I’m a high-mileage driver – should I go for a petrol, diesel or electric car? 

While working from home is becoming more common, there are still many jobs which require you to be out on the road piling miles on your car. If you’re covering huge distances each week, you’ll not only want something comfy but also cheap to run.

Even an extra 3mpg makes a huge difference when you’re covering 30,000 miles a year, but with diesel becoming less popular and electric cars getting better by the day, which fuel type actually makes the most sense for high-mileage drivers?

Well I’ve crunched the numbers to work out exactly how much you’ll spend in fuel and charging on three long-distance cruisers: the petrol hybrid Toyota Corolla Touring Sports, the diesel Skoda Octavia and the electric Tesla Model 3.

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Getting the cars on the road

Let’s start with the cost of buying these cars in the first place. The Toyota Corolla Touring Sports starts from £32,195, but if you’re spending a lot of time in the car then you’ll want the Excel model. This costs £36,345, and gets a nicer sound system as well as upgraded heated seats .

I’ve gone for the Skoda Octavia because it’s one of few mid-sized family cars which is still available with a diesel engine. The SE L comes with all the kit you’ll need, including adaptive cruise control, heated seats and a power tailgate. It costs £36,555.

If you’re considering an electric car to cover a lot of miles, you’ll want something with long range but which is also reasonably priced. This is why I’ve gone for the Tesla Model 3. It’ll do up to 332 miles on a charge according to official tests, and it costs £37,990. That’s a bit more than the other two, but I reckon the potential fuel savings could offset this.

Petrol and diesel fuel costs

Working out the fuel costs for petrol and diesel cars is fairly straightforward – once you’ve got past the fact we in the UK use a weird mixture of metric and imperial measurements. I’m still not sure why we sell petrol by the litre and measure it in miles per gallon, but some simple maths is all that’s needed.

Let’s start with the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports. It’ll do 60mpg according to official tests, but in my experience you can expect to average about 80% of the claimed figure in the long run. This means the number we’re working with is 49mpg.

Covering 30,000 miles at 49mpg works out to 2,783 litres of fuel, and petrol costs an average of 151 pence per litre at the time of writing. Each year, this car will cost you £4,202 in fuel.

The diesel Octavia has an official economy figure of 62mpg, but in reality you’ll see an average of around 50mpg. Over 30,000 miles, that’s 2,728 litres of fuel – 55 litres less than the petrol car.

However, diesel costs an average of 166 pence per litre at the time of writing, meaning it’ll cost you £4,528 for the year in fuel. So far then, petrol is the cheapest.

Electric car charging costs

Working out the cost of charging an electric car is a bit more tricky, because prices vary massively depending on where and when you plug in.

If you have a charger at home with an EV energy tariff, the average price is around seven pence per kWh at off-peak times. This rises to an average of 54 pence at public AC chargers – the slower sort you’ll find at destinations such as hotels – and rapid DC chargers come in at a whopping 79 pence per kWh.

When I tested a Tesla Model 3, I managed to average 4.0 miles per kWh, and at that rate it’ll use 7,500kWh over 30,000 miles. If you charge exclusively at home on the off-peak rate, that comes to £525 per year, rising to £4,050 using AC chargers. Relying solely on fast DC charging points will cost you a whopping £5,925, but if you’re covering a lot of miles the chances are you’ll use a combination of all three.

You may stop at a hotel overnight and use an on-site charger, or pop into the services on the way to a meeting for a quick top-up. You’ll also struggle to charge exclusively at home at seven pence per kWh, because that rate only applies for a small window in the middle of the night.

So for a more accurate representation, I’ve worked out the cost if you do 70% of your charging at home, 20% at slow chargers and 10% at rapid chargers.

It works out to £368 in home charging, £810 at AC chargers and £593 at rapid stations, bringing the total to £1,171.

Total running costs

So where does that leave us? Well running an electric car works out the cheapest, providing you have access to a home charger or at least a public slow charger. Without anywhere to charge at home, running an EV is not only much more expensive, but it’ll also be a huge pain if you’re covering a lot of miles every week.

Diesel is actually the most expensive option here, thanks to the rising cost of the fuel itself. If you have no access to home charging, I’d recommend getting a petrol hybrid like the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports.

Here’s a table summarising all the figures.

	Toyota Corolla TS Excel 1.8	Skoda Octavia SE L 2.0 TDI	Tesla Model 3 RWD
Car price	£36,345	£36,555	£37,990
Fuel/charging cost	£4,202.33	£4,528.48	£1,711

What if you’re a company car driver?

Things lean even more in favour of EVs if you drive a company car. You may not have to pay for the car itself, but company car drivers have to pay Benefit in Kind (BIK) based on the car’s value and its emissions.

We have a full guide explaining company car tax, but in short you’ll be taxed on a percentage of the car’s value, which gets higher as the emissions go up. The Tesla Model 3 emits nothing at all, meaning 20% tax payers will fork out around £320 a year and 40% tax payers will be charged £639 per year.

The Toyota is significantly more expensive, costing those in the 20% tax band £1,938 per year and rising to £3,875 for 40% tax payers. It’s the Skoda which is the most costly though, coming in at £2,091 or £4,181 per year depending on your tax bracket.

Once you factor in fuel costs, the electric car works out the cheapest, regardless of where you charge it. Here’s a table to compare the stats.

	Toyota Corolla TS Excel 1.8	Skoda Octavia SE L 2.0 TDI	Tesla Model 3 RWD
Fuel/charging cost	£4,202.33	£4,528.48	£1,711
BIK (20%)	£1,937.79	£2,090.61	£319.40
BIK (40%)	£3,875.58	£4,181.22	£638.80
Total yearly cost (20%)	£6,140.12	£6,619.09	£2,030
Total yearly cost (40%)	£8,077.91	£8,709.70	£2,350

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