Does owning an EV save a significant amount of money without ever needing to visit a gas station? I set out to find that answer after purchasing a 2025 BMW i5 earlier this year, and I’ll reveal the results later in this article (they might surprise you). Note that while BMW has its new electric platform rolling out, the Neue Klasse, this article talks about their current generation of electric vehicles.
Technically, I leased the vehicle, as the manufacturer offered significant incentives in place of the EV tax credit, which has since expired. I previously owned a 2019 BMW M550, which is a V8 internal combustion engine gas car that could go about 300 miles on a full tank of gas, whereas my i5 EV can only go about 215–280 miles on a full charge, depending on weather and other factors. While that’s not ideal for a road trip, it’s more than enough for how much I drive each week.
What’s it like to live with an EV?
It depends on your living situation
Having an EV has been fantastic, mostly because I am fortunate to live in a house with a garage where I’ve installed a Level-2 charger (which required an electrician to install a NEMA 14-50 plug in my garage with a 240V plug). And because I only drive about 800 miles per month, I need to charge only once a week.
When I owned a gas car, I would similarly fill up with gas once per week. So, I effectively replaced my weekly habit of stopping at a gas station once per week with plugging in my car at home once per week. This change was very easy to get used to, but again, not everyone has a garage with a Level-2 charger.
I hear from people living in cities that owning an EV is more challenging because of the lack of a home charging station. While public charging stations are nearly ubiquitous, it takes an additional level of planning to coordinate one’s travel around the “when and where” of needing to charge.
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How much does it cost to “fill up” my BMW EV?
Here are the numbers
I live outside of Philadelphia, in southeastern Pennsylvania. That’s relevant because electricity and fuel costs vary by area. In my case, my average price for a gallon of premium fuel is around $4. That’s actually on the low end when looking at national averages, which range from $3.48 in Houston to over $5 per gallon in Los Angeles. That means the cost to fill up an ICE car with premium fuel in my area is about $41.
And then for electricity, my provider is PECO Energy, which charges around 10.5 cents per kWh. Compared to the national average, this is on the lower end, with electricity rates coming in at 11–16 cents per kWh in places like New York and San Francisco, and a bit less in other areas. If you crunch the numbers, and considering my i5 has an 80 kW power pack, that means that it only costs about $8.32 in electricity to “fill up” my EV from 0–90% (to reduce wear and tear on an EV, it’s advised that you only charge to 80-90%).
If you consider that it costs about $8.32 per week to charge my car, that comes out to about $35 per month in electricity. Comparatively, it would cost at least $41 per week, or $165 per month, to fill up my ICE BMW with premium fuel. If you do the math, I’m saving around $130 per month by using the BMW i5 versus a similar ICE car. That’s a pretty big savings.
Other considerations and analysis
Your mileage and costs may vary depending on where you live
Even if you run this analysis where electricity is most expensive, like in Hawaii (where they pay around 38.9 cents per kW), you’ll end up paying $31 per week, or $124 per month, in electricity to power your EV. But if you lived in Hawaii, you’d be paying much more for gas at about $90 per week.
In the most expensive circumstances, like living in Hawaii, you’re still spending 65% less on powering your EV versus a similar ICE car. However, if you’re comparing the economics of an EV to a fuel-efficient gas car like a Honda Accord with regular gas, the comparison is closer to break-even. (A Honda Accord would cost about $44 per week in fuel, half as much as a big-V8 BMW.)
To help you determine the energy costs of an EV, you can use the following helpful AI prompt:
Help me estimate the cost of electricity on a monthly basis for the [Name of EV]. I live in [City, state] and my electric utility is [name of provider]. I drive [X] miles per week on average. Also factor in peak rates, as I intend to mostly charge between the hours of [X time and Y time]. For comparison, also run this analysis on my former car, a [name of former car], and compare the electric costs of that EV with the gas car, and present the data in a table format.
This should give you a general idea of how much it would cost where you live.
So, is it cheaper to have an EV than a gas vehicle?
It depends, but probably yes
There are many factors at play, such as your location, your utility, how much you drive, and the weather in your area (colder climates mean less range with an EV). But generally, it is cheaper to power an EV than a gas car because, on a per-mile basis, you’re paying much less for electricity in most areas.
Again, in my case, I went from paying $165 or more per month to fill up my ICE car with gas to paying just $35 in additional electricity to power up my EV (which, on a per-mile basis, comes to $0.206 per mile for gas and $0.043 per mile for electric).