Electric vehicles (EVs) will reduce your transportation costs, even if you continue to drive a gasoline-powered vehicle. If you own an EV, you will save thousands of dollars per year by not buying gasoline and in lower maintenance costs. Drivers who continue to operate gasoline-powered vehicles will save money, because the cost of that gasoline will be cheaper.
Even those who get around by walking, bicycling, or taking public transit will still save, because all of the goods they buy will be less expensive due to cheaper fuel costs.
Put simply, electric vehicles save everyone money.
Owning and operating an EV is much less expensive than owning an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle, even considering higher sales prices for EVs.
A 2020 Consumer Reports analysis shows that during the first seven years of ownership, EVs save their owners between $6,000 and $10,000 over the cost of operating gasoline-powered vehicles.
A typical EV owner spends around 60 percent less on fuel than the owner of a gasoline-powered vehicle. For an SUV owner, that means spending an average of $780 a year instead of $1,800.
Real-world maintenance and repair data from Consumer Reports customers shows that EV owners spend less than half as much on maintenance and repairs as the owners of gasoline-powered cars. Lifetime maintenance costs for gasoline-powered cars average $9,200 compared to $4,600 for EVs. This makes sense, since gasoline-powered vehicles have five times more parts than EVs.
The analysis has a clear conclusion: “the latest generation of mainstream EVs typically cost much less to own than similar gas-powered vehicles, a new development in the automotive marketplace with serious potential consumer benefits.”
