It still often ends up a bit cheaper across comparable vehicles but not a slam dunk and nowhere near as good as the headline suggests.
Honest question: how else would one interpret 'cheaper to drive', if not 'cheaper per-mile operating costs'? Wouldn't they have used plain 'cheaper than' if they would have meant 'purchase+operating'?
The cheapest car for sale in the UK is an EV at this point. The market is rapidly filling with EVs in essentially all price segments. Most EVs are still under warranty when they hit the second hand market for the simple reason most EVs on the market were produced in their typical warranty period.
Quite possibly China and many other countries.
(edit) There's a comment further down, cheapest car in UK is EV: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49875856
It's still 12,000UKP more expensive than the paid-off ICE 15-yo I have on my driveway, which is a heck of a lot of petrol.
The EV was definitely the right choice, due to luck rather than knowing Trump was about to kick off with Iran. It costs us £8 to charge the car overnight for around 380 miles range.
The problem is that, for economy of scale reasons, Comprehensive insurance is often cheaper than third-party cover in the UK, despite people tending to never claim so as to keep their no-claims bonus and not spike their premium out of affordability. With 3rd Party the EV option would be cheaper as they tend to be involved in less accidents, and when they do they tend to dissipate more impact on their side due to more modern crumple-zones and safety features.
It's worse, there's almost no second hand market for the vehicles. There is barely anybody trained to repair them (even if they will sell you the parts) and if they are crashed significantly it's almost always a write-off.
> It still often ends up a bit cheaper across comparable vehicles but not a slam dunk and nowhere near as good as the headline suggests.
Only because of government meddling. Fuel is almost uniquely taxed 3 times, which pays for subsidies to pay for green energy initiatives.
I think I'll hold out with my diesels and petrols and see how this all goes.
I ended up getting an off-lease Hyundai EV because they tanked in value in part due to their ICCU failures, which are now covered under an extended warranty.
No longer true at least in most decently urban/semi-urban Western countries/regions.
The parts shortage is real though, it's always been a plague for Tesla, and most established manufacturers never really recovered from Covid (and in the case of wiring harnesses, Ukraine) as a lot of their supply chain closed down shop for good.
> and if they are crashed significantly it's almost always a write-off.
That's true of all modern vehicles, no matter the engine type. Crash resiliency comes at a cost, the frame absorbs the crash energy and permanently deforms. Yes you can bend even an aluminium frame back into shape but it will never be as strong as before, and anything carbon-composite or plastic is out of the question as well.
this is very simply completely untrue
Why do you think Tesla insurance is that high?
Car ownership is in any case kind of a boomer thing, not to put too fine a point on it, and maybe your reasoning reflects this. In Europe and US occasions for rental arise for younger demographics and in different ways.
One-tenth the (fuel) cost, or 90% cheaper.
(That is, if you own a house with off-street parking).
I live in a place with year-round fair weather, so I use a petrol motorcycle as my primary vehicle, and live in a rented apartment with no dedicated parking space or possibility of using an at-home charger.
Even with incredibly high petrol taxes causing petrol to cost more than 2.2 EUR/L (like 9.5 USD/gallon), the public fast EV charger rates available at refueling stations are so expensive, that when you take great motorcycle mileage into account, it still doesn't pay to buy an EV, even when only considering charging/refueling costs. Of course, if I could recharge from slow household electric power, it would be a different story. But the politicians are already worried enough about the loss of petrol taxes that the odds, IMO, are quite low of EV charging staying cheaper than petrol refueling (particularly when the vast majority of the petrol price is taxes to begin with).
I use the PG&E EV2-A night tariff at home which is still 0.23 $/kWh, though the rate at work is only 0.14 $/kWh which I use as much as possible. I rarely use the superchargers (0.45$/kWh.) Let’s use the 0.23 value.
I drive 15k miles per year. At roughly 2.5 mi/kWh. That gives $1380 per year.
At 20 mi/gallon and $6/gallon, I’d pay $4500 per year. At today’s gas prices, the difference is IMO not marginal anymore. (That said, I didn’t buy the EV for the drive savings…)
All it took was destruction of global energy markets and supplies.
Let’s celebrate!
For example, an EV is both undoubtably cheaper to operate than a gas powered car ; and infinitely more expensive to operate if you can't afford to buy one in the first place.
Similarly, the price of kWh of PV-generated electricity is both lower than pretty much everything else as this point ; and, basically infinite when the sun is down and your 4h battery has run out.
Is there a proper math concept to fairly express those things ? "Mean", "Average" or "Median" fall short. Mean with very very large error bars ? "Average with substitution" ?
In the end, I can't wait for all those circumvoltions to be irrelevant (when EVs are just cheap to buy too, and electricity has enough storage to bake it into the price, etc...)
All cars need parking and real-estate is wasted for parking at a humongous expense. Cars are next to some building. Usually, in most countries all building have electricity. UK has 230V, which means any outlet anywhere should work. All it needs is a cable from the nearest building to where the car is parked.
In many places, you don't have the luxury to park in front of your house and you don't have the liberty to open random doors and plug your cars to whatever outlet is available there.
Also, if you do not have a home charger, you are very unlikely to come out cheaper than petrol. I think 40p/kwh is about the breakeven
ICE @ 40 MPG: ~22.6p per mile for diesel EV: ~3p per mile for off-peak home charging.
The difference from 23 to 3 is a decrease of 20, which is an 86.96% decrease.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/sep/28/price-of-diese...
All this kind of spin does is turn people who were on the fence, off electric. Just treat people like adults and say "whilst there are still lots of reasons to prefer a traditional car, electrics are the future, and here's something that shows the progress".
Is it the same in the UK?
Recently they started builing a truck charging facilty on the outskirts of town.
Previously (last year) various taxes made almost half the fuel price. We don't have green/car taxes where i live, everyone charges their cars at home and brag how 'cheap it is'. Additionally you can drive in bus lanes if you drive EV (capital only) and you have the perfect nepotism scheme - no taxes, premium transit for anyone already rich enough. No politician dares to bring this up as solution would lead to the introduction of general car tax (political suicide) so once again everyone else is left to pick up the bill after the rich.
It currently costs 85p/kWh to charge an EV near where I live if you can't charge at home, and 95p/litre for gas (my car is dual fuel).
Then you've got the vastly more expensive insurance for EVs.
Then you've got the cost of paying for an EV.
Then you've got to find an EV that directly replaces the existing vehicle. There are currently no EVs on the market that can tow heavy trailers off road, which is the main reason I have a biggish 4x4.
I usually charge at the super market (60KW) for 44ct / kwh which is not cheap but much more reasonable.
For comparision my employer offers charging at 23ct and my home price (from the grid) would be +-30 if I could get a charger there
Of all the rapid charging networks, I find Tesla are often the cheapest, there are Tesla 250kW charging stations near me that are 33p/kWh during quieter hours.
Performance being pretty high on even a basic Tesla doesn't help things either. The insurance market in the UK is very expensive anyway and any excuse to wind up premiums they'll gladly use.
Presumably because (at least round here) they're driven by retired guys who are simply not capable of staying in front of a 700bhp gokart that gets to 60mph faster than if you threw it off a cliff.
I'm in the UK and have now gone completely electric - motorbike (Zero SRF), car (wife's Model 3) and van (ID Buzz). To be honest though, that was mostly because I like EVs - yes, even the motorbike. The fuel costs are just a bonus.
> Dacia Spring is now the UK’s cheapest car at less than £12k
> The all-electric Dacia Spring now costs less than any other car on the market
https://www.whatcar.com/news/dacia-spring-is-now-the-uks-che...
The article has an honourable mention for the Leapmotor T03, another EV that is only slightly more expensive than the Dacia Spring.
If we compare, for example, the Tesla Model 3 (RWD) against the BMW 3 series (320i), then we get:
NL: Model 3 ~€36K vs 3 series ~€50K UK: Model 3 ~£37K vs 3 series ~£41K
In both countries the Model 3 is more expensive than that the 3 series.
Second hand the maths can change again, since EVs typically depreciate faster, due to battery degradation fears, and the fact that range on newer cars is always improving, but still, typically for a four year old version of the above, the Model 3 is still cheaper than the 3 series.
There is, of course, the discussion on whether it is fair to compare a model 3 with the 3 series, but it is often used, so I'll go with it.
If you want to compare cheaper cars, then you could compare a Ford Focus with an MG4 EV, and in the UK the EV wins, in NL, the Gasoline car wins, but in both cases, they are more price comparable.
You can get a mint condition IONIQ 5 with 300bhp and 20-minute charging for less than a new Corolla.
So as of today, I’d certainly buy electric if I was worried about depreciation.
My main point is that even with happy hour prices this is only viable for people which do not have to rely on external chargers, which is the majority. Currently EV is cheaper again, due to rapid rise of fuel prices, but the power companies with street side chargers generally "adjust" prices every year to match petrol and it's been for a long time cheaper to run petrol. Also: getting petrol from a few km away for cheap is easy, you are not going to park in the next village overnight to charge your car.
MG is a British car badge, now owned by SAIC China
Volvo and Polestar are owned by Geely
LEVC makes the new EV London black cabs, is also owned by Geely
XPeng and Omoda are present too.
Depreciation will slow down when the rate of improvement slows down
Yes of course, it's part of the actuarial calculation. As cars age they become more expensive to repair and eventually will cross a boundary where the insurer will write them off on any type of accident, rather than trying to repair. This naturally increases the base insurance price.
OEMs in the EU are only required to produce spare parts for 10 years after a model is withdrawn, which is a strong indicator of when write-off becomes the primary option.
I have had my side mirrors and windshield repairs covered.
Breakdown of UK Public/Private and EV/ICE Per Mile Costs:
* Home (Off-Peak EV Tariff): ~3p per mile
* Home (Standard Standard Variable Tariff): ~8p per mile
* Standard Public EV: ~15p per mile
* Petrol Car: ~17p per mile
* Diesel Car: ~17.5p per mile
* 50kW+ DC Public EV: ~22p to 23p per mile
I'm currently paying around 95p/litre for gas, which works out at around 23p per mile, in something with a 4.6 litre V8 that's registered as a low-emission vehicle (so cheaper tax) that mostly gets used to drag heavy trailers about the place.
If I need to use a car it's because I'm unlikely to be doing less than double-digit miles to somewhere with no public transport.
If I pop out to the supermarket for groceries, I wouldn't even think of cycling. It's quicker to walk...
At the moment for an ICE @ 40 MPG it's ~22.6p per mile for diesel in the UK
Used cars still take a full fuel tank.
The deprecation has very little to do with the cars themselves. It's mainly due to original prices being inflated during covid demand spike + chip shortage followed by releases of decent brand new EVs under £25K.
Oil changes, break pads, oil filters, spark plugs, …
For whatever reason, my wife’s car needs yearly scheduled dealership visits that always cost a few hundred. Meanwhile, my 5 year old EV has had none of that, other than one of those recalls that required a technician to park 15 minutes on our driveway to tighten some bolt (which my wife’s car also had, but it took another visit to the dealership.)
The depreciation thing is true, but I drive my cars into the ground anyway, so it’s not a factor for me.
If the rest of the car is fine, it should be one visit to a shop to swap out old battery for new (and the shop handling recycling/disposal of the old one), and off you go with car good as new.
There is a large intersection of people who only buy second hand cars and who have to park them in the streets or in shared parkings. If you can't charge at home, owning an EV is much more a hassle, especially if there are very few chargers around (which is the case in my area) and charging at dedicated third party charging station in much less interesting from a financial point of view.
Make cars work off power tools batteries.
Take e.g. Bosch AMP Share 18V 8.8 Ah bricks[0] or equivalents. Back-of-the-napkin, you'd need about one per 1km of range (+/- various factors). Put them in racks of 5, and allow people to swap out dead racks for charged ones at gas stations[1].
This would give regular people back their favorite experience of gas stations, while preserving environmental and economical benefits. For example:
- People riding short routes could run with only 20%-40% of the racks in. Means they won't need to carry as much mass around. This is like people today who always keep their gas tank half empty or even emptier, to not waste fuel on carrying fuel around.
- People riding long routes could take extra racks in their trunk to exchange range; people operating other equipment could get extra racks for it at the station, too -- same as people today do when coming with gas canisters to the station.
- In case you run out of power in the middle of the road, for some reason, someone else can help you by lending you their battery pack - even easier than lending you gasoline.
- No more worry about battery life degradation - you're constantly swapping out packs, never using the same ones for more than few days or weeks, and it's an activity you are doing regularly - so people would finally realize that batteries are replaceable and stop complaining about used EVs being as good as used iPhones.
- Overall preserves established economics of gas stations and attached restaurants and service centers; every driver born in the last 100 years understands that and will find it intuitive.
- Bonus - the "power tool batteries" was more of a joke establishing scale; actual implementation would be probably sealed "rack-sized" packs with different trade-offs, but on the off chance it is made power-tool compatible, so much extra utility opens - from charging at home, to powering power tools :).
(I think the mistake of the OG idea of swappable battery packs of yore was to optimize for swapping time and keep battery as a unit. Breaking it down into pieces that weigh 5kg or less means you can reuse existing infrastructure.)
--
[0] - Not an ad, I just have bunch of those and invent more and more silly ways to power things from them.
[1] - The new "battery passport" regulations around the world already solve some of the technical issues here.
Right now the lowest depreciation is on cars like the Honda Civic. Used buyers want a right sized highly reliable vehicle. The average EV is smaller than the average petrol car, and high mileage EV's are far more reliable than high mileage petrols.
Imagine how clean our cities could have been if 20 years ago the government had gone down the route of getting people to convert cars to gas, instead of giving them a couple of quid to scrap them and buy a "cleaner greener" diesel.
EU's Energy Tax Directive (ETD) enforces a rigid minimum excise duty of €0.330 (33 cents) per litre on auto-diesel used as a propellant. Ireland's VAT rate is 23%. Pre-tax costs account for about 62% and various government taxes/levies account for 38%.
It's running at about €2.16/l in Ireland so that's about $9.30/gallon today. It's €2.70 in Germany and around €2.50 in Greece. For reference Greece's statutory gross minimum wage is €920 per month and Germany's is about €2,400. People are going to starve/freeze this Winter.
Convert everything to run on LPG.
I vaguely remember a guy swapping modules of the battery of a Prius at home for peanuts, because the dealership asked 4K for the same service. There are a few places that do a battery refresh for 1 or 2K (eg. texashybridbatteries.com). In the future this might be a good business, today it seems to be a Prius thing... because it was the most successful car a while ago.