Petrol vs electric: what does it really cost to own and run a car in 2026?
Petrol prices are up, but fuel is only one part of the cost of owning a car.
If you’re weighing up petrol versus electric, you might wonder what it actually costs to buy, own and run each type of vehicle over time?
The strongest recent Australian data comes from the Electric Vehicle Council’s 2025 EV Ownership Survey, based on thousands of EV drivers.
Across the three biggest ongoing cost categories, the pattern is clear:
- Fuel / energy: 70% of EV owners said they’d reduced fuel costs by more than 60%
- Maintenance: 73% said they spend less than $300 per year
- Insurance: 95% said they spend less than $2,000 per year
(Electric Vehicle Council, 2025 Ownership Survey)
These aren’t theoretical estimates. They’re reported costs from actual Australian drivers, and they point to the same conclusion - EVs are usually cheaper across multiple ongoing cost categories, not just fuel.
Why maintenance is usually lower
This mostly comes down to simplicity.
A petrol or diesel car has:
- engine oil and filters
- spark plugs
- exhaust systems
- many more moving mechanical parts
An EV doesn’t. That doesn’t mean zero maintenance, but it does usually mean:
- fewer scheduled service items
- fewer failure points
- lower annual servicing costs
That’s exactly what shows up in the EVC survey.
Is buying an EV expensive?
Another often cited barrier to EV ownership wasn’t running cost, but purchase price.
That’s now shifting. New EVs are getting more competitive and Australia saw a 38% increase in EV sales in 2025, with EVs reaching 13.1% of new car sales (Electric Vehicle Council). In early 2026, EVs made up around 11.8% of new car sales in February, showing that demand remains strong as more lower-cost models enter the market (The Driven).
For more Australians, EVs are no longer just cheaper to run. They’re also becoming far more accessible to buy.
Fuel is still the most visible saving
Simon Holmes à Court, founder of Climate 200, created eLitre to answer a simple question:
What does it cost to drive the same distance as one litre of petrol?
As of 2 April, in Melbourne, the numbers show:
- 1 litre of petrol: $2.92
- 1 eLitre: $0.42
(2.13 kWh at 19.6 c/kWh) (eLitre)
The eLitre model uses:
- Fuel prices from 7-Eleven stations across Melbourne, via Project Zero Three
- Electricity prices from Amber Electric, using the average of the cheapest 18 hours over the last 24 hours (eLitre)
So this isn’t just a “best case” EV scenario. It reflects what smart charging can look like in the real world.
What Amber customers with EVs are paying to charge at home
Amber for EVs is an EV automation that helps Amber customers with eligible EVs to automatically charge when wholesale electricity prices are low, rather than just when they happen to plug in.
Across Amber for EVs customers last month, the average price paid for EV charging was around ~8 c/kWh, including solar self-consumption at effectively 0 c/kWh. That’s materially lower again than the 19.6 c/kWh used in the Melbourne eLitre example.
And with petrol at $2.92 versus an eLitre of $0.42, the comparison has become very easy to understand. If you want to see how the maths stacks up today, check out eLitre and compare it for yourself.
