How much time
do you really spend refueling?
Plug in your real driving habits — home charging, gas stops, and a couple of road trips a year — and see how the annual hours actually compare.
🚗 Your driving habits
Total there-and-back distance, e.g. 800–900 mi
⚡ EV charging profile
Most EVs fall between 2.8 – 4.5 mi/kWh
Check your EV's spec sheet — typically 20–40 min
L1 ≈ 1.4kW · L2 ≈ 7–11kW — for reference only, not counted below
Just plugging in and unplugging — not the charging itself
Full home charge takes about:
—
⛽ Gas vehicle fueling profile
Most drivers refuel around 75% used (¼ tank left)
Pull in, pay, pump, cap — a station already on your route
🧭 Road trip breaks
Used to estimate how much EV road-trip charging time overlaps with a break you'd take on a long drive anyway.
⏱️ Your estimated annual time
Gas vehicle
—
EV (net)
—
Annual time saved
—
| Category | EV | Gas | Difference |
|---|
📊 Annual hours, by category
Local / home
Road trips (net)
How we calculated this
- Home EV charging counts only the hands-on plug-in/unplug time — the actual charging happens unattended, so it isn't counted as time spent.
- Gas fill-ups count the full stop, since pumping requires you to be there the whole time.
- Road-trip fast charging assumes you top off to 100% before you leave, then fast-charge only up to about 80% at each stop after that — charging past 80% on a DC fast charger is slow, so most drivers don't bother mid-trip. Both cases assume you charge again around a 10% floor.
- The "net" road-trip figure subtracts a baseline break (food/bathroom) that a driver would take on a trip that long regardless of vehicle — the "gross" figure below the table shows charging time before that adjustment.
- Gas fill-ups assume a station already on your route — no extra detour time is added.
