The war in Iran has changed the math around electric cars.
Even though gas prices are falling, it still costs almost three times as much to fuel a typical gas car as an E.V., at average gas and electricity prices. That’s a much wider gap than there was at the start of the year — a gap that isn’t likely to disappear anytime soon.
Driving 100 miles in a typical gas car that gets 25 miles per gallon now costs more than $16 on average.
The war pushed up average U.S. gas prices to a high of $4.50 in May, from below $3 in January. Gas has since fallen back closer to $4 per gallon, but it’s still so expensive that even recharging an E.V. at a pricey fast charger is roughly on par with refueling a 25-m.p.g. gas car.
And an E.V. charged at home, on average, significantly beats refueling a 52-m.p.g. Toyota Prius hybrid. Before the war, efficient hybrids were much more competitive with E.V.s per mile.
(These are just the costs of electricity or fuel; this analysis doesn’t include discounted electric rates, lower maintenance or higher insurance costs of E.V. ownership. And, crucially, it doesn’t account for the sticker price of the car, often the biggest hurdle for buyers considering going electric. You can compare the overall costs of ownership with this calculator.)
Global gas prices will drop as the cost of crude oil falls, but that will almost certainly happen slowly. And there’s uncertainty whether the cease-fire will hold, which underscores a long-term trend about the economics of gas and electricity in the United States: Not only does it cost more to fuel a gas car than to charge an electric one, but gas prices are also more volatile.
Look at the last year: Driving an average gas car costs $3.67 more for every 100 miles than it did in the late spring of 2025. Slow and steady rises in the price of electricity mean an E.V. takes just 42 cents more to charge, on average.
Electricity prices have been largely untouched by the war because the U.S. uses almost no oil to generate its electricity and instead relies on a mix of sources, including natural gas and renewables. Natural gas prices in the U.S. have stayed flat despite spiking across the world because limits on U.S. export capacity keep the domestic market more insulated from global price changes.
Electricity prices have been rising year over year because of other factors, including inflation, grid updates and growing demand from data centers. Those increases can be sudden and large for some people — like a 17 percent jump in New Jersey last year — but they’re subject to state regulator approval and often locked in for at least a year, which means they tend to rise more steadily than gas prices. Electricity is also less subject to swings in fuel prices because roughly half of the cost of residential electricity isn’t generating power at all — it’s delivering it to your house.
That’s why with a gas car, at average U.S. prices, you could have spent anywhere from $7 to $20 to drive 100 miles over the last decade, while the cost of driving an electric car fluctuated only a couple of dollars. (And adjusting for inflation, the average price of electricity has been remarkably flat over the last decade, but it can vary a lot by where you live in the U.S.)
There is a similar pattern across states. Whether there’s a big gap between electricity and gas prices, like in Washington State, or a much smaller one, like in New York, electricity prices tend to have less volatility.
Find your state
Here, you can see what today’s gas and electric prices mean for refueling or charging in your state, on average. (And don’t forget: A lot of utilities give better deals on charging an E.V. than the typical electric rate.)
About the data
All data are shown as monthly averages, except in the chart for change over the last year, where weekly gas prices are shown.
For U.S. averages: Electricity prices are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (through the May average), and gas prices are from the Energy Information Administration (through June 8) and AAA (for June 15).
State-level electricity prices are from the Energy Information Administration, with the latest data as of March.
State-level gas prices in the line charts are from the Energy Information Administration (through June 8).
State-level gas prices in the bar chart are from AAA, as of June 15.
State and national prices for fast charging are from Paren, an E.V.-charging data firm, for the first quarter of the year.
E.V. calculations assume an efficiency of 3.33 miles per kWh.
