Annual Cost of Motoring
The whole bill for a year on the road - fuel, insurance, tax, servicing, MOT, breakdown cover and depreciation - for the same typical cars behind our Fuel Price Index. The finding: 32% of the bill is the part drivers watch, and the biggest single cost arrives without a bill.
Petrol car, a year
£3,540
6,200 miles, all costs
Diesel car, a year
£3,938
8,300 miles, all costs
Electric car, a year
£3,635
same 6,200 miles, charged at home
Biggest single cost
£1,183
depreciation, the invisible line
Final figures for a closed month. Authored by findpetrol.co.uk Research.
The finding: the watched cost is the smaller part
A typical petrol car - 6,200 miles a year - costs £3,540 to run for a year at September 2026 prices, of which the fuel drivers watch so closely is £1,142: about 31%. The biggest single cost is the one with no weekly price and no bill: depreciation, £1,183 of the year, 33% of everything. Add the duty and VAT inside every litre - £546 - plus £200 of vehicle tax, and tax and depreciation together are more than half the cost of motoring.
A diesel car, doing its typical 8,300 miles, costs £3,938. And an electric car doing the same 6,200 miles as the petrol car costs £3,635 charged at home on the standard rate - within £95 of the petrol bill. In 2026 the three ways of powering a car converge: vehicle tax is now the same £200 for almost everyone, the insurance gap has narrowed to tens of pounds, and where an electric driver charges matters more than anything else - £121 a year on an overnight tariff against £1,382 on public rapid chargers.
Every line names its source beside its figure, and the assumptions - a mid-life car, a mid-tier breakdown policy, 8% a year of value lost - are stated where they are used, because they move the bill by hundreds of pounds. The one number we would underline: buying new costs £6,536 a year in depreciation alone over the first three years, five times the mid-life rate.
The three bills, side by side
The same seven lines for each profile. Depreciation assumes the average used car of each fuel type at the mid-life rate of 8% a year; insurance is the ABI average premium paid (Q2 2026), with the electric line on the MoneySuperMarket EV index median.
| Cost line | Petrol | Diesel | Electric | Share, petrol |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel or energy | £1,142 | £1,550 | £455 | 32% |
| Insurance | £566 | £566 | £557 | 16% |
| Vehicle tax (VED) | £200 | £200 | £200 | 6% |
| Servicing | £305 | £350 | £283 | 9% |
| MOT | £55 | £55 | £55 | 2% |
| Breakdown cover | £90 | £90 | £90 | 3% |
| Depreciation | £1,183 | £1,127 | £1,996 | 33% |
| Total, a year | £3,540 | £3,938 | £3,635 | 100% |
All figures in pounds a year. Fuel at this edition's 4 weekly snapshots (petrol 170.1p, diesel 193.1p a litre); electric at the Ofgem price-cap rate of 26.3p/kWh. The electric car does the same 6,200 miles as the petrol car; the diesel does its typical 8,300.
Read down the electric column and the story of 2026 appears: energy £455 against £1,142 for petrol, servicing £283 against £305, vehicle tax identical - and then depreciation £1,996 against £1,183, because the average used electric car is worth £10,164 more than the average used petrol car. The electric car wins the running costs and loses the balance sheet.
Where the money goes
The petrol bill's seven lines, largest first. Together the two costs that never appear on a receipt - depreciation and the duty and VAT inside the pump price - are £1,728, or 49% of the year.
Inside the £1,142 fuel line sit £546 of duty and VAT - 53.0p a litre of fuel duty frozen until 31 December 2026, plus VAT at 20% on the whole pump price. Add the £200 of vehicle tax and the state's share of the petrol bill is £746 a year, before a single mile of wear. This is why watching the pump matters less than it feels: a 5p saving on a litre, across 671 litres, is £34 a year - real money, but the average new-car buyer loses more than that every month to depreciation (£545 of it).
The electric car, priced honestly
The same electric car - 1,727 kWh a year at HMRC's sales-weighted fleet efficiency of 3.6 miles per kWh - powered four ways. Domestic electricity carries no VAT from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, which the price-cap rate already reflects.
| How it is charged | Energy cost, a year |
|---|---|
| Home, on the price-cap rate | £455 |
| Home, on an overnight EV tariff | £121 |
| Mostly home (80%), public standard (20%) | £550 |
| Public rapid chargers only | £1,382 |
Home rates: Ofgem price cap, 1 October to 31 December 2026 (26.3p/kWh) and a typical dedicated EV overnight tariff (about 7.0p/kWh). Public rates: Zapmap Charging Price Index, July 2026 (about 54.0p standard, 80.0p rapid).
An 11-fold range between the cheapest and dearest way to power the identical car: £121 against £1,382. An electric driver without a driveway, forced onto public rapid chargers, pays £1,261 a year more for the same miles - more than a typical petrol car spends on fuel altogether.
What has equalised: vehicle tax is now £200 a year for electric cars from their second year (a first-year EV pays just £10), the insurance gap has narrowed to about £9, and used electric values turned positive in 2026 after 40 months of falls. What has not: the average used EV is still worth £10,164 more than the average used petrol car, so the same 8% a year costs £813 more.
Depreciation, the invisible line
No invoice arrives for depreciation, which is exactly why it survives as the biggest cost of motoring. This report prices it on the average used car of each fuel type (Auto Trader Retail Price Index) at the industry's standard mid-life curve.
| Basis | Avg used value | Rate a year | Depreciation | Share of its bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Petrol car, mid-life | £14,782 | 8% | £1,183 | 33% |
| Diesel car, mid-life | £14,087 | 8% | £1,127 | 29% |
| Electric car, mid-life | £24,946 | 8% | £1,996 | 55% |
The curve is not flat: about 27% lost in the first year, 15% in the second, 12% in the third, easing to 8% at mid-life and 5% beyond seven years. A five-year-old car is close to the cheapest motoring there is.
Buying new: the first three years
- Average new petrol car (advertised)
- £43,405
- Lost over the first three years
- £19,607 (45%)
- Depreciation per year, years 1-3
- £6,536
- Same car, years 4-9, at 8% a year
- about £1,904
For the first owner of the average new petrol car, depreciation alone is £6,536 a year - roughly double this report's entire mid-life petrol bill. The second owner of the same car inherits the cheap years.
The fuel line, region by region
Our own contribution: the petrol line of the bill in each region, at this edition's pump prices (the same 4 weekly snapshots behind the UK Fuel Price Index). The range across the whole country is smaller than a month of depreciation on a new car.
| Region | Petrol (p/l) | Fuel bill, a year | vs UK average | Share of income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North East | 169.0p | £1,134 | -£8 | 5.5% |
| Wales | 169.5p | £1,137 | -£5 | 5.3% |
| West Midlands | 170.7p | £1,145 | +£3 | 5.2% |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 169.0p | £1,134 | -£8 | 5.2% |
| North West | 170.0p | £1,141 | -£1 | 5.1% |
| East Midlands | 170.5p | £1,144 | +£2 | 5.0% |
| Northern Ireland | 163.6p | £1,098 | -£44 | 4.9% |
| Scotland | 171.4p | £1,150 | +£8 | 4.7% |
| South West | 170.7p | £1,145 | +£3 | 4.4% |
| East of England | 170.7p | £1,145 | +£3 | 4.3% |
| South East | 171.6p | £1,152 | +£10 | 3.9% |
| London | 170.9p | £1,147 | +£5 | 3.1% |
Fuel bill for a typical petrol car (671 litres). Share of income is from our Regional Fuel Affordability report, where the regional story is told in full.
Methodology, in brief
Fuel and energy. Petrol and diesel from our own weekly collection (the same snapshots behind the Fuel Price Index); consumption from the DfT National Travel Survey 2024 at Which? real-world economy. Electric: the same 6,200 miles as the petrol car at HMRC's sales-weighted 3.59 miles per kWh; Ofgem price-cap rate, published EV overnight tariffs, and Zapmap public charging rates.
Insurance, tax, MOT, servicing. ABI average premium paid, Q2 2026 (EV: MoneySuperMarket index median); the 2026/27 VED standard rate of £200, which now applies to electric cars from their second year too; the statutory £54.85 MOT maximum; Which? car survey servicing costs (63,334 owners).
Depreciation, breakdown. Stated assumptions, not statistics: the average used car of each fuel type (Auto Trader) at 8% a year mid-life; £90 for a mid-tier breakdown policy. Repairs and tyres are excluded on purpose - they vary too widely to average honestly. Full methodology →
Using this data
These figures are free to use in articles, research and reporting. We ask only that you credit findpetrol.co.uk and link to this report, so readers can see the current figures and the method behind them.
https://www.findpetrol.co.uk/reports/annual-cost-of-motoring
Pump price data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Other components are credited to their sources throughout. Data enquiries: findpetrol.co.uk/contact.