ICCT Claims EV Operating Costs ⅓ Lower In Europe
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In a report dated September 6, 2026, the International Council On Clean Transportation (ICCT) claimed that operating an electric car in Europe in 2025 cost one third less than operating a conventional gasoline or diesel powered car. Because of the surge in fuel costs resulting from the unprovoked attack on Iran by the US, the disparity in the costs of operation could be even greater in 2026.
“Electric car drivers in Europe are paying about a third less than those with gasoline cars. Those savings are hard to ignore. They also explain why the car market keeps moving in one direction. We expect battery electric car adoption across Europe to scale up in the coming years if current policies are maintained,” explained Marie Rajon Bernard, lead researcher at the ICCT and lead author of the report.
That caveat is important. All across Europe, political leaders are under pressure to roll back environmental initiatives that benefit electric cars. The latest earthquake at Volkswagen, which announced this week it plans to reduce its workforce by 100,000 and is considering shuttering as many as four manufacturing facilities in Germany, has increased that pressure.
The report goes on to say that even for those drivers who regularly charge their electric cars at public charging facilities, their operating costs are still 28 percent lower that for conventional cars. The oil crisis that began in February 2026 further widened this gap. At the start of 2026, energy costs for combustion engine cars rose by 12 to 36 percent, while they remained largely unchanged for BEVs.
The ICCT report notes that the prices of electric cars have fallen significantly. In 2025, they had already reached the price level of gasoline powered cars in the three largest vehicle segments — a finding that is supported by price data from 100,000 vehicles in Germany, Europe’s largest automotive market. At the same time, the selection of electric cars has increased significantly. The number of available BEV models on the market quadrupled between 2020 and 2025.
Globally, battery costs fell by 35 percent between 2020 and 2025, the ICCT report notes. As a result, the purchase costs for battery electric passenger cars in Germany — adjusted for inflation and vehicle features such as range — decreased by 18 percent over the same period. In contrast, prices for combustion engine vehicles rose by 2 percent. European automakers have increased electric car production in recent years. In 2025, the market share of fully electric powertrains in Europe was up by at least 18 percent.
“We’ve observed that car prices haven’t fallen as quickly as battery costs have, which tells us there is more room for electric cars to get cheaper in the coming years. This is a critical moment for carmakers globally. Rather than reversing course, European carmakers will need to sustain and deepen their investments in electrification. The competition in this market will intensify,” said Peter Mock, Director of ICCT Europe.
The Electric Truck Experience
The figures for trucks are similarly impressive, and suggest that electric trucks and diesel trucks could achieve cost parity in terms of total cost of ownership in long haul transport within the EU as early as 2030. Germany has already reached that point today, thanks to toll exemptions for electric trucks. As a result, the costs for purchasing and operating an electric truck in long haul transport in Germany are already 11 percent lower than those for a diesel truck.
The ICCT’s report not only examines the costs of electric vehicles but also considers the ecological aspect of market growth. Electric cars produce 73 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions over their entire lifecycle than gasoline powered cars. For battery electric long haul trucks, the CO2 savings are 86 percent when compared to those of diesel trucks. Plug-in hybrids, on the other hand, show a rapidly growing discrepancy between real-world emissions and type approval values. On average, they are 4.6 times higher than expected, thanks to a phenomenon known as the “Utility Factor.” This gap suggests that PHEVs currently do not offer the real-world emission savings over conventional vehicles that are implied by the type approval values.
Among all financially viable options for cars and trucks, EVs deliver the largest climate and public health benefits compared with conventional vehicles, which not only have a negative climate impact but also contribute to air pollution and associated public health burdens, such as fine particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. These pollutants were responsible for an estimated 74,000 premature deaths in Europe and 11,000 cases of pediatric asthma in 2024.
You would think lower operating costs would motivate lots of folks to switch to driving an electric car, and in many parts of the world, they do. In the US today, such numbers have little impact. People want their plus-sized vehicles and seem to view paying outrageous sums to keep them running as a duty they owe to the car companies and fossil fuel companies. This strange belief system has no counterpart in other nations and appears to be a holdover of 1950s era thinking that America was the new Rome. Very few outside the US believe that anymore.
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