- Rising electricity prices still trail well behind the surge at the pump.
- Big savings can be found in states with high gas costs and low electricity costs.
- However, EVs tend to cost more to insure, eating into the fuel savings.
A new analysis of the US car market reveals how much the average driver could save on fuel by switching to an EV. On average across the country, replacing a gasoline-powered vehicle with a typical EV charged at home currently saves drivers nearly $1,500 a year at the pump. However, that figure varies considerably by state, with the West generally delivering the biggest savings.
See: Ford’s $30,000 Electric Pickup Just Got Its First Official Look
By pairing the average driving distance of American motorists with typical fuel and electricity prices, Bloomberg has mapped where buying an EV makes the most sense. Leading the charge is Washington, home to the third-highest gas prices in the country yet also among the cheapest states for electricity, largely thanks to hydroelectric power and public utilities. As a result, locals making the switch could save up to $2,346 a year. Oregon ranks close behind, with estimated annual savings of $2,057.
Other states where typical fuel costs far outweigh average EV charging costs include Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. Roughly one-third of drivers considering an EV cite potential fuel savings as their motivation, a recent JD Power survey found.
Read: Some States Give Up To $9,000 To Buy An EV, Others Charge You Hundreds
The same survey showed interest climbing in May, with 26 percent of car shoppers calling themselves “very likely” to go electric, up three percentage points from a year earlier.
EV Market Share By State (Jan-Apr 2026)
SWIPE
S&P Global / Bloomberg
The Costs That Cut The Other Way
Admittedly, the average EV still costs more than a comparable combustion model, but buyers also benefit from lower running costs and noticeably less maintenance. That price gap has been narrowing too, though EVs do tend to depreciate faster. And the recent climb in fuel prices, set off by the war in Iran, has only strengthened the case for going electric.
That said, Bloomberg reports electricity prices have crept up as well, climbing 8.6 percent over the past 12 months, partly on demand from AI data centers. Even so, those increases are minor next to the surge at the pump.
Also: North America Cratered And Even China Fell, Dragging Global EV And PHEV Growth To 0.9%
“Given how high gas prices are, you’re doing a lot of savings everywhere, but these places are pretty good,” Zero Emission Transportation Association research director Corey Cantor said. “It’s definitely a huge selling point.”
Cantor added that buyers often overlook fuel costs: “You see gas signs everywhere, but you don’t necessarily see dollars per kilowatt signs, unless you’re using an app. You kind of have to crunch the numbers yourself.” States where electricity is cheap and gas is expensive, he said, are where the shift could stick: “Those are the types of places that give you optimism for long-term EV transition, because it’s really just market forces at work.”
The Insurance Catch
Of course, there’s always a but. One cost the fuel math analysis leaves out is insurance, where EVs tend to lose ground. A separate Insurify study we shared recently found that in Washington, the same state topping the savings chart, a newer EV runs 30 percent more to insure than a comparable gas model, $3,260 against $2,515. Oregon shows an even wider gap at 36 percent, and Nevada sits at 26 percent. So part of what you save at the plug, you hand back to the insurer.
The picture isn’t uniformly grim, though. Nationally the average EV runs $3,159 a year to insure versus $2,218 for a gas car, a 42 percent spread, but that collapses to 18 percent once you line up only 2024-and-newer models against each other.
A few states reverse the order entirely. Montana and West Virginia both insure a newer EV for 4 percent less than the gas equivalent, and Nebraska leans the same direction. None of it cancels the fuel savings, but it does mean what you actually pay to run an EV rides on your zip code’s insurance rates as much as the gap between gas and electricity.
