EV vs hybrid: which costs less to own?

Economic ownership cost is the primary metric

resale value  = acquisition price × retained-value rate
depreciation  = acquisition price − resale value

economic TCO  = depreciation
              + energy or fuel
              + maintenance
              + road tax
              + compulsory insurance
              + comprehensive insurance
              + home charger and installation
              + financing interest and fees
              + other selected costs

The purchase price is never added on top of depreciation. The capital you sink into a car appears exactly once — as the part of it you don't get back. Cash out of pocket is reported separately, because financing and disposal timing are a different question from ownership cost.

Electricity and fuel

annual grid energy = distance × consumption × real-world ÷ 100
                     ÷ (1 − charging loss)     ← battery-side figures only

blended price      = Σ (charging share × charging rate)
                     charging shares must total 100%

adjusted economy   = published economy ÷ real-world multiplier
annual fuel        = distance ÷ adjusted economy

Charging loss is applied once, and only where a manufacturer's consumption figure is measured at the battery. A figure already measured at the grid includes the loss, so adding it again would overstate the EV's energy cost by roughly a tenth. Every country module records which basis each vehicle's figure uses.

Depreciation is a scenario, not a forecast

Every market offers conservative, base and optimistic retained-value scenarios, and the applied percentage is always visible on screen — resale is never a hidden assumption. Where a country has enough evidence, scenarios are brand-specific; otherwise a generic curve for that powertrain is used and labelled as such. Brands with thin used markets carry a visible high-uncertainty flag.

These scenarios are normally derived from marketplace asking prices, which are offers rather than completed sales. A dealer's trade-in bid is usually lower. Treat the result as a range you can move, not a valuation.

What is excluded everywhere

• Colour and accessory upcharges, registration and plate costs
• Tyres, 12V batteries and wear items outside the routine service schedule
• Accident repair, excess payments and downtime
• Parking, tolls, station idle and reservation fees
• Inflation and discounting — figures are in constant money
• Out-of-warranty traction-battery replacement, which defaults to zero while credible warranty cover applies. That is a modelling default, not a durability claim.

Data quality rules

• Official primary sources take precedence for tariffs, specifications and list prices.
• Conflicting sources are preserved as a stated disagreement, never averaged into a fake middle number.
• Expired promotional prices fall back to the verified list price, with a visible notice to check with a dealer.
• Every dynamic default carries a source link, a retrieval date and a confidence level.
• Missing values stay missing. A vehicle is only offered as a preset when both its price and its core efficiency figure are reliable enough to stand behind.