Still think EVs are pricey? Think again.

Ever wondered how much you could save with an electric car on salary sacrifice? In actual pounds and pence?

Our Savings Calculator does the number crunching for you. It takes your tax band and then compares equivalent electric and petrol cars, side by side. In goes the costs of the car, fuel, insurance, maintenance, tyres, breakdown cover...the lot. And out the other side comes the overall cost of each car.

Spoiler alert: the EV always wins.

The brains behind the machine is our clever mascot Constantine the octopus.

(Fun fact - it’s got 50 million brain neurons in its head, and another 350 million in its arms. So if anyone should know about the comparative cost of cars…) 

A bit of background, so you know what Constantine’s maths is based on. It lives in Salcombe, Devon, born in 1985 (absolutely ancient for an octopus), and drives 5,000 miles a year. We’re fairly sure octopuses (not ‘octopi’ — thank you, copywriting team) can’t drive - and even if they could, they definitely shouldn’t - but stick with us.

Constantine earns £40k as an actor in a performing arts troupe (it’s all that dexterity). And drives an EV through work, with their salary sacrifice scheme. 

While most octopuses prefer a solitary life, Constantine is quite the mollusc around town. And when friends (the human kind) found out about the financial wizardry on show, they wanted to know their savings too.

There’s Conrad - he earns £80k and also gets his EV through his employer. And Carol - the petrol holdout, still filling up at the pump. 

Here’s what each pays for their car. 

Is comparing an octopus with people the gold standard for automotive economics? Possibly not. But if you can get over that, we reckon everything else we base the calculations on is a decent ‘average’. 

When we showed Carol what she could save, she went straight to her boss to ask them to start an EV salary sacrifice scheme. She’s got her eyes on an upgrade - the BMW i4 - and only £67 more per month than she's paying now. Plus, the extra boot space will come in handy for her octopus friend.