which is cheaper to service in the UK in 2025?

Switching from a petrol, diesel or hybrid car to an electric vehicle requires a shift in mindset (despite what car dealers might tell you). Among other things, the various costs of running your car are different on an EV – mostly in a good way. One of those lower costs tends to be servicing.

We’ve analysed almost every new and near-new car on sale in the UK – excluding a few posh brands that don’t publish their servicing cost data – to give you the most comprehensive look at the average cost of servicing your car each year.

Thanks to servicing cost data exclusively supplied to The Car Expert by our technical partner Clear Vehicle Data, based on official manufacturer servicing charges, we’ve pulled together the most comprehensive analysis of scheduled servicing costs you’ll find anywhere.

Our latest report updates the information we posted last year, showing exactly what has changed over the last 12 months. Overall, what hasn’t changed is that electric cars are significantly cheaper on average to service than traditional fossil fuel cars. EVs have fewer moving parts that are likely to need repairs or wear out over time, which reduces their maintenance costs compared to a fossil-fuelled car.

Clear Vehicle Data provides us with servicing costs for every version of every new car (apart from a few brands that don’t share this information, as mentioned) over five years, and covers annual mileages from 5,000 miles/year up to 60,000 miles/year. Once you factor in every body style, engine, gearbox, trim level, options package and other critical data, plus model year changes and other updates that happen several times a year, it runs up to millions of data points that we sort through and aggregate. It’s far and away the most comprehensive look at average servicing costs you’ll find anywhere in the UK (and possibly the world).

As well as annual servicing costs, we group the data into costs over 1-3 years (more relevant for new car buyers) and 3-5 years (more relevant for used car buyers). We use this information to help inform our scores for running costs in our award-winning Expert Rating Index, along with data for insurance, emissions, fuel economy and/or electrical efficiency.

Our analysis last year concluded that electric cars were 30% cheaper to service over the first five years of ownership. Estimated servicing costs have changed since then, however. Despite servicing cost averages rising across the board, our data suggests that servicing prices for EVs have been increasing fractionally faster than their fossil-fuel counterparts, marginally reducing the cost gap between them. However, electric cars are still significantly cheaper to maintain the petrol, diesel or hybrid cars.

The data only covers scheduled servicing and maintenance, which means every job that the manufacturer requires to be done at each service. It includes any parts required (filters, oils, lubricants, etc.) as well as labour. It doesn’t include wear-and-tear items, like brake pads or tyres, because these will wear faster or slower depending on how you drive.

Clear Vehicle Data provides a thorough overview of running costs on every new car, as well as many near-new used cars, for a number of UK fleet companies to help them make purchasing decisions. We use their data here at The Car Expert for fuel consumption, CO₂ emissions, insurance groups and servicing costs – using our own custom algorithms to generate specific running cost scores for new and used cars. These scores then feed into our overall new and used car ratings for our award-winning Expert Rating Index to help you choose the best car for your needs.

Petrol vs. electric servicing – overall market

After analysing the manufacturer servicing costs for the entire new and nearly-new car market in the UK – totalling more than 600 different cars, as featured in our Expert Rating Index – we can reveal that electric cars are now around 29% cheaper to service over the first five years of ownership.

Estimated servicing prices have increased for both fossil fuel cars and electric cars in the last 12 months, and the percentages below denote how prices have changed in that time.

Average servicing costs	Petrol/diesel/hybrid cars	Electric cars
Year 1	£308 (+4%)	£256 (+10%)
Year 2	£753 (+3%)	£540 (+6%)
Year 3	£1,209 (+3%)	£839 (+3%)
Year 4	£1,477 (+26%)	£1,029 (+5%)
Year 5	£1,962 (+3%)	£1,318 (+3%)
Total after 5 years	£5,709 (+4%)	£4,022 (+4%)
Year 1 to 3 average	£757 (+3%)	£545 (+5%)
Year 3 to 5 average	£1,549 (+4%)	£1,076 (+4%)

The average annual servicing costs from year 1 to year 3 of ownership – a useful number for those buying a new car – are 28% cheaper if you opt for an electric car. EVs are also 31% cheaper on average to service from year 3 to year 5, which bodes well for anyone interested in a used electric car.

Electric cars generally have fewer moving parts that are likely to need repairs or wear down over time, which reduces their upkeep costs compared to a conventional car with an engine. Most of the servicing costs are taken up by jobs that are not specific to the electric powertrain – things like tyres and brakes, windscreen wipers, lights and so on.

So, any electric car is very likely to be cheaper to service than its combustion-powered counterpart, but there are exceptions to this general rule, as we display below.

Petrol vs. Electric servicing – like-for-like model comparisons

While the overall market picture is broadly useful, it’s even better to have data that directly compares like-for-like models to give a more detailed picture.

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of electric car choices in the last five years, and most manufacturers now offer electric equivalents of their most popular petrol-powered models – either as electric versions of the same cars, or dedicated EVs in the same market segments. However, in some areas like sports cars and high-end luxury models, which tend to have very high servicing costs, electric options are still very limited.

Like last year, we went through the data pulling out every model that has a choice between fossil-fuel and electric options (like the Mini Cooper and Mini Cooper Electric) as well as examples where car manufacturers offered two different cars in the same model category (like the Volkswagen Golf and Volkswagen ID.3). This allows us to exclude cost variations across brands that can influence the overall data.

For 2025, we have 56 like-for-like comparisons where we could compare similar cars from the same brand (up from 48 comparisons last year), allowing an even more accurate analysis of the cost differences. In 53 of those 56 cases, the electric model was cheaper to service – often by a substantial amount.

Direct comparisons between the same model families

Firstly, we have some examples where the same basic car is offered in both fossil-fuel and electric versions. Manufacturers like BMW and Stellantis (Peugeot, Vauxhall, Citroën, etc.) are generally in favour of this approach.

There were 33 cases where we had a full set of five-year servicing cost data and, in 32 cases, the electric car was cheaper – the only outlier was the Vauxhall Vivaro Life Electric people carrier, which was about £3/year more expensive to service over the first five years of ownership than its fossil-fuel sibling.

We haven’t displayed every single model below, but tried to cover a range of different vehicle types. The percentages below denote how service pricing has changed per model in the last year, where applicable.

The sixth-generation Vauxhall Corsa has been on sale with petrol and electric powertrain options since 2020, and is a perfect servicing comparison case study. Over the first three years of ownership, the Corsa Electric is 31% cheaper to maintain on average. For years three to five, the Corsa Electric is 32% cheaper.

Sitting somewhere between a conventional car and an SUV, the family-friendly Citroën C4 X range arrived in the UK in 2023 with both petrol-electric hybrid ‘C4 X’ and electric ‘ë-C4 X’ powertrain options. Surprisingly one of the cheapest cars to service on this list when you consider its size, a new Citroën ë-C4 X is 25% cheaper to maintain for the first three years than the petrol model. If you’re looking at a used model, the ë-C4 X is 28% cheaper from years 3 to 5.

Volvo’s estimated servicing costs have increased by more than the market average in the last year, with costs rising faster for the all-electric Volvo EX40 (formerly the XC40 Recharge) when compared to its petrol and plug-in hybrid XC40 counterpart. That said, the EX40 is 17% cheaper than the XC40 to service annually from years 1 to 3. From years 3 to 5, the electric model is 28% cheaper.

A year ago, our analysis showed that the hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions of the Kia Niro were actually 2% cheaper to service than the electric Niro EV from years 1 to 3. Since then, Kia has reduced the electric model’s servicing fees by a significant margin, and the Niro EV is now 20% cheaper over the first three years of ownership. From years 3 to 5, the electric model is 34% cheaper.

The latest iteration of the Mini Countryman arrived in early 2024 – a mid-size SUV range that also included an all-electric model for the first time. The new model doesn’t throw out any surprises, with the Countryman Electric estimated to be 18% cheaper to service than its petrol-powered counterpart from year 1 to year 3, and also 22% cheaper from year 3 to year 5.

Similar-size models from the same manufacturer

In many cases, car manufacturers will offer specific EV models in a certain segment alongside their existing fossil-fuel cars, rather than developing one car that can be configured to run on petrol/diesel or electricity. Manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen tend to favour this approach.

Arguably, this creates a better result for both the electric car and the fossil-fuel version, as there are fewer compromises on either side to get the best result for each. But in practice, it’s less important than other factors in determining a vehicle’s overall quality and suitability.

Out of 23 examples where we have full five-year servicing costs, 22 showed a significant cost advantage for the electric model. The only exception was the Volkswagen ID.3, which has had substantial servicing price increases that make it more expensive than the Volkswagen Golf.

Last year, we highlighted the electric Mercedes EQE SUV, which had dearer servicing costs than the fossil-fuel equivalent Mercedes GLE. Since then, however, latest pricing data from Mercedes-Benz has shown notable reductions in servicing costs for several of its electric models, while its flagship fossil-fuel cars have become more expensive to maintain.

Again we’ve only shown a few examples below to cover a range of popular vehicles rather than every pair of cars we compared, and the percentages below denote how service pricing has changed per model in the last year, where applicable.

The pint-sized Fiat 500 and its 500 Electric sibling might look very similar, but the EV model was a brand-new car in 2021, while the petrol 500 dates back to 2007 (with several updates over the last 18 years) and is very different underneath its retro skin.

Despite being a newer, larger and more expensive car, the 500 Electric is notably cheaper to service than the petrol 500. Those costs have also slightly decreased in the last year, with the 500e now being 34% cheaper on average in the first three years. The 500 Electric is also 31% cheaper from years 3 to year 5.

The new Mini Cooper hatchback range arrived on UK roads in Spring last year, including the Mini Cooper Electric. Although these cars look identical, they’re actually completely different models underneath – the petrol Cooper is a substantially updated version of the 2014-24 model, while the Cooper Electric is built on a new platform shared with Chinese company GWM. Our analysis shows that the electric model should be 9% cheaper than the petrol version of the Mini Cooper to service annually from year 1 to year 3, and is 18% cheaper from year 3 to year 5.

While they don’t belong to the same model range, the petrol/diesel/hybrid Audi Q5 and electric Q6 e-tron are a similar size. The electric Q6 e-tron is 17% cheaper to maintain annually than the petrol or diesel Q5 from year 1 to year 3, and is 19% cheaper from year 3 to year 5.

The Nissan Qashqai is one of the UK’s best-selling vehicles, while the all-electric Nissan Ariya is one of our favourite EV family cars. They’ll take up a similar size on your driveway, although the Ariya is more expensive to buy or lease.

In terms of servicing costs, the Ariya is 17% cheaper to service over the first three years, and 18% cheaper in years 3 to 5.

While the large majority of electric cars are cheaper to service than their petrol counterpart, the Volkswagen ID.3 is a notable outlier. Launched in 2020, the electric ID.3 was cheaper to service than the petrol-powered Golf 12 months ago, but Volkswagen appears to have dramatically hiked the ID.3’s servicing fees since then.

At time of writing, the ID.3 is 45% more expensive to service over the first three years of ownership than the Mk8 Golf. The ID.3 is also 22% more expensive than the petrol and plug-in hybrid Golf range from year 3 to year 5. This is an interesting result as it lies well outside data for other brands, as well as Volkswagen’s other EV models.

The luxurious Mercedes-Benz EQS is another outlier in the ‘similar size models’ category, but for a different reason. Mercedes-Benz appears to have reduces the servicing fees for its electric flagship over the last year, while increasing servicing costs for its similarly-sized S-Class saloon.

The electric EQS is 28% cheaper to maintain annually than the petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid S-Class range from year 1 to year 3, and is 29% cheaper from year 3 to year 5.

Summary

There are lots of expenses in running a car, and servicing is just one of them. But it is one where we can make direct comparisons across different makes and models, as well as across similar versions of the same models.

Over the past 12 months, the general picture is of servicing price tending to rise across the board. While the servicing fees of many petrol models seem to have simply risen broadly in line with inflation – which currently stands at 3% in the UK – electric car servicing costs have risen at a slightly higher rate overall, despite price cuts that some manufacturers have implemented on their electric models.

Nevertheless, our analysis suggests that electric cars are still 29% cheaper to service than their fossil fuel counterparts of the first five years of ownership.

Servicing costs form a key component of our Expert Rating Index, along with other running costs like fuel consumption, CO₂ emissions and insurance groups. If you’re looking for a new or near-new car, make sure you look through the data carefully so you know what to expect when your car is due for its next service.

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