2026 Chevy Silverado EV vs Gas Silverado 1500: Per-Mile Fuel Cost at $3.15/Gallon vs 12.5¢/kWh Now That the F-150 Lightning Is Gone
The Silverado EV just inherited a title it didn't earn on price alone
Electrek reported this week that with the Ford F-150 Lightning no longer in production, the Chevy Silverado EV is now America's most affordable full-size electric pickup. That's a headline, not a verdict. "Most affordable EV truck" still means a starting price north of $50,000, and affordability is relative to a category where every entrant is expensive. The real question a truck buyer needs answered is narrower: does the Silverado EV's fuel-cost advantage over a gas-powered Silverado 1500 actually close a $13,900 sticker gap in five years, or is this another case where the math doesn't cooperate with the marketing?
I own both an EV and a gas truck, so I've run this exact calculation on my own driveway. Let's do it properly, with real electricity and gas prices instead of manufacturer talking points.
Two other stories this week are useful context before we get into the numbers. BYD says it's "leading" the solid-state battery race, with its first solid-state EV arriving in 2027 — a reminder that today's lithium-ion trucks, including the Silverado EV, are not that technology and won't inherit its benefits. And a Tesla Cybercab rider in Austin had a 10-minute trip turn into a 70-minute detour because the robotaxi can't drive on highways. Both stories are about EV hype outrunning EV reality. This post is the opposite: just the numbers.
The two trucks, side by side
We're comparing the 2026 Chevy Silverado EV (base WT trim, standard-range battery) against a 2026 Chevy Silverado 1500 Custom with the 5.3L V8 — same brand, same body, so the comparison isolates the powertrain rather than badge loyalty.
| Silverado EV (WT) | Silverado 1500 (Custom, 5.3L V8) | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting MSRP | $52,895 | $38,995 |
| Price gap | +$13,900 | — |
| EPA efficiency | ~50 kWh/100 mi (2.0 mi/kWh) | 19 mpg combined |
| Federal EV tax credit | Not applicable — credit was repealed in 2026 | — |
| Annual maintenance (AAA-derived data) | ~$900 | ~$1,500 |
| Annual insurance (typical full-size truck) | ~$2,100 | ~$1,800 |
We're assuming a driver in North Carolina, where regular gasoline is running about $3.15/gallon and residential electricity averages 12.5 cents per kWh — both drawn from the same EIA state-level pricing structure our eia_gasoline_prices and eia_electricity_prices datasets track across all 50 states. North Carolina also currently has no state-level EV purchase rebate in our ev_incentives dataset, so this buyer is working with sticker price only — no federal credit (repealed), no state stacking. That's a materially different starting point than Colorado or Texas buyers we've modeled in other truck comparisons, which is exactly why "just look at the national average" answers are useless for your specific driveway.
Per-mile fuel cost: where the EV actually wins
This is the one category where the Silverado EV isn't close.
Gas Silverado 1500: $3.15/gal ÷ 19 mpg = $0.166 per mile
Silverado EV, home charging at 12.5¢/kWh: 0.5 kWh/mile × $0.125 = $0.0625/mile, or roughly $0.07/mile once you account for charging losses.
Silverado EV, public DC fast charging at a blended national rate of ~42¢/kWh: 0.5 kWh/mile × $0.42 = $0.21/mile — which is worse than gas.
That last line matters more for a truck than for a sedan, because truck owners tow, haul, and take longer trips more often than commuter-car owners, which pushes more miles onto public fast chargers instead of a home outlet. A realistic mix for a truck owner who charges at home most of the time but hits a DC fast charger on road trips — say 80% home, 20% public — blends to $0.098/mile, still a real advantage over gas, just a smaller one than the sticker-shock home-charging number suggests.
The 5-year total cost, not just the fuel line
Fuel savings are the argument every EV brochure leads with. They're also only one line in the ledger. Here's the full five-year picture at 15,000 miles a year (75,000 miles total), using AAA-derived maintenance figures and typical full-size truck insurance:
| Cost category (5 years, 75,000 mi) | Silverado EV | Silverado 1500 (gas) |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase price | $52,895 | $38,995 |
| Fuel (blended 80/20 charging) | $7,350 | $12,435 |
| Maintenance | $4,500 | $7,500 |
| Insurance | $10,500 | $9,000 |
| Subtotal out-of-pocket | $75,245 | $67,930 |
| Estimated resale value (5 yr) | -$21,158 (40% retained) | -$17,548 (45% retained) |
| Net 5-year cost | $54,087 | $50,382 |
The gas truck comes out $3,705 cheaper over five years — even after accounting for the EV's real fuel and maintenance savings. This isn't an anti-EV conclusion; it's what happens when a $13,900 purchase-price gap and a higher insurance line have to be paid down by savings of roughly 10 cents a mile, and the buyer isn't driving enough miles a year to fully cash that in.
This is the kind of analysis Celvari runs for you — so you don't have to build the spreadsheet yourself, state by state, trim by trim.
What mileage actually flips the math
If you strip out the resale uncertainty (genuinely the hardest number to forecast for either truck) and just ask "how many miles do I need to drive for fuel-plus-maintenance savings to pay off the price and insurance premium," the answer is blunt:
Price premium ($13,900) + 5-year insurance premium ($1,500) = $15,400 to recover Fuel + maintenance savings on the 80/20 blend = $0.108/mile Break-even distance = $15,400 ÷ $0.108 ≈ 142,600 total miles
At 15,000 miles a year, that's 9.5 years — well past most truck owners' typical ownership window, and past the point where battery degradation and resale uncertainty start dominating the calculation anyway.
If you charge almost exclusively at home (say 95% home, 5% fast charging — realistic if you don't tow long distances), the fuel-cost gap widens to about $0.096/mile, and total savings including maintenance rise to roughly $0.136/mile. That drops the break-even to about 113,000 miles, or 7.5 years at 15,000 miles annually. Better, but still outside a typical 5-year ownership horizon. If you can charge at home and you keep trucks for 8+ years, the Silverado EV starts to look like the smarter buy. If you trade every 5 years or you're routinely away from a home charger, the gas truck wins on the spreadsheet, full stop.
You can model this for your specific mileage, charging mix, and state electricity rate at Celvari rather than relying on a 15,000-mile national average that may not describe your driveway at all.
Battery degradation and the solid-state distraction
BYD's solid-state battery news is relevant here mostly as a warning against waiting. Solid-state cells promise higher density and slower degradation, but BYD's timeline puts its first production EV in 2027 — and that's BYD's own vehicle lineup, not a Chevy Silverado EV. GM has given no indication the Silverado EV will move off conventional lithium-ion chemistry anytime soon.
Our ev_defaults dataset, benchmarked against real-world fleet degradation data rather than manufacturer projections, shows average EV battery packs losing roughly 2.3% of capacity per year under normal use. Over five years and 75,000 miles, that puts a Silverado EV's usable range at somewhere around 88-90% of its original EPA figure — a meaningful but not disqualifying loss, and one that mainly affects resale value and long road-trip planning rather than day-to-day commuting. If you're weighing "wait for solid-state" against "buy now," we've run that exact opportunity-cost math for a comparable lithium-ion truck platform in our Honda and QuantumScape solid-state battery timeline breakdown — the short version is that waiting years for a chemistry that isn't confirmed for your vehicle segment usually costs more in foregone fuel savings than it gains in future battery longevity.
How this compares to other truck matchups we've run
The Silverado EV's position shifts a lot depending on what you're cross-shopping. Against a diesel RAM 3500 — a heavier-duty, higher-fuel-cost comparison — the electric truck's fuel advantage is much larger, as we found in our RAM 3500 diesel vs Silverado EV Texas fuel savings analysis. Against the now-discontinued F-150 Lightning, we previously modeled how an oil price spike changes the Lightning vs gas F-150 five-year cost — a comparison that's now more historical than actionable, since the Lightning is gone. And for buyers looking at GM's other electric truck platform, the GMC Sierra EV AT4 vs gas Sierra 1500 comparison shows how a higher trim level changes the equation entirely.
The honest bottom line
The Chevy Silverado EV being the "most affordable full-size electric pickup" is true and also not the point. At North Carolina's current gas and electricity prices, with no federal credit and no state rebate, the gas Silverado 1500 wins the 5-year total cost comparison by roughly $3,700 for a typical 15,000-mile-a-year driver — unless you can charge almost entirely at home and plan to keep the truck 7+ years, in which case the math flips in the EV's favor. Your state's electricity rate, your local gas price, your actual charging access, and your incentive eligibility all move these numbers meaningfully. Run your own zip code and driving pattern at Celvari before you sign anything — the national headline number was never going to be your number anyway.
Data behind this post
The figures above are computed from the product's own reference tables, last refreshed 2026-09-13:
- 6,287 rows from census_county_ev_data
- 51 rows from doe_afdc_stations
- 1,607 rows from doe_fueleconomy
- 3,672 rows from eia_electricity_prices
- 3,825 rows from eia_gasoline_prices
- 25 rows from ev_defaults
- 42 rows from ev_incentives
- 30 rows from maintenance_costs
Sources
- BYD is ‘leading’ the solid-state battery race, and its first EV with the new tech is almost here — Electrek
- The Chevy Silverado EV is now America’s most affordable full-size electric pickup — Electrek
- Anker solar HomeKit-ready Wall Light Cam S4 launch deal, Anker SOLIX extends power station sale, Monarc e-bike bundles, more — Electrek
- Tesla Cybercab turns 10-minute Austin trip into 70-minute detour — Electrek
- The Kia PV7 is even bigger than expected and has a range of over 460 km [Images] — Electrek