Cost Per Mile Calculator: Total Car Cost, Not Just Fuel

Why fuel cost per mile is not total cost per mile

Fuel is only one line. In imperial mode, fuel cost per mile equals price per gallon divided by MPG. For example, if the editable inputs were 3.50 per gallon and 30 MPG, the energy line would be 3.50 ÷ 30 = about 0.117 per mile. That arithmetic says nothing about depreciation, insurance, registration, finance interest, maintenance, or tires. This calculator therefore shows the fuel or electricity rate separately and builds the headline rate from every annual cost you enter.

The full formula is: annual fixed cost + annual running cost, divided by annual distance. Fixed cost contains depreciation, insurance, registration or road tax and inspection, and finance interest. Running cost contains fuel or electricity, maintenance and repairs, and tires. Keep each input on the same annual basis. Do not add a loan principal payment as a cost when purchase-price depreciation already represents the vehicle value consumed; only enter the annual interest you want counted.

How depreciation per mile is derived

Depreciation is the purchase price minus the resale value you expect to recover, divided by years kept. Depreciation per mile then divides that annual loss by annual miles. It is often the largest single line because buying a vehicle turns cash into an asset that usually loses value, and ignoring that loss makes driving look artificially cheap. The estimate is sensitive to resale value and holding period, so test a conservative resale value and more than one ownership length instead of treating one forecast as certain.

Why annual distance changes the answer

A vehicle driven 5,000 miles a year and the same vehicle driven 20,000 miles a year can have very different total costs per mile even when insurance, registration, and annual depreciation are unchanged. At 20,000 miles, those fixed dollars are spread over four times as many miles. Fuel or electricity still grows with distance, and real maintenance or resale may also change with use, but the fixed-cost contribution to each mile falls. The generated sentence above reports your current fixed-cost share so this effect is visible rather than buried in the total.

What changes for an electric vehicle

Electric mode replaces gallons and MPG with kWh per 100 miles or kilometers and price per kWh. Energy cost per distance is kWh per 100 distance multiplied by the electricity price, divided by 100. Purchase price, resale value, insurance, registration, finance, maintenance, and tires remain editable because an EV still has ownership costs. This page deliberately excludes parking, tolls, commute time, tax incentives, emissions, inflation, the opportunity cost of cash, charger installation, and battery replacement unless you deliberately include an expected amount in one of your own cost inputs.

Choose the calculator that matches the question

Use this page when the question is “what does this vehicle cost per mile?” It models one vehicle over a year and does not assume workdays or a particular trip. For the cost of getting to work—including workdays, parking, tolls, transit, rideshare, cycling, and optional time value—use the commute cost calculator. To compare two different vehicles across purchase price, incentives, resale, and a multi-year ownership period, use the EV vs gas total-cost calculator. Keeping those questions separate avoids counting a general ownership cost as if it were only a commuting expense.