German petrol is at 2.28 euros a litre and diesel at 2.40. Against that, the comparison portal Verivox published an analysis on 17 September 2026 with a blunt headline: electric cars have never been so much cheaper to run than combustion ones.
The arithmetic is straightforward and it is worth seeing in full, because the headline number depends entirely on one assumption.
The numbers
| Energy source | Price | Cost per 100 km |
|---|---|---|
| Household electricity (wallbox) | 32.29 ct/kWh | 5.44 EUR |
| Petrol E10 | 2.28 EUR/l | 18.02 EUR |
| Diesel | 2.40 EUR/l | 12.47 EUR |
| Public AC charging | 52 ct/kWh | 8.77 EUR |
| Public DC fast charging | 60 ct/kWh | 10.12 EUR |
The comparison assumes a mid- or upper-class car consuming 16.9 kWh per 100 km. On those figures home charging is about 70% cheaper than petrol and 56% cheaper than diesel — the record Verivox is reporting.
Two caveats that change the answer
The 70% requires a wallbox. Charge exclusively in public and the gap against petrol falls to roughly 51% on AC and 44% on DC. Still a large advantage, but not the headline one, and it is the figure that applies to anyone without a driveway.
The public-charging prices are from March 2025. Verifiably so: the 52 and 60 cent figures carry that date in the analysis itself. They are eighteen months old, and the German market has not stood still. Ad-hoc DC charging in Germany was running at about 62 cents/kWh in August 2026, above the 60 cents assumed here.
So the study's public-charging leg understates today's walk-up DC prices, while the fuel side uses last week's prices. The two halves are not measured on the same clock.
What a Tesla owner in Germany actually pays
This is where the study's public-charging assumption diverges most from reality, and in the opposite direction.
Tesla cut German Supercharger prices overnight on 11 September, by up to 10 cents per kWh at many sites. Peak rates at many German Superchargers now sit between 36 and 39 cents, and the cheapest site, Magdeburg-Rothensee, starts at 20 cents off-peak — below the 32.29 cents Verivox assumes for charging at home.
At 36 cents and 16.9 kWh/100 km that is 6.08 euros per 100 km on a public network with no contract, against Verivox's 10.12 for generic DC. The gap between a Supercharger and a wallbox is far smaller than the gap the study implies between public and private charging generally.
Prices are set per site and per time of day, so no national Tesla figure exists, and stations in Saxony and parts of Berlin still show up to 60 cents.
How this squares with the EU-wide number
It does not contradict it; it measures something narrower. The ICCT's EV Transition Check put EU electric running costs 33% below petrol, and 28% below for drivers who only ever use public chargers.
That is 33%, not 70%, because the ICCT counts total running costs — maintenance, tyres, insurance, taxes — while Verivox counts energy alone. Both are correct. A German driver with a wallbox saves about 70% on fuel and about a third overall.