What this site is designed to do

The site is built around real world EV ownership questions. It is designed to help drivers estimate costs quickly, compare charging options and understand how EV ownership stacks up against petrol driving.

Calculators

Compare EV running costs

Use practical calculators to estimate charging cost, cost per kilometre, yearly savings, road trip cost and EV versus petrol differences.

Guides

Understand EV charging better

Read clear guides covering home charging, public charging, charging apps, charging networks and common EV cost questions.

Tools

Use practical EV tools

Access simple tools such as the EV Charging App Launcher to make everyday EV planning and charging access easier.

What makes EV Running Cost different

The goal is not to overwhelm you with jargon or unnecessary features. The site is intentionally lightweight, quick to load and focused on practical answers.

Fast

Lightweight by design

Pages are built to load quickly and work well across desktop and mobile, with a focus on clarity rather than clutter.

Practical

Focused on useful questions

Every calculator, guide and tool is intended to answer a real EV ownership question that people actually care about.

Everyday use

Built for real drivers

The site is made for people comparing EV and petrol costs, checking charging prices or trying to understand day to day ownership.

Personalise your results

Set your vehicle and electricity rates once, and every calculator and reference table on the site updates automatically to match your setup.

Vehicle selector

Select your EV

Choose from over 60 vehicles sold in New Zealand. Your battery size, efficiency and maximum DC charging speed are filled in across all calculators automatically.

Select your vehicle →

Custom rates

Set your electricity rates

Override the default electricity prices with your own rates. Every calculator and reference table will use your custom prices instead of the locked defaults.

Set your rates →

Works everywhere

Saved in your browser

Your vehicle and rate selections are stored locally in your browser. They persist between visits and sync across tabs — no account needed.

Open My EV settings →

Who runs this site

EV Running Cost is an independent New Zealand site. It is not owned by, funded by, or affiliated with any vehicle manufacturer, electricity retailer or charging network.

It is independently run and self-funded, not produced by a content agency or a commercial partner, and it carries no sponsored content.

The case for trusting what is here rests on the working being shown rather than on who wrote it. Every default figure the calculators use is listed on the methodology page with its basis and the date it was last checked, and figures that are assumptions are labelled as assumptions rather than presented as sourced fact. Where a number is an estimate, the site says so, and where a range is more honest than a single figure, it gives a range. If something here is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed.

How this site makes money

Advertising, served by Google AdSense. There are no affiliate relationships and no sponsored content. The full position is on the disclosure page.

Nothing about how the site is funded affects the numbers in the calculators. Every default value is listed, with its basis, on the methodology page.

How the figures are produced and kept current

Almost every number you see on this site is calculated at the moment the page loads, not typed into the prose. Electricity price tiers, charger power levels, vehicle specifications, typical efficiency and the petrol price all live in a small set of central data files, and the calculators, the guides and the reference tables all read from those same files.

That has a practical consequence worth knowing about as a reader: the site cannot quietly contradict itself. A cost per 100 km quoted in a guide is produced by the same code and the same defaults as the equivalent figure in the calculator beside it. When a default changes, every page that depends on it changes at the same time. There is no separate set of hand-written numbers drifting out of date in the background.

Each page carries a last-reviewed date, and that date is updated when the figures underneath it are checked or changed. Where a default is an assumption rather than something sourced from a published figure, the methodology page says so explicitly instead of presenting all the inputs as equally solid.

What these numbers are, and what they are not

They are estimates good enough to plan and compare with. They are not a quote, and they are not advice. Electricity pricing in New Zealand varies by retailer, state, tariff and time of day; public charging varies between networks and between individual sites; and real-world efficiency varies with terrain, climate, load and driving style. Any tool that gave you a single confident figure for all of that would be easier to read and less honest.

This is why the calculators show every price tier at once rather than one answer, and why you are encouraged to replace the defaults with your own figures. The site is at its most accurate when it is using your car, your tariff and your measured consumption — which is the entire reason the My EV settings exist.

This site does not give financial, tax or purchasing advice, and it cannot tell you whether a particular car or electricity plan is right for you. For that, your retailer holds your actual tariff and your dealer holds the actual price.

Privacy, in one paragraph

Setting your vehicle and your electricity rates does not create an account and does not send anything to a server. Those settings are written to your own browser's local storage, which is why they survive between visits on the same device, why they sync between tabs, and why they disappear if you clear your browsing data. Nobody running this site can see what car you drive or what you pay for power. You can clear the settings yourself at any time from the My EV panel. The full detail, including what the advertising provider does independently of this, is on the privacy policy.

Corrections

If a figure here is wrong, or a calculator gives a result that does not match your own bill, please say so. Corrections are made promptly and the review date on each page is updated when the underlying figures change.