Electric vs petrol: what an e-bike really costs to run in Pakistan

What the calculator does

The tool on this page compares the monthly and yearly running cost of a petrol commuter against an electric one. Two inputs matter most: your daily distance and the price of a litre of petrol. Everything else — your petrol bike’s mileage, the electric bike’s efficiency in kilometres per unit, your electricity tariff, and the two battery fields (replacement pack price and pack life in km) — is adjustable so you can model your own household.

The defaults are honest current-ish figures: 30 km per day, a 70cc-class petrol bike doing 45 km per litre, petrol at PKR 386.30 per litre (the Petroleum Division notification effective 17 October 2026), an electric bike covering 40 km per unit, a tariff of PKR 45 per unit, and a PKR 82,000 replacement pack rated for 120,000 km — the published price of a 48V 30Ah lithium pack from our battery price guide, spread over roughly 2,000 charge cycles. If your numbers differ — and for many riders they will — change them. The calculator is the guide; the physics is simple arithmetic.

A worked example: 30 km a day

At the defaults, a 30 km daily commute is roughly 900 km a month. A 45 km/l petrol bike burns about 20 litres a month — around PKR 7,700 at PKR 386.30 a litre, or PKR 92,700 a year. The electric bike needs about 22.5 units for the same distance, costing roughly PKR 1,013 a month and PKR 12,150 a year. The fuel-only saving is approximately PKR 80,600 per year — the electric bike is about 87% cheaper to fuel.

Add the battery and the picture is still strongly favourable but more honest. Spreading a PKR 82,000 pack over 120,000 km adds a reserve of roughly PKR 7,400 a year at this mileage, taking the electric total to about PKR 19,500 a year and cutting the saving to around PKR 73,200 — still about 79% cheaper than petrol. The calculator shows both views side by side: fuel-only, and fuel plus battery reserve.

That ratio holds broadly across distances because all three costs scale linearly with kilometres. What changes is the absolute saving: at 60 km a day the yearly gap roughly doubles to over PKR 160,000; at 10 km a day it shrinks to under PKR 28,000, which can take a decade to justify a price premium. Distance is the single biggest variable in whether an electric bike pays for itself.

The costs the fuel comparison hides

Three ownership costs complicate the simple story. First, battery replacement: every pack eventually degrades, and a replacement battery can cost a meaningful fraction of a cheap bike’s price. The calculator prices this in directly — set a replacement pack price and its life in km, and it adds a yearly battery reserve to the electric side; our battery price guide lists published replacement packs from PKR 55,000 to PKR 219,000. This is also why warranty terms matter so much — an LFP pack with a documented four- or five-year warranty is worth more than a cheaper bike with a three-month term, whatever the sticker says.

Second, maintenance asymmetry. Electric bikes skip oil, filters, clutch plates and most engine wear, but they still consume tyres, brake pads and eventually electronics. On balance electric maintenance is lower — typically a few thousand rupees a year for a commuter — but controllers and chargers are not cheap when they fail, so buy a brand with a real service network (filter the directory by brand to see which ones, or go straight to the service & repair guide’s brand-by-brand directory).

Third, resale. The second-hand market for electric two-wheelers in Pakistan is still maturing, and resale values are less predictable than for petrol bikes. Assume the saving funds the depreciation rather than assuming both are equal.

Getting the tariff number right

The default tariff of PKR 45 per unit is a realistic blended figure for typical urban households under NEPRA-set slabs — but your marginal unit price is what matters, and if you are already deep in a high slab, charging an e-bike adds units at your highest rate. Conversely, if you can charge off-peak or on a dedicated meter, your effective rate can be materially lower.

A useful sanity check: most commuter-class electric bikes in our directory use roughly 2–4 units per full charge, so even at premium slab rates a full charge costs well under PKR 200 — versus roughly PKR 1,200– 2,000 of petrol for the same range on a 70cc bike. The ordering never flips; only the size of the win changes.