At CheapEV, we asked a simple question: what happens if someone about to buy one of the UK’s 10 most popular second-hand petrol cars instead leases the closest equivalent three-year-old EV through Salary Sacrifice?
The cost-of-ownership savings below genuinely shocked us.
Rather than just compare monthly payments, we looked at what each car could actually cost over the next five years, including depreciation, fuel or electricity, insurance, servicing, tyres, MOTs, repairs and road tax.
Take the Volkswagen Golf versus the Volkswagen ID.3 as an example:
• Three-year-old petrol Volkswagen Golf: estimated five-year ownership cost of around £25,700.
• Comparable three-year-old Volkswagen ID.3 through Salary Sacrifice: estimated five-year cost of around £16,500.
• We assume 10,000 miles per year, so 50,000 miles over five years.
• For the Golf, we include depreciation, petrol at around 17p per mile, insurance, servicing, tyres, MOTs, repairs and road tax.
• For the ID.3, we include the Salary Sacrifice lease cost after the employee tax saving, plus cheap overnight home charging and the cost of installing a home charger.
The result is an estimated saving of around £9,200 over five years by going electric.
The exact figure will obviously vary by driver, tax position, mileage, electricity tariff and lease terms, but the important point is this: buying a cheaper-looking petrol car does not necessarily mean it is cheaper to own.
That is why we think people should stop comparing purchase prices and start comparing the full five-year cost of driving the car.