Is charging your EV really cheaper than buying gas?

If you drive an EV, you have probably heard one argument over and over: Whatever you pay for the car, you’ll save money charging it.

That can certainly be true if you charge at home, particularly if you have access to inexpensive off-peak electricity. But once you depend on public fast chargers, the math can look very different.

Put $40 or $50 worth of gasoline into an efficient RAV4, and you’re buying hundreds of miles of driving range

On a recent episode of “The Drive,” my co-host Karl Brauer told me about charging a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N at a Level 3 charger. It cost him about $50.

Within 24 hours, Karl filled up his 2023 Dodge Demon 170 with E85. The bill was $47.

Yes, you read that correctly.