Electric Car Cost vs Gas (Calculators)

Electric car cost vs gas car cost is a perennial issue of discussion. Of course, the result keeps changing, and the options for comparison keep growing (as more and more electric cars are available for sale or lease).

In my last most recent comparisons of an electric car vs its gas-powered cousins, the Nissan Leaf showed serious savings in most scenarios compared to the Nissan Juke or Nissan Rogue. Notably, a lot of assumptions go into making such comparisons, and one really has to run the numbers for oneself.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently unveiled an eGallon tool for comparing electric car fuel cost vs gas car fuel cost. The tool offers comparisons by state, with regularly updated state electricity and gas price averages. However, you can’t do a full analysis of total ownership costs with the eGallon tool.

But a new tool called Plugwiz does come a few steps closer to that. Inputting an exact electric vehicle (only 2011, 2012, and 2013 models), some electricity and charging details, miles driven per day, MPG on your current car, and the price of gas in your area, you can see the average monthly cost of fueling that specific electric car you chose vs the average monthly cost of fueling your current car, as well as your estimated monthly savings, CO2 savings, and electric car incentives in your area.

So, in the end, using Plugwiz, you can easily find out the monthly fuel savings of an electric car vs your gas car. You can then plug those numbers into a full electric car cost vs gas car cost spreadsheet calculator like the one I’ve created. I prefer using my own spreadsheet for it all since I then know exactly what assumptions go into the calculation, but whatever floats your boat! And I should note that Plugwiz does offer some extra benefits (incorporation of TOU pricing, variation depending on the charger used, variation by exact electric car model, and incentive details by location).

Thoughts on these tools and comparing electric car cost vs gas car cost?