EV vs Gas: The Total-Cost Ledger, Line by Line

Key Takeaways

• Five lines settle the argument: purchase, fuel, maintenance, insurance, resale — the EV wins fuel and maintenance decisively, narrows the rest.
• Fuel is the rout: ~5–6¢/mile home-charged against gasoline's double-and-more — the arithmetic that compounds with every mile you drive.
• Miles are the referee: heavy drivers cross over in years, average drivers within ownership, garage queens maybe never.
• The accelerant this site exists for: a solar roof drives the fuel line toward zero — the pairing that ends the comparison.

The five-line ledger

Purchase — gas wins today, less each year: the battery-driven premium keeps narrowing, the used market discounts it aggressively, and surviving state incentives trim it where you live (the federal credit does not, anymore).

Fuel — the EV's landslide. Home charging at national-average rates runs ~5–6¢ a mile; comparable gas sedans run several multiples at typical pump prices (FuelEconomy.gov's side-by-side tool computes your exact pairing — we print structure, not pump prices). Off-peak rates widen the gap; a fast-charge-only life narrows it toward parity — home charging access is the honest asterisk on every EV savings claim.

Maintenance — the quiet second landslide: the index-card service list versus combustion's calendar. Offset by the tire tax; still a rout.

Insurance — modest gas edge in many quotes (repair-network maturity), converging yearly. Shop it; the spread is carrier-shaped.

Resale — historically the EV's weak line, now its buyers' bargain; stabilizing as battery-fear data dies. Call it a tie in motion.

The referee: your odometer

Structure per the linked arithmetic; FuelEconomy.gov personalizes the fuel line free.

Every line above is per-mile arithmetic wearing different clothes, which is why mileage referees the whole match: the EV is a machine that converts driving into savings, and it needs driving to convert.

The roof that ends the argument

Then there's the version of the ledger this site was built for: add rooftop solar and the fuel line — the EV's biggest win — heads toward the panels' near-zero marginal cost. Eight panels cover average driving; the charging-window habit captures it; and the household that runs both technologies stops comparing against gasoline at all, because its transportation fuel is a roof it already owns. Gas versus EV is a close ledger for some households and a landslide for others — but sun versus gasoline was never close.