Gas is expensive right now. The AAA national average sat at 4.10 dollars a gallon on August 2, more than a dollar above the eight-year average, driven by the crude market disruption we covered in our report on this summer supply shock. It follows that this is a good summer to take the electric car on vacation instead.
It is not. We ran a 1,000-mile trip through the numbers and an EV running on public fast charging is the most expensive way to make the drive, more expensive than a gas SUV. This piece explains why, and what has to be true for the EV to win. Written by Morgan Ellis, Editor at GearUp Insights.
The number that changes everything is the one on the charger
Home charging is what makes EVs cheap. At the current US residential average of 18.83 cents per kWh, a reasonably efficient EV costs about 5.4 cents a mile to run. That figure is the backbone of nearly every EV ownership calculation, including our Charging Cost Calculator.
Public DC fast charging averages about 53 cents per kWh. That is the same electricity at roughly triple the price, and on a long trip you have no alternative. The car has to be refilled somewhere between your driveway and the destination.
So a road trip does not cost you 5.4 cents a mile. It costs closer to 17.7 cents a mile. That single substitution is what flips the entire comparison, and it is why the home-versus-public gap matters far more than most buyers realize when they run the numbers on a new EV.
What 1,000 miles actually costs
Assumptions: a mid-size EV averaging 3.0 miles per kWh at sustained highway speed in summer heat, compared against gasoline vehicles at typical highway economy, gas at the current 4.10 dollar national average. The mixed EV row assumes 70 percent of energy from fast chargers and 30 percent from slower overnight charging at a hotel or destination charger at about 30 cents per kWh.
| Vehicle | Energy or fuel needed | Cost for 1,000 miles |
|---|
| Hybrid, 45 mpg | 22 gallons | 91 dollars |
| Gas sedan, 32 mpg | 31 gallons | 128 dollars |
| EV, 70 percent fast charging / 30 percent overnight | 333 kWh | 154 dollars |
| Gas SUV, 26 mpg | 38 gallons | 158 dollars |
| EV, all fast charging | 333 kWh | 176 dollars |
Calculated by GearUp using AAA national average fuel prices (August 2, 2026), Paren public charging rate data, and EIA Electric Power Monthly (Table 5.6.A) for the residential comparison, accessed August 3, 2026.
The hybrid wins by a wide margin, and it is not close. The EV on pure fast charging finishes last. Anyone who bought an EV expecting the road trip to be the easy money-saving part of ownership has the relationship backwards: the savings live at home, and a vacation is precisely when you cannot access them.
How high would gas have to go
Since gas prices move and electricity rates do not move nearly as fast, the useful question is what pump price would put the EV ahead. Holding fast charging at 53 cents per kWh:
| Compared against | Gas price where the EV breaks even |
|---|
| Gas SUV, 26 mpg | 4.59 dollars per gallon |
| Gas sedan, 32 mpg | 5.65 dollars per gallon |
| Hybrid, 45 mpg | 7.94 dollars per gallon |
At 4.10 dollars we are close to the SUV threshold and nowhere near the sedan one. In California, where gas runs well above the national average and fast charging is also expensive, the picture shifts. In the low-gas states of the Plains and the South, the EV loses badly on a road trip. This is a regional answer, not a national one.
The hybrid line is the one worth sitting with. There is no realistic 2026 gas price at which fast-charging an EV beats a 45 mpg hybrid on a long highway drive. We reached a similar conclusion from a different direction in our analysis of hybrid versus EV break-even mileage.
The heat penalty is real but smaller than the internet says
Every August brings a wave of articles about summer heat destroying EV range. The measured data is more moderate. Recurrent, analyzing live battery data from nearly 30,000 vehicles, found range barely moves at 90 degrees, averaging around a 5 percent loss, and only climbs to 17 to 18 percent once temperatures reach 100 degrees. Interestingly, EVs with heat pumps lost slightly more in heat, around 7 percent, than those without.
Speed matters more than the thermometer. Geotab, working from millions of fleet trips, found an electric sedan in 86-degree heat gets about 277 miles at 50 mph, 226 miles at 70 mph, and 200 miles at 80 mph. That is a 28 percent swing from driving style alone, larger than air conditioning ever costs you. As Geotab put it, the driver right foot is the biggest variable.
The practical translation for a road trip: dropping from 78 mph to 68 mph on the interstate will save you more energy than turning off the climate control, and it will make you considerably more comfortable while doing it.
The cost nobody puts in the spreadsheet
A 1,000-mile EV trip needs roughly five fast-charging stops. At 25 to 30 minutes each, that is about 2 hours and 15 minutes plugged in. Two gas stops take about 15 minutes total.
So the EV costs about 48 dollars more than the gas sedan and takes about two hours longer. We are not going to convert your vacation time into dollars and pretend that settles it, because the honest answer depends entirely on the trip. Two hours split across a two-day drive, spent stretching your legs at rest stops you would have used anyway, is close to free. Two hours on a single-day push with restless kids in the back is not.
Summer adds a wrinkle here too. Sustained heat plus repeated fast charging makes the battery thermal management work harder, and a hot pack charges more slowly. The five stops may each run a few minutes longer in August than they would in October.
When the EV road trip does make sense
None of this is an argument against EV ownership. It is an argument about which trips to take in which car. The EV wins the road trip when:
- Your destination has a charger. Charging overnight at a hotel or a relative driveway at residential rates collapses the cost gap immediately. This is the single biggest lever available.
- You are comparing against a thirsty vehicle. Against a 26 mpg SUV at 4.10 dollar gas, the EV is already within about 20 dollars over 1,000 miles.
- You drive in a high-gas state. The break-even numbers above arrive much sooner on the West Coast.
- You have a charging network subscription that meaningfully cuts your per-kWh rate, which we examined in our look at whether charging memberships pay off.
What does not work is assuming the home charging number applies on the highway. If you are planning a long summer drive, run your actual route rate through the Charging Cost Calculator at public rather than residential prices before deciding which car to take.
Data sources
Morgan Ellis is the editor of GearUp Insights. More about the editor.