Swiss EV cost comparison: a tool to compare what matters
The Swiss EV market has five distinct acquisition paths — buy new, buy used, import from Germany, lease, or subscribe. They have utterly different cost structures, which means comparing them by eye is impossible. A dealer's "CHF 45,000" for a new car tells you nothing until you factor in depreciation, the monthly lease rate tells you nothing without inclusion or exclusion of insurance and tires, and the German import price hides a web of import fees that vary by how the dealer counted the VAT.
This is a tool to rank them fairly by annual cost per kilometer under your conditions: your annual kilometers, how many years you'll hold it, whether you charge at home or public, and how optimistic you are about resale values.
The anatomy of an EV cost
The tool accounts for ten cost components:
- Depreciation — the car's residual value after your holding period
- Cost of capital — the opportunity cost of buying the car instead of investing the money
- Cantonal tax — Aargau's vehicle tax (EV-flat as of 2024)
- Insurance — full Kasko, the standard for any financed car
- Tires and service — predictable annual maintenance
- Energy — your electricity rate at home and public charging, weighted by your charging behaviour
- Wallbox — amortized over your holding period
- Import fees — customs, duty, German tax, Swiss VAT and registration (for German imports only)
- Monthly fees — the lease or subscription payment (for lease/subscription only)
- Excess kilometers — if your lease/subscription has a mileage cap
All rates are hand-verified against official sources: the Aargau Strassenverkehrsamt for tax, real insurance quotes, confirmed electricity rates.
The data
Twenty-five hand-curated real market offers, updated 2026-08-10. Mix of acquisition types: new purchase, used cars, German imports, subscriptions, and leases. Real prices and contract terms as they stood in early August, not live market data. Listings are actual offers; the tool does not auto-scrape — updates are manual.
Why it exists
Because you can't see the answer by looking. No dealer will tell you their profit margin on the lease fee, the residual-value risk is invisible in the purchase price, and Swiss vs. German vs. subscription math is genuinely orthogonal. Hand-curating is slow, but it means the data is real and every figure can be verified.
Infra
Zero cost per month: the tool runs colocated on the same free-tier Oracle Micro that powers zzd.ch, sharing idle capacity. No database, no cron jobs, no complex ops — the backend is ~50 MB of Python, the frontend is a static React bundle.
Disclaimer
It's beta. Listings are manually verified market data, not live, and they do not auto-update. Residual values are estimates; they vary by model, mileage, and condition — the tool gives you a sensitivity slider (±20%) to explore the range. Electricity rates are hand-set and may not match your provider. The cost model is correct as of 2026, but financing terms, tax policy, and vehicle options change. Always verify with dealers and insurers before deciding.
Try it at ev.zzd.ch.