Vehicle Replacement Calculator

This calculator weighs keeping your current vehicle against replacing it with another, new or used, whether gas, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric. Pick each vehicle by model year from the EPA's list of 2015 and later models, or enter its fuel economy by hand; then enter how far you drive, your prices, your trade-in offer and loan, and the running costs you expect. It works out each vehicle's yearly fuel and electricity use and cost, your trade equity, the loan payment, the simple payback, and the total and present cost of keeping your vehicle or replacing it now over the same years.

Vehicle figures come from a federal source only: the FuelEconomy.gov vehicle data published by the US Department of Energy and the EPA. Default fuel and electricity prices come from the EIA. You set the price of the replacement; the opening example carries an illustrative one.

Purpose and model boundary

This calculator compares two ways forward with a vehicle: keep the one you have, or replace it with another, new or used. It works out the fuel and electricity each vehicle uses at your yearly miles, prices that energy, adds the running costs you enter, and sets the result against what the replacement costs to buy, including your trade-in and any loan. It compares keeping and replacing now over the same number of years, at the same miles and prices, in total and in present value.

Every figure on this page is computed by the spreadsheet; the page adds nothing to it. The model covers ownership costs only. It does not compare emissions, and it does not appraise any vehicle: trade-in offers, loan payoffs and values at the end are your own entries. There is no path for replacing the vehicle later; its value at the end of the years compared stands for that.

Inputs and units

• Each vehicle, your current one and the replacement, is either picked from the EPA list or entered by hand:
  • from the EPA list: choose its model year, 2015 to 2027, then the vehicle from that year's list. Each entry reads "Make Model, engine, transmission, drive, powertrain", as FuelEconomy.gov describes the tested configuration; where two entries would read the same, EPA's engine descriptor or the EPA record number is added;
  • by hand, for a vehicle older than 2015 or not in the list: its powertrain (gas, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric), its gasoline grade, its combined MPG on gasoline or diesel (5 to 150) and, for a plug-in vehicle, its electricity use in kWh per 100 miles (10 to 100).
• Plug-in hybrid share: the share of miles you drive on electricity, from 0% to 100%. For a listed plug-in hybrid, leave it blank to use EPA's estimate for that vehicle; for one entered by hand it is required. A share entered for a vehicle that is not a plug-in hybrid is ignored.
• Yearly running costs of each vehicle, each optional and counted as zero when left blank: insurance, routine maintenance, repairs, and registration, fees and yearly vehicle taxes; and each vehicle's value at the end of the years compared.
• Your current vehicle's trade-in and loan: the trade-in offer or sale price, the loan payoff and, optionally, that loan's interest rate and the payments left (0 to 96 months).
• The replacement purchase: its price (more than $0 and at most $300,000); the sales tax rate, and whether tax is charged on the price less the trade-in (where it starts) or on the full price; title, documentation and first registration fees; verified incentives; a home charger installation; and how you pay: cash, or a loan with its down payment, interest rate and term (12 to 96 months). The price is always yours to set (see "Worked examples and prices").
• Driving and prices: the miles you drive a year (0 to 100,000; it starts at 15,000, EPA's own label basis); your state, which sets the default fuel and electricity prices; your own regular, midgrade, premium and diesel prices per gallon and your own home electricity price per kWh, each optional; and, for plug-in vehicles, the share of charging done at public chargers and its price per kWh.
• The comparison: the years to compare (1 to 15), the yearly change in fuel and electricity prices, the yearly change in the other running costs, and the discount rate.

Fuel is in US gallons, electricity in kWh, distance in miles and money in dollars.

Governing relationships

Fuel and electricity use. A gasoline, diesel or hybrid vehicle uses your yearly miles ÷ its combined MPG in gallons a year. An electric vehicle uses your yearly miles × its kWh per 100 miles ÷ 100 in kWh a year. The MPG and kWh figures are EPA label estimates, the adjusted figures on the fuel economy label, and EPA's kWh figures already include the energy lost while charging, so nothing is added for it.

Plug-in hybrids. With s the share of miles on electricity, a plug-in hybrid uses (1 − s) × miles ÷ its gasoline-only MPG in gallons, and s × miles × its kWh per 100 miles ÷ 100 in kWh. Some plug-in hybrids, 75 of the 429 in the list, also burn gasoline on their electric miles; for those, EPA's gallons per 100 miles in that mode are added for the electric miles. Left blank, s is EPA's utility factor for that vehicle: the share of miles on electricity that the label assumes.

Energy prices. Each vehicle's fuel is priced at the grade EPA lists for it (regular, midgrade or premium gasoline, or diesel), at your own price when you enter one, otherwise at the EIA 2025 average for your state's area, otherwise at the US average. A flex-fuel vehicle is priced on gasoline. Home electricity is your own price or the EIA 2025 average residential price for your state. When part of the charging is public, the electricity price is the mix of the home and public prices by that share.

Yearly running cost. Each vehicle's energy cost is its gallons × its fuel price plus its kWh × the electricity price. Adding insurance, maintenance, repairs and registration gives its yearly running cost. Energy prices change each year by the rate you enter, and the other running costs by theirs.

Buying the replacement.

• Trade equity is the trade-in offer less the loan payoff on your current vehicle. It can be negative: you owe more on the vehicle than the offer.
• Sales tax is the rate × the price less the trade-in offer, never below zero, or the rate × the full price if you choose that basis.
• The net to cover is the price, tax and fees, less verified incentives, less the trade equity: negative equity adds the shortfall.
• With a loan, the amount financed is the net to cover less your down payment, and the monthly payment is the level payment that repays it at your rate over your term; paid in cash, nothing is financed. What is not financed, plus a home charger installation, is paid at signing; when the trade-in and incentives exceed the purchase, the difference comes back as cash.
• A loan on your current vehicle: with its interest rate and payments left, keeping the vehicle means making those payments; without the payments left, its payoff is counted as paid today and its remaining interest is not counted.

Two paths over the same years. Both vehicles are compared over the same years, at the same miles and prices. Costs fall at the end of each year and are discounted at your rate.

• Keep: your vehicle's running costs and any payments on its loan each year; at the end, any loan balance still owed, less the vehicle's value then.
• Replace now: what you pay at signing, then the replacement's running costs and loan payments each year; at the end, any loan balance still owed, less the replacement's value then.

The net present value of replacing is the present cost of keeping less the present cost of replacing now: positive means replacing costs less.

Nothing is counted twice. The trade-in offer counts once, when you replace; keeping never counts it, and a kept vehicle's only value is its value at the end. The loan payoff is the same debt in both paths, paid through the old loan if you keep and out of the trade if you replace. A loan is a way of paying the price, so the price counts once, split between cash and the amount financed, and only the interest is added. Depreciation is not a separate cost: each vehicle's value at the end is its only value.

Payback. The net initial cost is the price, tax, fees and charger installation, less incentives and the trade-in offer. Simple payback is that cost ÷ the first year's running-cost saving, when the saving is positive; otherwise there is no payback. It leaves out financing and the values at the end, which the total and present costs include.

Calculation sequence

The spreadsheet first finds each vehicle's figures, from the EPA list or your entries, and its fuel and electricity prices, and checks the inputs. It reduces each vehicle to gallons and kWh per mile, and from those computes the yearly quantities and costs. The purchase, the loans, the year-by-year costs of both paths, their totals and present values, and the sensitivity tables follow. The sensitivity tables use the same per-mile figures, so they cannot disagree with the main result. A block of consistency checks, including that the discounted cash flow reaches the same net present value as the closed-form formula and that every vehicle in every model-year list can be found, runs before the status is returned.

Outputs and interpretation

The headline is the net present value of replacing now, with the first year's energy saving and the monthly loan payment. For each vehicle the results give the figures used (MPG, kWh per 100 miles and, for a plug-in hybrid, the electric share and where it came from), its yearly gallons and kWh, the prices used, its yearly fuel, electricity, energy and running cost, and its cost per mile over the years compared. The purchase results give the trade equity, the sales tax, the purchase total, the net to cover, the amount financed, the monthly payment, the total interest and what you pay at signing. The decision results give the yearly savings, the net initial cost, the simple payback, the total and present cost of each path, the first year the discounted net benefit reaches zero, and a plain verdict.

The cash-flow table shows each year from 0 to the years compared: the cost of keeping and of replacing now, the net benefit of replacing, and its cumulative, discounted and cumulative discounted values. The first sensitivity table shows the net present value of replacing at 5,000, 8,000, 10,000, 12,000, 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 and 30,000 miles a year, and at 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.25 and 1.5 times the gasoline and diesel prices used; electricity prices stay as used. The second shows it with the trade-in offer $4,000 or $2,000 lower or higher than yours, never below zero, and at 0.5 to 1.5 times the replacement's value at the end. The third shows it with each plug-in hybrid's electric share at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%, and at 0.5 to 1.5 times the electricity prices used, home and public; with no plug-in hybrid, its rows are the same.

A model card beside each listed vehicle shows its EPA description, model year, powertrain, the EPA figures used, its electric range, and its EPA record number and data version. A hybrid is EPA's hybrid class, which includes mild hybrids.

The first chart, “Cumulative net benefit of replacing now, by year”, shows Undiscounted and Discounted by year. The second chart, “Cost over the years compared”, shows Total and Present value by option. The third chart, “Running cost in year 1”, shows Fuel, Electricity, Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs and Registration by vehicle, stacked.

Validation and status logic

The workbook returns one status, chosen in this order: NOT VALID, then CHECK, then OK.

• NOT VALID names the first problem: a way of describing a vehicle that is not one of its options; a model year that is not one of its options, or a vehicle not found in that year's list; for a vehicle entered by hand, a powertrain or grade that is not one of its options, an MPG missing or outside 5 to 150, or a kWh per 100 miles missing or outside 10 to 100 where the powertrain needs it; an electric share outside 0% to 100%, or a plug-in hybrid entered by hand with no share; a running cost or value at the end outside its range; miles a year missing, not a whole number, or outside 0 to 100,000; a state that is not in the table; a fuel with no price, or your own fuel price outside $0.50 to $15.00 a gallon; a plug-in vehicle with no home electricity price, or your own price outside $0.01 to $2.00 per kWh; a public charging share outside 0% to 100%, or public charging with its price missing or outside $0.05 to $2.00 per kWh; a trade-in offer, loan payoff, interest rate or payments left outside its range; a replacement price that is missing, not above $0, or above $300,000; a sales tax, tax basis, fee, incentive or charger entry outside its range or not one of its options; a loan with its term missing, not a whole number or outside 12 to 96 months, or its rate or down payment outside its range; or years to compare that are not a whole number from 1 to 15, or a growth or discount rate outside its range. NOT VALID is a refusal, not a numeric answer: every figure reads zero and is withheld.
• CHECK accompanies a computed result that needs the stated review: a listed vehicle whose EPA electricity figure the data review flagged as outside the usual range; an electric share that would need more than one full charge a day at your miles and the vehicle's EPA electric range; zero miles a year; a loan payoff larger than the trade-in offer, so the shortfall is financed or paid at signing; a trade-in and incentives larger than the purchase, so the difference comes back as cash; a loan payoff with no payments left entered, so the payoff is counted today and that loan's remaining interest is left out; a loan that runs past the years compared, so its balance is counted as paid at the end; or a replacement that does not cost less to run than your vehicle in the first year, so there is no payback.
• OK otherwise.

Assumptions and limitations

• EPA figures are label estimates, not your driving. They describe a typical mix of driving, not a measurement of your vehicle, and your own mileage may differ. If you know your own figures, enter the vehicle by hand.
• Some figures were revised. FuelEconomy.gov has revised the estimates of some vehicles after their first label, so a value in the list can differ from the vehicle's original window sticker.
• The electric share drives a plug-in hybrid's result. EPA's utility factor is a label default, not your charging habit; enter your own share if you know it.
• Most ownership costs have no government source. Insurance, maintenance, repairs, registration and fees, the public charging price, trade-in offers, loan payoffs, financing terms and values at the end are your own entries. The calculator never estimates or appraises them, and one left blank counts as zero.
• Default prices are averages. Fuel prices are EIA's 2025 annual averages of weekly retail prices, including taxes, for your state where EIA publishes one and otherwise for its region; electricity is EIA's 2025 average residential price for your state. Neither is your pump price or your tariff: enter your own prices for a better answer.
• Alaska and Hawaii diesel defaults are regional. EIA's diesel survey covers the continental United States, so the default diesel price there is a regional figure, not a price sampled in the state.
• No incentive is assumed. Enter only incentives you have confirmed; no federal vehicle tax credit is included.
• The same miles for both vehicles. The comparison assumes you drive the replacement as much as the vehicle it replaces, and one yearly change applies to all fuel and electricity prices and another to all the other running costs.

Data and vintage

The vehicle list and the default prices are reviewed reference tables inside the workbook, refreshed from their federal publishers; their version is shown in the result details.

• Vehicles: 15,948 gasoline, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles of model years 2015 to 2027 (2027 partial), from the FuelEconomy.gov vehicle data published by the US Department of Energy and the EPA, file updated September 29, 2026, downloaded 2026-10-28: 12,110 gas, 316 diesel, 1,549 hybrid, 429 plug-in hybrid and 1,544 electric. Flex-fuel vehicles are listed with their gasoline figures; natural gas and fuel cell vehicles are not included.
• Fuel prices: EIA 2025 annual average retail prices, including taxes, released October 27, 2026: regular, midgrade and premium gasoline for the US, its regions and nine states, and on-highway diesel for the US, its regions and California. The US averages are $3.097 (regular), $3.671 (midgrade), $4.030 (premium) and $3.660 (diesel) a gallon.
• Home electricity prices: EIA 2025 average residential prices by state (Form EIA-861).

Worked examples and prices

Prices are not part of the reference data: the price of the new unit is an input you set. The opening example and the five worked examples each use an illustrative price for the new unit, so that the example computes, and each says so: “Illustrative price for this example, not a quote or a current price. Prices vary: check current prices online or enter your own.”

Restrictions and non-computing states

The calculator enforces its numeric and choice limits before it accepts a result. A vehicle not found in its model year's list, a vehicle entered by hand without the figures its powertrain needs, a plug-in hybrid entered by hand with no electric share, a fuel with no price, public charging with no public price and a missing price for the replacement are refused by the workbook.

Errors and warnings

A request rejected by the page's input limits is not a computed result. A transport or service failure, a timeout or a cancelled run cannot establish a fresh workbook answer, and the last result stays on the page marked as out of date. The EPA figures are label estimates and the ownership costs are your own entries, so check them against your vehicle's label, your quotes and your statements before relying on a result for a purchase.

Sources and further reading

The calculator reads its vehicle list and its default prices from reviewed reference tables inside the workbook, by record, with their version shown in the result details. Every table comes from a US federal source. The sources below publish the data and the rules the model applies. They do not endorse this calculator.

• FuelEconomy.gov, Download fuel economy data (US DOE and EPA) publishes the EPA label fuel economy of each tested vehicle configuration: MPG, electricity use in kWh per 100 miles and, for plug-in hybrids, EPA's utility factor and electric range. It states that the plug-in figures include losses that occur during charging (retrieved 2026-10-28).
• EIA, Retail prices for regular gasoline gives annual average retail prices, including taxes, for the US, its regions, nine states and ten cities; the calculator uses 2025, when the US average was $3.097 a gallon (retrieved 2026-10-28).
• EIA, Retail prices for midgrade gasoline gives the same series for midgrade gasoline; the 2025 US average was $3.671 a gallon (retrieved 2026-10-28).
• EIA, Retail prices for premium gasoline gives the same series for premium gasoline; the 2025 US average was $4.030 a gallon (retrieved 2026-10-28).
• EIA, Retail prices for diesel (on-highway) gives annual average on-highway diesel prices, including taxes, for the US, its regions and California; the 2025 US average was $3.660 a gallon (retrieved 2026-10-28).
• EIA, Definitions, sources and notes for retail motor fuel prices defines the regions (PADDs and their sub-districts) whose average sets the default fuel price for a state without its own EIA series (retrieved 2026-10-28).
• EIA, Detailed state data (Form EIA-861) gives the average residential electricity price by state, used here for 2025 as the default home charging price (retrieved 2026-10-28).

This is an educational estimate of ownership costs for the vehicles and figures you enter, not a vehicle recommendation, an appraisal or a loan offer. The EPA figures are label estimates, not your vehicle's measured use; check your own records and quotes before acting on a result.