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EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying

By
Sanjay Kumar
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EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying
EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying

By 2025 the strategy of electric vehicle (EV) in India is no longer about whether or not but about how much. The EVs are cleaner and less expensive to operate per kilometre – yet it comes at a premium price to the buyers. The following is a realistic, numerical, 5-year comparison of an average Indian buyer of a car at the entry level so that people can know what people are actually paying.

EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying
EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying

The examples we compare

  • Petrol hatchback (example): Maruti Alto / small petrol hatch on-road price 50 -60 ₹4.0 lakh; real world mileage 24.4 km/l.
  • Electric hatchback (example): Tata Tiago EV: on road ₹8.4 lakh (base models cost 7.99 lakh ex-showroom on road).

These are high volume, realistic models which are the cost-effective portion of the market in 2025.

Fuel / energy price: large disparity per km.

The difference in running costs runs off fuel and electricity prices.

  • In large Indian cities in November 2025, petrol is priced around 95 to the litre (depending on the city).
  • Residential power rates are all over, depending on the state and slab (13500), with an 1880/kgWh range being reasonable, it makes sense to calculate with an average.

Using real numbers:

  • Alto mileage on petrol 24.39 km/l= petrol price 3.89/km = 94.77/L.
  • Tiago EV power consumption 0.15 kWh/km (average with small EVs) 0.90/km at 6/kWh electricity price.

Over 60,000 km (12,000 km/year × 5 years):

  • Petrol fuel spend ≈ ₹2,33,137.
  • EV electricity spend ≈ ₹54,000.
    That saves on fuel/energy of about 1.79 lakh in five years in favour of the EV (big win on running cost).

    EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying
    EV vs Petrol 2025: Real Cost Comparison After 5 Years — What Indians Are Actually Paying

Purchase price difference and net cash image.

On-road price Tiago EV: ₹8.4 lakh vs a small petrol hatch: ₹4.0 lakh – approximately 4.4 lakh higher than the EV.

By deducting the 5-year savings in fuel (~3000 INR) and factoring in less prudent savings in maintenance/service (conservative estimate is a 25000 INR over 5 years of ownership in this case, EVs have fewer moving parts), the buyer in this example will have an approximately 236000 INR net outlay in 5 years to own the EV.

Anyone looking at those headline figures can tell that EVs are already superior on running cost to petrol, but initial cost remains the biggest barrier facing buyers of personal cars.

Additional monetary and practical considerations to make.

  • Incentives and state policy: Benefits such as registration or subsidy can help reduce the gap (and additional new state policy in 2025 continues to change).
  • Battery prices and declining prices: Prices of global battery packs have fallen drastically (BNEF has written of prices around the US$115/kWh in late 2024), which is causing the prices of EVs to drop in the long term and the parity to increase.
  • Resale/depreciation: EV resale is changing some resale is worth a lot, some resale is worth less – this impacts real 5 year TCO.
  • Use case issues: Delivery drivers (delivery/cab/commuters), with high miles, break even in well under five years. In most of the Indian states, two-wheelers and commercial EVs already demonstrate the evident cost advantage.

Final conclusion — is it time to purchase an EV in 2025?

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