Of course we all know that the cost of "fuel" for EV is much cheaper if you can charge from home. But if you can't?
I see a mix of opinions where some say EV public charging is much more expensive than diesel or petrol, and others say it is about the same. So I thought I'd do some research and math for the case of the UK in 2025. And work out a cost per mile that is only for fuel, excluding maintenance, service, repairs, insurance, the cost of buying the car etc.
Electricity
For fast charging I take 76p/kWh (a calculated average of Instavolt 87p, Osprey 82, Gridserve 79, Ionity 74, Podpoint 69, MFG 70, Tesla 60p).
For slow charging I use 52p/kWh (used Chat GPT to get that number).
The average of fast and slow is 64p/kWh.
For miles per kWh I settled on 2.9 as an average after checking various sources online. (The average of sources was 3.3, I changed it to 2.9 to account for charging losses.)
That gives us 18p per mile at slow paid public chargers (52/2.9), 26p per mile at fast chargers and 22p per mile for the average of both.
Petrol
I take £1.35 per litre assuming you charge at supermarkets mostly and very occasionally at a motorway service station and I assume 36.5 miles per gallon and 4.54 litres per UK gallon (average of various sources online) which gives me 17p per mile.
Diesel
£1.40/litre and 43 miles per gallon (various sources) gives us 15p/mile.
Price Parity Point
So if you are relying on fast chargers it's more expensive, if you can mainly use a 40-50p charger it's about the same.
I calculate an EV charging price of 43p/kWh to equal diesel and 49p/kWh to equal petrol.
Conversely, if petrol rises to £1.77 that would equal the average of all chargers, or £2.10 per litre to equal the average of fast chargers.
EDIT: After reviewing the comments I think the consensus is that my calculations are about right, but maybe a bit harsh on the EV side. 76p/kWh average for fast charging perhaps a bit high as I didn't consider subscriptions.
I see a mix of opinions where some say EV public charging is much more expensive than diesel or petrol, and others say it is about the same. So I thought I'd do some research and math for the case of the UK in 2025. And work out a cost per mile that is only for fuel, excluding maintenance, service, repairs, insurance, the cost of buying the car etc.
Electricity
For fast charging I take 76p/kWh (a calculated average of Instavolt 87p, Osprey 82, Gridserve 79, Ionity 74, Podpoint 69, MFG 70, Tesla 60p).
For slow charging I use 52p/kWh (used Chat GPT to get that number).
The average of fast and slow is 64p/kWh.
For miles per kWh I settled on 2.9 as an average after checking various sources online. (The average of sources was 3.3, I changed it to 2.9 to account for charging losses.)
That gives us 18p per mile at slow paid public chargers (52/2.9), 26p per mile at fast chargers and 22p per mile for the average of both.
Petrol
I take £1.35 per litre assuming you charge at supermarkets mostly and very occasionally at a motorway service station and I assume 36.5 miles per gallon and 4.54 litres per UK gallon (average of various sources online) which gives me 17p per mile.
Diesel
£1.40/litre and 43 miles per gallon (various sources) gives us 15p/mile.
Price Parity Point
So if you are relying on fast chargers it's more expensive, if you can mainly use a 40-50p charger it's about the same.
I calculate an EV charging price of 43p/kWh to equal diesel and 49p/kWh to equal petrol.
Conversely, if petrol rises to £1.77 that would equal the average of all chargers, or £2.10 per litre to equal the average of fast chargers.
EDIT: After reviewing the comments I think the consensus is that my calculations are about right, but maybe a bit harsh on the EV side. 76p/kWh average for fast charging perhaps a bit high as I didn't consider subscriptions.
