We took a poll of the Spaceship office and everyone who drives a petrol car is paying about $100 per tank to fill up - apart from one of our engineers who drives an old Landcruiser with a 90L diesel tank and spends $210.
Last month, electric vehicles outsold petrol cars in Australia for the first time.
In August, Aussies bought 56,331 EV and hybrid vehicles, compared to 49,432 petrol and diesel vehicles. That’s a 53.3% to 46.7% split, excluding heavy commercial vehicles.
For many people, switching to electric is increasingly becoming a matter of when, and not if. So, why now? And what might it mean for you?
Back in March, the price of petrol had started to make news. Oil shipments were blocked in the Strait of Hormuz, and six months later, access remains restricted.
The Australian government responded in April by moderating petrol prices with a cut to the fuel excise, but halved that discount in July, before winding it back completely in August.
Recently there’s been further conflict at another shipping route, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the cost of oil is back up to more than $100 a barrel at the time of writing, 14 September 2026.
On the other side of the world, in Australia, we’ve been feeling the impacts.
Jump straight to
- How much does $100 get you at the petrol tank?
- How much does $100 get you at the public charger?
- Which gets you further?
- What about home charging?
- What else should you factor in?
- So, what does your $100 get you?
How much does $100 get you at the petrol tank?
Cars hold different amounts of petrol depending on how big they are. Your fuel efficiency is how far your petrol gets you per litre. You can find out your car’s fuel efficiency at greenvehicleguide.gov.au.
PetrolSpy has the average cost of Unleaded 91/E10 petrol to be around $2.14 a litre at the time of writing in both Sydney and Melbourne.
So $100 gets you just over 46 litres at the pump at the time of writing. How far that gets you depends on your car’s size, fuel economy, traffic, and how you drive.
For example, a petrol Toyota Corolla sedan, with an official combined fuel economy of 6.6L/100km, could get you around 700km on $100 of petrol at around $2.14 a litre.
How much does $100 get you at the public charger?
Electric cars have different sized batteries, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). An EV’s efficiency is how much electricity it uses to travel a certain distance, usually measured in kWh per 100km. greenvehicleguide.gov.au also compares battery efficiency.
In general, electric vehicles are charged using AC charging and DC fast charging.
AC charging is the most common. AGL lists AC chargers as costing around 30c to 50c per kWh.
This means that $100 buys you around 200 to 333 kWh.
DC chargers are faster so they typically cost more, around 50c to 90c per kWh. At those prices, $100 buys you around 111 to 200 kWh.
AGL bases its estimates on EVs that use 17 kWh of electricity per 100km. At that efficiency, $100 of public charging could get you roughly 650 to 1,960km of driving, depending on how much you pay per kWh.
Which gets you further?
From a pure distance perspective, at $2.14 a litre, a petrol car that uses 6.6L/100km would cost about $14.12 in petrol to travel 100km.
Using AGL’s estimate of 17kWh/100km, an EV would cost between $5.10 and $15.30 to travel the same 100km at a public charger, depending on the type of charger and what you pay per kWh.
So while public charging can be much cheaper than petrol, there are variables to keep in mind.
What about home charging?
EV owners can charge their cars at home. Generally, there are two types of home chargers:
- Level 1 chargers: These are portable home EV chargers that plug into your power point.
- Level 2 chargers: These are dedicated charging stations you need an electrician to install.
Many EVs come with their own Level 1 charger on purchase. Level 1 charging is much slower than Level 2 charging.
Level 2 chargers vary in price and can cost a few thousand dollars to set up, depending on the charger and your home.
But once you’re past the initial setup costs, it can be much cheaper to charge your car at home, particularly if you do so off-peak.
For the same 17kWh/100 electric vehicle, it can cost around $5-$6 per 100km at home, depending on your electricity plan, and when you charge.
What else should you factor in?
The choice to switch to an electric vehicle isn’t just based on costs.
Availability of public chargers is one consideration. GloBird Energy says electric vehicles are arriving in Australia at six times the pace of public chargers. There are now 37 EVs for every public charger, which can mean queues during peak periods, particularly around highway clusters and urban hubs.
This is important because not everybody has a driveway or a garage that could make home charging feasible. Still, where demand goes, commerce tends to follow, and it’s foreseeable that shortages will be addressed by government and industry.
Upfront costs of a vehicle differ, too. Electric vehicles have historically been more expensive to buy than comparable petrol cars. But that gap has been narrowing and entry-level EVs can be found from around $24,000, according to carsales.com.au.
There’s also maintenance and servicing costs. Energy.gov.au says EV drivers can save up to 40% on servicing costs compared with petrol or diesel vehicles, largely because EVs have far fewer moving parts.
So, what does your $100 get you?
For petrol, it depends on the car you drive, the price at the pump, and a whole raft of geopolitical factors. For EVs, it depends on the car you drive, and whether you charge in public or at home.
But EV adoption is gathering speed, and for the first time, more Australians are choosing electric and hybrid cars than petrol and diesel ones.
