this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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I own an EV (in Ireland). I would not say by any stretch I save that much as running a petrol car. It's probably in the order of a third perhaps and that's with a nighttime electricity plan where a kWh might cost 20c which works out about €4 at 15kWh/100km. A petrol car doing 6L/100km would cost about €12 at the moment. If somebody was using public fast chargers they would see very little savings.
There are other expenses like motor taxes, wear & tear (tyres, brakes), servicing, oil changes etc. which might affect the cost. The UK also has a really dumb excise on EVs where they get whalloped with 3p per mile of extra tax. So 100km (62.5miles) is £1.87 of tax to add onto the charge bill. Luckily Ireland doesn't get it but most other expenses are comparable.
why is it dumb to tax EVs for mileage? aren't ICs taxed similarly through fuel tax?
roads gotta be paid for somehow, and it's fair to tax actual usage
It wouldn't be dumb if ICE vehicles were also taxed the same way but they're not. There would be nothing to stop the UK government abolishing fuel tax and slapping 6p a mile or whatever on ICE vehicles
Petroleum is taxed per liter. A car goes X km per liter. So the current petroleum tax is effectively per km, or close enough.
The mileage tax on average will make average petrol cars pay double what EVs will be paying in road taxes ( and it's not even happening until 2028).