EV Cost per Mile vs Gas: Every Car, Every Rate

At the US average electricity rate, charging an EV at home costs about 5.9¢ a mile against 13.5¢ for a 30 mpg gas car, less than half as much for every mile you drive. Gas only wins where electricity costs more than about 41¢ per kWh, a price above every large mainland state’s average but below Hawaii’s.

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5.9¢ vs 13.5¢

a mile: the average of the 34 EVs this site tracks, charged at home at the US average rate, against a 30 mpg gas car

That’s the average car at the average rate, which is the one comparison everybody already makes. The two numbers that decide yours are which car, and who sells you the electricity.

Every car, at three electricity prices

The gas car’s cost per mile doesn’t care where you live, near enough. The EV’s does. Here’s every car we track, at the average electricity rate in the cheapest state, the national average, and the most expensive large mainland market, with the gas car on top for reference. The last column is the rate at which that car stops being cheaper than gas. A figure in bold costs more than the gas car.

Down the first two columns, every car on the list beats the gas car, most of them comfortably. In California the gap closes, and for four it flips: the Audi Q8 e-tron, Tesla Cybertruck, Ford F-150 Lightning, and GMC Hummer EV cost more per mile to charge at home than a mid-size gas car costs to fill.

That’s the comparison at its harshest for them, though. The gas car here is our illustrative mid-size car, and a big SUV or a pickup is rarely shopped against one.

Rates come from the EIA Electric Power Monthly (table 5.6.A, May 2026), and each car’s figure is its EPA combined rating. Tap any car for its own page, which reprices it at whatever rate you type in.

The electricity price where gas wins

Every car has a break-even rate: the price per kWh at which a mile of electricity costs the same as a mile of gas. Below it the EV is cheaper. Above it, the gas car is.

For the average car we track, it sits above what any large mainland state charges on average, and below Hawaii. The more efficient the car, the higher the price it can absorb before gas catches up, which is why the column above runs from the most generous to the least.

The same sum works in reverse for your own numbers. Divide your gas price by your gas car’s mpg, and you have its cost per mile. Divide that by the EV’s kWh per mile (its EPA kWh per 100 miles, divided by 100), and you have the electricity price at which the two cost the same. If your bill says less, the EV wins. The formula page walks through the EV half on a real car, and the calculator does the whole comparison once you type in your own mpg, gas price and rate.

Gas prices move too, of course. The comparison here uses the national average from the EIA weekly US regular retail gasoline price (week ending 17 August 2026). When gas climbs, every break-even rate climbs with it, and the EV’s lead widens.

Fast charging is where it flips

All of the above is home charging. Public fast charging is priced by each network, by station and often by hour, and there’s no national price series we can cite. So here’s one real station instead of a made-up average.

Electrek checked a Los Angeles Tesla Supercharger at peak in April 2026: $0.45/kWh for a Tesla or a paying member, $0.60/kWh for anyone else. At the member price, fewer than half the cars on the list still beat the gas car per mile, all of them from the efficient end. At the non-member price, not one does.

That’s one station at its busiest hour, not a typical price. But it’s the honest shape of the thing: an EV’s cost advantage lives mostly in your driveway, and a road trip on fast chargers can cost as much per mile as the gas car you didn’t buy.

What this comparison leaves out

It’s fuel only. No oil changes, no brake pads, no charger installation, no purchase price. Winter also raises the energy an EV uses for every mile, so cold months cost more than the table shows.

If what you want is the monthly figure rather than the per-mile one, how much an EV adds to your electric bill prices that at the same three rates. For everything else on running costs, see the costs topic.