
I wanted to see why those arguing against the economics of EVs came to
such a different conclusion. For this, I contacted Patrick Anderson,
whose Michigan-based consulting firm works with the auto industry and
assesses the cost of EVs each year. It has consistently found most EVs
to be more expensive to refuel.
Anderson told me that many economists leave out costs that should be
part of any calculation of recharging costs: state
EV taxes replacing gas taxes, costs of home chargers, transmission
losses while recharging (about
10 percent), and the cost of driving to sometimes distant public
fueling stations. These are small but real costs, he says. Together,
they tip the balance toward gasoline cars.
Mid-priced gasoline vehicles, by
his calculations, cost less to refuel — approximately $11 to drive
100 miles compared to $13 to $16 for comparable EVs. The exceptions
were luxury vehicles since they tend to be less efficient and burn
premium fuel. “This segment is where EVs makes a lot of sense for the
median buyer,” says Anderson. “It’s not surprising that’s where we’re
seeing the most sales.”
But critics
say Anderson’s assessment overestimates or omits key assumptions:
his firm’s
analysis assumes EV owners use expensive public stations about 40
percent of the time (the Energy
Department estimates about 20 percent), overstates battery
efficiency losses, adds the “cost” of free public chargers in the form
of “property taxes, tuition, consumer prices or investor burdens” and
ignores government and manufacturing incentives.
The true cost of a fill-up
Ultimately, we may never agree on what it costs to refuel an electric
vehicle. That may not matter. For the everyday driver in the United
States, it’s already cheaper to refuel an EV most of the time, and
it’s expected to
get cheaper as renewable capacity expands and vehicle efficiency
improves.
The sticker price for some EVs is expected to fall
below comparable gasoline cars as soon as this year, and estimates
of the total cost of ownership — maintenance, fuel and other costs
over a vehicle’s lifetime — suggest EVs are already cheaper.
After that there’s one last number I felt was missing: the social
cost of carbon. It’s a rough dollar estimate of the damage from
adding another ton of carbon to the atmosphere — a tally of heat
deaths, flooding, wildfires, crop failures and other costs tied to
global warming.
Every gallon of gas adds about 20
pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, equivalent to about 50
cents in climate damage per gallon, researchers estimate.
Accounting for external factors such as congestion, accidents and air
pollution, according to one 2007 estimate by Resources for the Future,
the damage bill is closer to $3
per gallon.
You’re not required to pay this, of course. And EVs also don’t solve
this problem on their own. For that, we’ll need more cities and
neighborhoods where you don’t need a car to visit
friends or buy groceries.
But electric mobility is essential
to helping keep temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius. The
alternative is a price that has become impossible to ignore.
About this story
The costs to fill up an EV vs. a gasoline vehicle were
calculated for three vehicle classes: sedans, SUVs and trucks.
All vehicle selections are 2023 base models. The average miles
traveled by a driver per year was assumed to be 14,263,
based on 2019 Federal Highway Administration data. For all
vehicles, assumptions for range, mileage and emissions were
drawn from the Environmental Protection Agency’s fueleconomy.gov.
Gas prices are based on July
2023 data from AAA. For EVs, the average number of
kilowatt-hours required for a full charge was calculated based
on the battery size. Charging location was based on Energy
Department research indicating that 80
percent of charging is at home. Residential electricity
rates were provided by the Energy Information Administration
from 2022. The remaining 20 percent of charging was at public
charging stations, with electricity rates based on Electrify
America’s published rates by state.
These calculations do not incorporate any assumptions for total
cost of ownership, EV tax credits, registration fees, or
operation and maintenance expenses. We also do not assume any EV-related
rate designs, EV charging discounts or free charging, or
electric time-of-use pricing.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
Nathan1@greenplayammonia.com
exactrix@exactrix.com