Auto Cost Compared

Head to head

Petrol or diesel: which costs less to own?

Line by line, ICE and Diesel differ on 2 of six cost lines. Those 2 are the decision.

Updated 2 min read 12 citations

Dashboard, steering wheel and centre console of a compact estate car
TTTNIS · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Line by line

Petrol against Diesel, line by line A grouped bar chart comparing the relative weight of each cost line — depreciation, energy, insurance, maintenance, tax, financing — for petrol and diesel cars, on an ordinal 1–5 scale. 0123433Depreciation43Energy / fuel22Insurance33Maintenance34Tax & fees22Financing costundefinedundefined
Where the two differ is the whole answer. ICE and Diesel rarely differ on every line; the decision lives in the two or three bars where they do. Ordinal comparison consistent with the total-cost-of-ownership literature cited on this page.

Powertrain comparisons in the total-cost literature reach different winners in different markets and at different mileages, and that is the finding rather than a failure of the studies: the answer genuinely depends on the inputs [1]. The lines below are where these two part company.

Where ICE and Diesel differ
LinePetrolDiesel
Energy / fuelOne line, one price, rising in step with distance. No cheap-tariff option exists.Efficient at sustained speed; the classic long-distance economy case still holds on fuel alone.
Tax & feesThe structural loser under CO₂-weighted registration and company-car regimes — which in several markets is now the largest single cost difference against an EV.Penalised in a growing number of registration and circulation regimes, and excluded outright from some city centres — a cost that does not appear on any invoice until you cannot drive somewhere.

On depreciation, insurance, maintenance, financing cost the two behave much alike, and those lines will not decide it.

Large executive saloon with a two-litre diesel engine parked at the kerb
Charles from Port Chester, New York · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

What decides it

For ICE: Still competitive at low mileage, where energy barely matters and the lower purchase price dominates. Loses ground steadily as distance rises and as tax regimes tighten.

For Diesel: Defensible only for a genuinely high-mileage motorway driver outside restricted cities, and increasingly hard to justify even there once the residual and access risks are priced.

The comparison shifts with annual distance — see Petrol at each mileage and Diesel at each mileage — and with the tax architecture of your market, described on the country pages.

Is ICE or Diesel cheaper to own?
It depends on annual distance and access restrictions. Still competitive at low mileage, where energy barely matters and the lower purchase price dominates. Loses ground steadily as distance rises and as tax regimes tighten. Defensible only for a genuinely high-mileage motorway driver outside restricted cities, and increasingly hard to justify even there once the residual and access risks are priced.
Which holds value better, ICE or Diesel?
ICE: Well understood and stable — but watch the policy direction: as low-emission zones and CO₂-based taxes spread, higher-emission used cars face a slowly narrowing market in several European cities. Diesel: Weakened by the policy direction; used diesel values in markets with expanding low-emission zones carry a discount that has nothing to do with the car’s condition.

References

Every citation below links to the original peer-reviewed record on PubMed or via DOI. Nothing here is a substitute for medical advice.

  1. How to Improve the Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Vehicles: An Analysis of the Light Commercial Vehicle Segment Lebeau P, Macharis C, Van Mierlo J · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2019 · Journal article DOI
  2. Total cost of ownership of electric and gasoline used vehicles Woody M, Yin S, Green A, et al. · Environmental Research Letters · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  3. Ownership Levies and Electric Vehicle Adoption: A Total Cost of Ownership and Legal Analysis of Ukraine’s Fiscal Reversal Vovk Y, Vovk I, Martsenko N, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  4. Route-Specific Total Cost of Ownership for Electric Trucks: A Danish Distribution Case Study Iversen L, Rehmeier C · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  5. Dynamic User Equilibrium for Electric Vehicle Departure Time and Path–Charging Choices with Wireless and Fast Charging Services Zhang X, Ren H · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  6. Machine Learning for Plug-in-Time Classification of Charging Faults and Abnormal Termination Events in Public Electric-Vehicle Charging Sessions Thango B, Duan C · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  7. Total Cot of Ownership of Electric Car and Internal Combustion Engine Car With Performance Normalization Santoso A, Priyono B · International Journal of Environmental, Sustainability and Social Science · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  8. Optimizing Charging Control for Fast and Efficient Electric Vehicle Charging Han L, Liu H, Zhang Y, et al. · Journal of Autonomous Vehicles and Systems · 2025 · Journal article DOI
  9. Research on Battery Electric Vehicles’ DC Fast Charging Noise Emissions: Proposals to Reduce Environmental Noise Caused by Fast Charging Stations Clar-Garcia D, Campello-Vicente H, Fabra-Rodriguez M, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2025 · Journal article DOI
  10. An Optimal Multi-Zone Fast-Charging System Architecture for MW-Scale EV Charging Sites Althurthi S, Rajashekara K · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2025 · Journal article DOI
  11. Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Buses in Europe Ghotge R, van Rooij D, van Breukelen S · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2025 · Journal article DOI
  12. Techno-Economic Comparison of Total Cost Ownership of Electric and Combustion Light Commercial Vehicles Taborda-Ospina L, Ortiz-Castrillón R, Jaramillo-Duque Á, et al. · Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental · 2024 · Journal article DOI