Someone who’s never owned or even driven an EV will find countless stories on social media about a 2012 Model S needing a $20K battery replacement or an older Nissan Leaf that’s down to 20 miles of range. But in the real world, replacing a traditional gas car with an electric one could save you quite a bit of money.

Don’t want to read this whole article? Here’s Grok 4.1’s three sentence summary:

Electric vehicles (EVs) require far less routine maintenance than gasoline cars—saving over $9,000 over 200,000 miles—while battery degradation is gradual and manageable, typically resulting in only about 15% range loss over eight years with proper habits. Although EVs may face higher registration fees, potentially elevated insurance costs, and faster initial depreciation, massive fuel savings (nearly half the cost per mile in many cases) often make them cheaper overall to own long-term. With additional perks like home charging convenience and potential free workplace or solar charging, many owners can save $6,000 to $15,000 or more across high-mileage ownership.

Let’s Discuss Gas First

We’re all familiar with the maintenance and repairs a typical ICE (internal combustion vehicle) will need over its lifespan. And while a lot of the cost of maintenance is the labor, not the parts, given that DIY-ers only account for about 20% of all auto parts sales in the US, most people take their car to a shop or the dealer to perform such services.

I’ve worked in the automotive industry for over a decade. I’ve made this table based on a typical gasoline vehicle – for diesel, you’d have to add fuel filter changes, adding DEF, and more expensive oil changes.

Obviously the price of parts, labor rate, and manufacturer recommended intervals vary greatly, but I think this illustrates the typical life of a typical vehicle. Then I threw in a couple miscellaneous repairs.

Service	Cost	Interval	Total Across 200K
Engine Oil and Filter	$100	7.5K Miles	$2,600
Engine Air Filter	$50	30K Miles	$300
Transmission Fluid	$400	50K Miles	$1,600
Brake Pads	$800	50K Miles	$3,200
Brake Rotors	$500	100K Miles	$1,000
Coolant Flush	$300	100K Miles	$600
Brake Fluid Flush	$200	100K Miles	$400
Spark Plugs	$200	60K Miles	$600
Tires	$1,000	50K Miles	$4,000
Repair: GDI Pump	$1,000	150K Miles	$1,000
Repair: Oil Filter Housing	$500	150K Miles	$1,000
TOTAL			$16,300

That’s pretty insane, isn’t it? Just basic maintenance with a couple minor repairs is over $16,000.

EV Routine Maintenance

Just like every ICE car is different, let’s look at what a typical EV might need across a 200,000 mile lifespan.

Service	Cost	Interval	Total Across 200K
Coolant Flush	$600	150K Miles	$600
Brake Fluid Flush	$300	150K Miles	$300
Brake Pads and Rotors	$1,300	200K Miles	$1,300
Tires	$1000	40K Miles	$5,000
TOTAL			$7,200

You just saved over $10,000.

But, the Battery?

Complete Failure

While EV battery replacement is the primary concern for EV owners outside of warranty, the actual failure rate is very low. Contrary to what you might see on social media or in the mainstream media, an EV battery failing completely to the point that the vehicle is not at all usable is actually quite unlikely.

Data from Recurrent shows that the chance of EV battery failure is under 1%. On the other hand, while it’s harder to find a single specific source of data for how likely the engine or transmission are to fail in a gas car, available data shows that at least 5% of internal combustion engine vehicles will need either the engine or transmission rebuilt or replaced to reach 200,000 miles.

Degradation

Degradation over the life of the battery is normal for any type of rechargeable battery. Your smartphone, laptop, wireless doorbell camera, etc. will all experience degradation. Degradation happens over time due to age, as well as based on usage cycles.

There are things you can do to prolong the battery life and reduce battery degradation, but you can’t prevent it entirely.

• The 80% rule (excluding some vehicles with LFP batteries) is widely accepted as the best way to prolong the life of the battery. Most EV owners will set the charge limit to 80%, only charging to 100% as needed (before road trips, etc). This 80% limit also coincides with the rate at which most EVs get really slow when it comes to DC fast charging, so if you are on a road trip, it makes more sense to charge to 80% and stop more often than charging to 100% (besides, you’ll probably have to go to the bathroom by then anyway).
• Proper thermal management. The Nissan Leaf was a prime example of what happens when you don’t manage battery temperatures. These air-cooled batteries would experience rapid degradation, especially in hotter climates or cars that were DC fast-charged often. Thankfully, practically every modern EV (including the 2026+ Leaf, only 15 years too late) use active thermal management that involves coolant and/or the HVAC system. That said, if you live in an area with extreme temps, you should always leave your car plugged in (even when it’s not charging) as most EVs will use a small amount of power from the charger to keep the battery in its ideal range.
• This one is debatable, as there are plenty of high mileage EVs that have retained their range quite well even with lots of DC fast charging, but it’s generally understood that DC fast charging is harder on the battery (and other components, like the cooling system), than the slower level 1 or level 2 charging that you’d use at home or at the office. Obviously never DC fast charging isn’t practical, you gotta do what you gotta do, but if you have time and can choose to charge at home vs at a DC fast charger, just charge at home, even if it’s about the same price (I’m looking at you, PG&E).

All that said, what I tell most people that ask about EVs, is just enjoy the car. You don’t have to micromanage your battery. If you can, set the charging limit to 80%, plug it in whenever you can, and move on with your life.

Regardless of how you treat your car, across an 8 year period (the average duration a new car owner in the US keeps their vehicle), you’ll probably lose about 15% of your range to battery degradation. Take our 2025 Chevy Equinox EV RS FWD, which has a 319 mile EPA estimated range. Assuming we stick to the recommended 80% charging limit, that’s 255 miles of range on day one. If it follows the average 1.8% per year degradation curve that various studies and real world data show, in 8 years, we’ll end up with 218 miles at 80%. And heck, what if, for some reason, the battery degrades much more, let’s say, 30%, because we always charged to 100%? That’s still 224 miles, which is more than enough for most people.

Registration

It’s worth noting that many states either have already implemented, or are implementing, additional fees for alternative fuel vehicles, to offset the loss of fuel taxes. For the sake of our calculation efforts today, let’s assume the highest additional fee, which, as of December 2025, is Michigan – they charge an absurd $260 extra to register an EV when compared to a gas car.

Insurance

Insurance costs are rising across the country, so cost of insurance is a major concern to everyone, not just EV owners. The price of insurance is so variable between locations, individuals, and car models that it’s impossible for me to put a specific number on it, but online research shows that an insurance increase of about 20% is typical. That said, keep in mind that most EVs are pretty fast, and this does affect insurance pricing. For example, if we compare two similarly priced mainstream sedans, the fastest variant of the 2026 Toyota Camry (the AWD version) to the cheapest Tesla Model 3 (currently the Standard RWD version), the Tesla is a full second quicker 0-60.

For the sake of this article, we’ll just avoid all the complex math and variables and assume that as EVs mature and the average age of EVs get older, insurance price will reach parity. Just keep in mind that at this time, if you’re replacing a gas car with an electric car, you may pay a little more for insurance.

Depreciation

If you are talking to someone who doesn’t know anything about EVs, and you’ve got past the typical talking points of “the battery will die” and “they’re expensive to insure,” the final frontier of that discussion will end up being depreciation.

And yes, like literally any other vehicle, EVs depreciate, some more so than others. But, that isn’t actually a problem. Here’s why.

If you lease

If you lease, which is about half of EV buyers, depreciation doesn’t really matter. Yes, a lower residual value means a higher lease payment, but at any given time, there are often lease incentives available. For example, right now you can lease a brand new Tesla Model 3 Premium RWD (a vehicle with a $43,000 MSRP) for $299/mo with $1,500 down. That’s cheaper than a base model Camry (a car with a $30,000 MSRP).

If you buy, and sell after a couple years

If you buy an EV, and go to sell it 1-3 years later, yes, you’re going to lose a ton of money. This sucks for you, but at that point, you should just have leased it. That said, if you are in the market for a gently used EV, the deals are AWESOME. If we ignore rebates, incentives, and discounts, and just look at MSRP – a new Prologue starts at almost $50,000. Meanwhile, I found a Certified Pre-owned 2024 with under 10,000 miles selling for about $30,000 – this is a great value for someone who wants a car that’s almost brand new, for almost half price, while the person who bought it new… didn’t have to worry about it, because presumably, they leased it.

If you buy, and keep it for a long time

If you keep your vehicle until the wheels fall off (hopefully not literally), you don’t really care about depreciation – because everything depreciates, and your typical car is practically worthless by the time it’s either 14 years old or has 200,000 miles on it. But, keeping in mind that registration cost and insurance cost is usually dependent on vehicle, an EV depreciating faster might actually help you long term.

Fuel

This is the most difficult to calculate, because the cost of gasoline and the cost of electricity vary so greatly. While in some places (for example, PG&E in the Bay Area), home power price is about $0.50/kWh, in many places in the US, typical home power rates are under $0.15/kWh.

When it comes to DC fast charging, prices depend on many factors. Beyond time of day and location, you also have to keep in mind that many charging station operators have different membership tiers where you can pay a small monthly fee to get discounted pricing. Also, some companies have different rates depending on demand, or even brand of vehicle (for example, if you want to charge your non-Tesla EV at a Tesla Supercharger, you’ll pay more than a Tesla owner would, unless you buy a $12.99/month membership). But let’s just keep it simple – if I open my Tesla app, given that I do have a Tesla, I’d pay $0.35/kWh right now.

And then gas prices vary too – right now, the nearest gas station here in Napa, CA is offering regular gas for $4.79/gallon for cash customers. While throwing a few random cities around the US into GasBuddy indicates that many people are paying about $2.00/gallon. Wow, California really is a rip-off.

Also, while gas cars and electric cars efficiency vary based on driving style and climate, they are affected differently. Average speed, trip length, highway vs stop and go, climate, vehicle size, etc. all matter.

Oh, and the final reason it’s difficult to calculate the cost of an EV vs a gas car is what exactly we’re comparing. Are we comparing vehicles by size, MSRP, or performance?

For example, a Camry Hybrid that gets around 50MPG that’s fueled up in North Carolina is going to be cheaper to operate than a Hummer EV that gets around 1.5mi/kWh that’s charged up in California using regular utility rates. But, that is a ridiculous comparison, nobody is comparing a family sedan to a Hummer EV. Plus, if you can afford a Hummer EV, you’re probably a homeowner, and you likely already have solar and a home battery storage system, so you aren’t paying a penny to charge your car for most of the year.

The numbers change again if we compare cars by performance level. To get a similar 0-60 as a Tesla Model 3 Performance, you’re also not getting 50MPG – maybe half that. Not to mention a gas car that can do a 4.2 second 0-60 will probably be $10K more up front and cost a lot more to maintain and repair than your “average” car.

At the end of the day, you have to do your own math. Compare the specific vehicles you’re using, research how your particular use case and driving style will affect you, and what you pay for fuel (or electricity). Have fun with that. But for the sake of this article, we’re going to do a bunch of averaging, to get to the point without spending the next four hours crunching numbers.

We’ll run one example, a 2025 Equinox and a 2025 Equinox EV. Let’s get to it.

2025 Chevy Equinox EV FWD

• Average efficiency: 3 miles per kWh
• Average US residential power cost: 18 cents per kWh
• Calculated average cost per mile: ~$0.06/mile

2025 Chevy Equinox 1.5L Turbo FWD

• Average efficiency: 27 miles per gallon
• Average US regular gasoline cost: 2.89 dollars per gallon
• Calculated average cost per mile, rounded: ~$0.11/mile

Yep, that’s almost half the cost per mile in fuel to operate the electric version of the Equinox. Oh, and the Equinox EV happens to be faster, quieter, and more reliable.

Charger Installation

This is another one of those things where I can’t just come up with one easy number to tell you how much it’s going to cost you to plug your car in at your house.

For example, if I wanted a proper level 2 charger in my old house that can do the 11kW my Model 3 maxes out at, it would probably cost over $10,000. Not that that makes any sense without adding solar and a Powerwall at the same time… or I can just use the free charger that came with my previous vehicle (a Honda Prologue) using level 1… and while it’s slow, it’s totally fine for my use case.

So, you’ll have to look into your home, determine what type of charging speed suits your life, and get some quotes from electricians. For the sake of this article, let’s say you have a newer home and just need a 240V circuit run like 10 feet from a subpanel, and it ends up costing $1,500, and you want an Autel MaxiCharge 40A EV Charger (the one I’d pick if I was buying one today), that’ll run you $320-470 depending on if it’s on sale or not). So, $2,000 it is.

The Conclusion (Math Time!)

Alright, let’s add it all up, and analyze the overall cost of ownership difference between a gas car and an electric car over 200,000 miles. For stuff like insurance and registration, we have to calculate this on a yearly basis, and if we assume it takes you 14 years to get to that mileage.

Factor	Notes	Gas Vehicle	Electric Vehicle	EV Difference
Maintenance and Repairs	For details, see table near the beginning of this article.	$16,300	$7,200	The EV costs $9,100 less in this category.
Registration	Assuming worst case additional fees of $200/year, and not accounting for accelerated EV depreciation lowering registration renewals.	$0 Additional	$2,800 Additional	The EV costs $2,800 more in this category.
Depreciation	14 years old, high mileage. Gas car: Toyota Camry, original MSRP $22K, now $5K. EV: Nissan Leaf, original MSRP $30K, now $3K. That’s	$17,000	$25,000	The EV costs $8,000 more in this category.
Fuel	Using our previous example of $0.06/mile for gas and $0.11/mile for an EV, for 200K miles.	$22,000	$12,000	The EV costs $10,000 less in this category.
Home Charger Install	Based on our example above of a simple install to run a new circuit and purchase a new name brand level 2 charger.	$0	$2,000	The EV costs $2,000 more in this category.
TOTAL	Assuming utility power rates			The EV is $6,300 cheaper over 200,000
TOTAL	Assuming 75% of EV charging is from home solar/battery system and/or free workplace charging

So, let’s add it all up. Assuming you’re always charging your EV from the grid (perhaps you live in a rented home or rely on public charging) you’d save $6,300 across 200,000 miles.

Now, if you either charge your EV for free at work, or have an existing solar and energy storage system at home, which reduces your electricity cost by 75%, you’d save an additional $9,000, for a total savings of $15,300.

What would you do with $15,300?

• $15,300 in a decent savings account, shopping around for competitive APYs, if you started 14 years ago, using actual rates across that time period, would be about $20,000 today.
• $15,300 invested in the S&P 500 14 years ago would be about $81,200 today.
• $15,300 invested in Tesla stock 14 years ago? That’s about… $3.9 BILLION.
• $15,300 buys you an entire clean, low mileage, two year old, used Chevy Bolt EV today. Who wouldn’t want a free car?

And that’s not even factoring in time savings, because time is money, too, and plugging your car in at home takes 10 seconds, while going out of your way to get gas once a week takes about 10 minutes.

I hope you found this article helpful, and enjoy your EV.