Electric or gas car: what does it really cost to own in Taiwan?

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EV tax relief (extended through 2030): contrary to the widespread claim that it 'expires at the end of 2025', the Legislative Yuan passed a third reading on 2025-12-23 amending the 貨物稅條例 (Commodity Tax Act) and 使用牌照稅法 (Vehicle License Tax Act), extending the EV commodity-tax exemption to 2030-12-31 and authorizing local governments to keep waiving the vehicle license tax until the same deadline. On the commodity tax: the taxable value is fully exempt up to NT$1,400,000; any portion above NT$1.4M gets no exemption (it is taxed at the normal rate). Because passenger-car commodity tax is a percentage of the vehicle price, this is a saving built into the sticker price, not a fixed cash grant — so we enter it in the model as NT$0, for reference only, and do not fold it into the total cost above. The vehicle license tax is excluded for both EVs and gas cars to keep the comparison fair, but it is a genuine annual advantage for EVs (gas-car license tax runs about NT$7,120–30,000+/year depending on engine displacement, from about NT$11,000 in the 2.0L bracket). Sources: CNA 中央社 / Liberty Times 自由財經 (third reading, 2025-12-23) · electrify.tw, as of 2026/07/01. Be sure to confirm the latest terms before you buy.

The honest key variables: depreciation and electricity-rate tiers. On energy spend the EV wins big — on a time-of-use plan, charging off-peak in the middle of the night, electricity per km is only about one-tenth the cost of gas. But the 5-year total cost of ownership is no landslide win for the EV, for two reasons: (1) Taipower residential billing uses progressive rates (6 usage tiers, not billed by time of day), and the summer months (months 6–9) are pricier, with tiers jumping from NT$1.78 all the way to NT$8.86/kWh; an EV charging about 2,500–3,000 kWh a year at home pushes the whole household into the NT$3.13–5.14 marginal tiers (especially in summer). So our home-charging default is a blended marginal rate of NT$3.50/kWh, deliberately higher than the NT$1.78 bottom tier and higher than the roughly NT$1.99–2.02 off-peak overnight floor — quoting the lowest tier would dishonestly flatter the EV. (2) Used EVs in Taiwan depreciate ferociously: Tesla and other BEVs shed value fast, the second-hand BEV market is still small, and Toyota hybrid and gas models hold their value unusually well in Taiwan. So we set the BEV residual-value curve deliberately conservative (marked as an estimate, not a fabricated citation). Maintenance and insurance use per-drivetrain system defaults / estimates scaled to Taiwan price levels (not sourced Taiwan-specific quotes) — which if anything favors the EV, yet the verdict still often goes to the full hybrid (HEV). Residual values are estimates, as of 2026/07/01.