How much does it cost to charge an electric vehicle in Europe?

The electric car is gradually gaining popularity in Europe, and more and more drivers are also using their electric vehicles on holiday. A study by the Dutch automobile association ANWB using data from 230,000 of its members analyses the cost of charging an electric car in various European countries. Between June and September 2024, ANWB Laadpas card users charged more than 63,000 cars in various European countries, from Norway to Spain. Below we look at which European countries are the cheapest to charge an electric vehicle with data from those countries in which at least 500 charges were registered.

The cheapest European country to charge an electric car is Norway. At the other end of the list is Switzerland, with a price that is almost double that of Norway. The table below differentiates between slow and fast charging points, which are generally more expensive. The price shown includes all costs associated with charging. In Spain and France, interestingly, it is cheaper to charge the electric car at fast charging points than at slow charging points.

The conclusion is that there are no major differences in price when charging your electric car in different European countries. The exceptions are perhaps Norway and Switzerland, each at one end of the list. But we can cross Europe from Berlin to Malaga with fairly similar charging prices.

Electric or petrol: which is cheaper

The data collected also allows us to compare the cost of charging an electric car with the consumption of a petrol car. For the following table we have estimated an average consumption per 100 kilometres of 16.5 kWh for the electric car and 6.5 litres for the petrol car. As can be seen, the price is not very different in most of the countries analysed, with the exception of Switzerland, where charging an electric car is significantly more expensive than refuelling a petrol car.