Are you shopping for an electric vehicle? Are you an EV owner curious about your climate impact?

CarbonCounter Compares Costs

 and Lifecycle Emissions Savings

New MIT Study Informs EV Buyer Tool
An MIT research team just turned its new study[1] findings on EV cost and climate benefits into a user-friendly tool called CarbonCounter. The new tool lets users evaluate and compare all car types, including Battery EV (BEV), Plug-in Hybrid EV (PHEV), and gasoline vehicles, according to costs for vehicle, fuel, and maintenance, and lifecycle emissions savings.

Powering CarbonCounter is a new MIT study that digs deep into greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and EV ownership costs across a wide range of locations and driver behaviors. The user can select one or more cars from over 300 models and compare them while dialing in their results with custom background and usage details, such as the price of local gas or the amount of city driving. To learn more, watch this video.

In addition to electricity mix and local climate, the study modeled how driving patterns affect GHG emissions; how costs of EV and gasoline vehicles vary in different regions across the country; how ownership costs correlate with emissions savings; and how complex conditions across location sand individual vehicle use affect GHG reductions and EV adoption.

The MIT team strove to answer common EV buyer questions and dispel some myths, such as EVs lose power in cold weather; the study found EVs perform well even during a North Dakota–style cold snap with only a modest, and temporary, impact.

The study also estimated what percent of gasoline cars would need to be replaced by BEVs to decrease emissions by 10 percent in two situations: 21 percent of the national fleet and 16 percent in locations with highest emissions reduction potential. To achieve a 30 percent GHG reduction would require replacing between 39 and 80 percent of gasoline vehicles.

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) Save 40%-60% of Emissions Compared to Gasoline Vehicles

Key findings include: “In most locations, BEVs save 40%–60% of emissions compared to” gasoline vehicles; “EVs reduce emissions the most in areas with a clean electricity mix, dense traffic and correspondingly slow trips, high annual travel distance, and a mild to warm climate;” and “In many locations…the costs of EVs — especially BEVs — are competitive with those of” gasoline cars.

To read the MIT study, “Determinants of electric vehicle emissions savings and costs across locations and individuals,” visit: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae0c23

[1] Marco Miotti and Jessika E Trancik 2026 Environ. Res. Lett. 21 094021