Headline is misleading

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'?

> typically more expensive to purchase and insure

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.

> There’s also a nasty depreciation curve to contend with. Nobody wants a 10 year old Tesla, but a 10 year old well mentioned petrol car still has a ton of life left in it.

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.

Depends on the specific car, Tesla's are notoriously expensive to insure, but I believe that the Volkswagen ID series is much more reasonable.

They tend to be in much lower insurance bands and tend to incurr significantly lower motor tax - comprehensive policies for EVs are higher due to the (current) dearth of parts and licensed repair centres versus ICE cars running on multi-year platforms or sharing parts across lines that share a single monocoque design (e.g. VW, Ford, Toyota versus Tesla and their publicised parts shortages).

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.

I drive a 12 year old ev. It was cheap to buy and drive and I don't see any difference in insurance costs.

Also it is extremely expensive to repair some EVs.

Why do you think Tesla insurance is that high?

The cost of servicing an EV is much cheaper, however

10-year old Teslas are great, you just need a sticker "bought before Elon went crazy".

The headline could not be more precise. Suppose for example that I am faced with a choice which of two cars to rent. The considerations you advance are for the rental agency. The headline datum is what matters to the client.

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.

I've had this discussion many times. Unless you own a house, with solar panels and your own parking spot any cost/km gains on fuel with EV are marginal. Gas get's adjusted more quickly but eventually the roadside charge prices will catch up. And many "researchers" take the average price (not any better metric) which is heavily skewed by "public" chargers which you cannot use since they are inaccessible on private property but are public for tax reasons.

There are a lot of places in the UK where you do not have the facility to charge your car at home (terraced houses, apartment buildings with no parking spaces). Running cables to buildings is risky. Even where there are houses that have a road in front of the front door, there is no guarantee that the owner is able to park in front.

> 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.

True. But we load shift to the cheap period things like the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher. We have an old 5 bed house - currently eon reckon our bill for the month is about £50.

I mean the maths is simple enough if you round up.

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...

There are over 120,000 public charging points across the UK, with over 25,000 of them being 50kW+ DC. That's averaging more than one charger per square mile of the mainland UK (density distribution of course varies).

The considerations above apply equally in China. It is overtaking America because of exactly the kind of thinking you are repeating from internet.

Are they? An equivalent model don't seem to be significantly more new, and you can now get some great deals on secondhand EVs.

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.

Well what if rather than a Tesla+, one bought a cheaper EV instead? In the UK, the Leapmotor T03 seems to go for around 16000 GBP new. That's actually not much more than an equivalent petrol car.

This depends on country, and what you consider to be a comparable car.

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.

Not to forget greater depreciation. So for those who drive relatively little the ICE card might still have lower total cost of ownership. Not to forget time comparison on fuelling versus charging.

Has the UK decided to block or add protectionist regulations to Chinese EV imports?

Since this is a article about UK car costs, lets look at the UK

> 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.

Wow that is super expensive.

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

The cost of public charging is still one of the biggest problems. I'm currently on a night-time charging tariff at home at 4p/kWh. It will go up to 8p/kWh in October but that's still pretty good considering it's not uncommon for public rapid charging to be 10x that.

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.

Why is EV insurance that more expensive than an ICE vehicles'?