The U.S. Ranks Among 10 Cheapest Places On Earth To Buy An Electric Vehicle

The fight to make electric vehicles mainstream is deeply intertwined with the fight to make them affordable. The U.S. is in the middle of an argument with its neighbors over how it plans to offer tax incentives to EV buyers, but a new study shows that its efforts have made it among the cheapest places to buy one on Earth.

Confused.com released the findings of its study into which countries’ residents pay the most and the least for vehicles. To find its answers, the study looked at one popular vehicle that was widely available around the planet and then compared its price from market to market. Although that leaves some room for error based on product localization and the availability of other options, it does provide an interesting insight into some of the options that customers are presented with.

For EVs, Confused.com picked the Tesla Model 3 as its vehicle of choice and found that Macau was the least expensive place to buy it. Ringing in at the equivalent of $40,382, it was followed closely by China, Romania, Japan, and France. The U.S. was tied for eighth (with Puerto Rico) in terms of cheapest places to buy. The study found the vehicle could be purchased for $44,990.

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The news are less good for our British readers, since in the U.K. the average price of the Model 3 was £42,990 ($58,379). This points to a flaw with the study since there are cheaper EVs in the U.K. – the Volkswagen ID.3, for instance, starts at £32,200.00 ($43,530 at current exchange rates) – though, in general, most vehicles do cost more in the U.K. than they do in the U.S.

The country in which the Tesla Model 3 is the most expensive, though, is Singapore. This has largely to do with taxes, but it means that the car costs the equivalent of $83,489, nearly $20,000 more than it costs in the second-most expensive nation, Israel ($64,629). They are followed by Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Denmark.

For American enthusiasts, the news is even better. They have access to the second-cheapest sports cars on sale (Confused.com used the Ford Mustang as its reference point) and the cheapest hatchback (the Volkswagen Golf). Somewhat surprisingly, though, the U.S. is only the sixth-cheapest country in which to buy a Toyota RAV4.