Petrol drivers doing 1,000 miles face paying £188 to keep their car topped up with fuel, it has been warned. The amount you spend at the pump each year depends on three factors: your annual mileage, the fuel efficiency of your car and the cost of fuel.
Fuel Cost Comparison for Petrol and Diesel Cars
Nimblefins explains, given average fuel efficiency of 36 mpg for a petrol and 43 mpg for a diesel and recent fuel prices (around 148.8 p/litre for petrol and 176.5 p/litre for diesel in April 2026), the typical diesel car consumes £187 of fuel for every 1,000 miles travelled. The petrol costs £188 - recently diesel cars cost 10% less to fuel but this benefit has vanished in the current environment. Historically, that benefit was why motorists driving long distances every year traditional were drawn to diesel vehicles.
Electric Vehicles Offer Significant Savings
It adds: "And guess what's even cheaper to power? Electric vehicles. An EV is fueled for a fraction of the cost of a petrol or diesel car, despite higher electricity prices. In fact, assuming an EV charging cost per mile of 2.1p/mile at home on a special EV tariff or 8.2p/mile on a regular price cap tariff, EVs are 56% cheaper to fuel on a regular EPC home tariff; or 89% cheaper to fuel on a special time-of-use EV tariff."
The average cost to drive 1,000 miles for EVs charging at night is £21, but this is increased to £79 for daytime charging on a regular tariff. Diesel and petrol motorists pay either £187 or £188 on average. Nimblefins says even on a regular home electricity tariff, an EV owner would spend 50% less on fuel per mile than the driver of a comparable petrol car (assuming they drive the same amount).
Impact of Energy Price Cap
Due to the Energy Price Cap, home electricity price moves typically lag petrol and diesel price moves at the pump. In an environment of rising fuel prices, this means that EVs look particularly cheap to fuel compared to cars with internal combustion engines.
Annual Fuel Costs for Average Mileage
On an EV tariff—which typically has drastically reduced nighttime electricity rates, EV owners spend even less. For 7,000 miles of driving (the average annual mileage), an EV on a time of use EV tariff would spend around £147 per year to fuel their car; an EV charged on a regular home electricity tariff would cost around £574 per year. This is compared to around £1,306 for the petrol and £1,314 for the diesel cars.
