Should You Buy An Electric Car In Switzerland in 2026?

Electric cars

Electrics have a few important differences from a gas-powered car (using an internal combustion engine).

The first difference is how you charge it. Since it is electric, you need access to the power grid instead of going to a gas station.

The second difference is that it needs a longer time to charge. You can refill your gas tank in a few minutes, but it usually takes 30 minutes at least to recharge your electric car.

Another difference is that it is usually cheaper per kilometer to operate an electric car than a gas-powered car.

Finally, if you have access to green energy (basically not coal or gas), an electric car is much more ecological than a car with an internal combustion engine.

There are also some minor differences:

• An electric car is more silent than a gas-powered car
• An electric car is usually still more expensive than a gas car
• An electric car usually requires less maintenance since there are fewer moving parts in the engine.

Now that we have covered the basics, we should see the important questions that you should ask yourself to see whether you should buy an electric car.

Do you have access to a charger?

If you are interested in an electric car, you need to get access to a charger.

There are gas stations everywhere in Switzerland. But there are still not that many electric car chargers available in Switzerland. This is one factor slowing down electric car adoption.

If you are a homeowner, you can install a charger in your garage. In this case, charging will be extremely convenient. If you do not need to charge it too often, you can even charge it directly on 230V. But charging it on a standard plug is very slow (more than 24 hours for a full charge).

On the other hand, if you are a renter, it may be more complicated. In some cases, your landlord may have a charger available for you. But if they do not, you may want to ask your landlord to see if it is possible to get one installed.

If you do not have one at home, you need access to a charger somewhere else. If you are lucky, there is one available at your office. However, if you are not, then you will need to rely on public charging. In this case, you need to see whether you have something practical.

If you have no practical options to charge it, an electric car is likely not for you.

How much will you pay for electricity?

The other important criterion is how much you will pay for electricity.

This will depend entirely on where you plan to recharge your car.

First, if you are going to charge it at home, then you will pay the same price per watt as your home. If you have solar panels, then it becomes even more interesting because it could be free if you optimize your charging times.

Then, if you are a renter, it will depend on your landlord. It is either simply the same price per watt as your general consumption or a different rate if your landlord made special rules for the electric charger. If you can charge it at your office, you should check out the price from your employer.

Finally, if you are going to charge it on the public network, you will need to get the average price of the charging station you will use.

Overall, the cheaper the price of electricity, the more interesting an electric car becomes.

How fast do you need it to charge?

We should also not forget to talk about the speed of charging.

The picture is different if you can charge your electric car all day or all night or if you can only charge for 30 minutes each day. The same applies to long-distance travel: can you afford long charging pauses, or is your time limited?

This will be important to know for two reasons:

1. Cars that can charge faster are usually more expensive.
2. Charging at very high speed on the public charging grid is usually more expensive than at lower power.

So, generally, it will be cheaper for you to charge at a lower speed. You can absolutely charge your electric car at 11 kW, which is still decently fast. But if you need 150 kW charging, you will have to pay a premium for the car and the electricity.

A good example is to look at M-Charge prices (prices from June 2026):

• Below 22 kW, 0.38 CHF per kWh
• Between 22 kW and 64 kW, 0.48 CHF per kWh
• Between 64 kW and 200 kW, 0.55 CHF per kWh
• Above 200 kW, 0.59 CHF per kWh

So, the difference in cost can be very significant.

Naturally, this criterion will also influence where you can charge since not all public chargers are very high power.

Finally, it is also worth mentioning that always using ultra-high power charging can degrade the battery faster. So, you should be careful about that.

How much capacity do you need?

An essential criterion is how much capacity you need in your car. Put another way, how many kilometers do you need to drive without recharging?

This criterion is important because it will help you size the car. The size of the battery is a very critical factor in the price of an electric car. If you need only 200 km at most, you will have many options at a small price. But if you need 500 km of capacity, you will be looking at fewer options with higher prices.

And if you need to do trips that are longer than any battery, like 1000 kilometers, can you wait until your car is recharged, or can you not wait more than 5 minutes? With fast chargers, modern electric cars can be put back to 80% in 30 minutes.

Generally, electric cars are best for relatively lower kilometers. You can get options with large capacity, but you will pay a significant premium.

Are electric cars better for the environment?

For many, the main advantage of an electric car is that they are better for the environment. But is that always true?

During operation, an electric car is only as clean as its energy source. If it is powered by renewable energy, the electric car is very clean. But of course, an electric car powered by a coal power plant will not be clean at all. Additionally, they also have more efficient engines.

While driving, an internal combustion engine emits a lot of CO₂. Additionally, the extraction of oil itself increases the generation of CO₂ for petrol cars. An electric car will not emit any CO₂. However, it has been shown that because of their powerful engines, they often emit more plastic particles from tires.

We should also look at the production of cars, something that many people ignore. Producing an electric car is less environmentally friendly than producing a petrol car. The main issue is the battery that requires many rare materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. On the other hand, producing a standard car is more standard.

The battery also comes into play when recycling. Currently, we do not recycle the batteries well. So it means that all the rare materials are lost and their extraction is not compensated.

Overall, an electric car on green power will be better for the environment over its life. On the other hand, if it uses non-renewable energy to charge, it will actually be worse because of what it took to produce the battery itself. And we should note that a car with a smaller battery will be much better for the environment than a car with a large one.

Are electric cars cheaper to operate?

Electric cars are generally cheaper to operate, but this will depend on your energy.

In Switzerland, we do not get subsidies for electric cars. But the fee to get the license plate is cheaper for electric cars than for petrol cars.

As mentioned before, the price of an electric car will be more expensive at purchase. But the price of maintenance will be lower.

With a modern electric car, you will pay significantly less per kilometer than for a petrol car. This power for the car is easily half of the price of the gas for the car. And if you have access to even cheaper power at home (your solar panels, for instance), it becomes even cheaper.

So, yes, the total cost of ownership is lower for an electric car than for a gas car.

Should you buy an electric car?

Finally, this brings us back to the question: Should you buy an electric car?

If you want to save money in the long term, you should buy an electric car. And if you can operate your car on clean energy, you should also buy an electric car to reduce your carbon footprint.

However, the main barriers for electric cars  are practical, not financial or environmental. Indeed, if you have no practical ways of charging your car, it will not be a good experience. For instance, if you live in an apartment and cannot get a charger in your parking spot (or if you have no dedicated parking spot), you will need to rely on the public grid. And currently, Switzerland is not great at this. This could be fine if you can charge at work and mostly use your car for commuting. Otherwise, this may simply be too impractical.

This is one case where homeowners have a significant advantage over renters. It is simpler to install a charging station in your home than in a rented place.

And of course, the range you need will also influence your choice. If you are often driving very long distances, you may not want electric cars. Or you should be prepared to have longer pauses to recharge the car.

So, if you have easy access to charging, electric cars are a great buy. But when depending on the public charging grid, this may not be such a good deal. We will need to see if the charging grid improves.

Our situation

Finally, as an example, we can take our situation. We recently bought an electric car as a second car. We chose a second-hand Zoe with a rather low range of about 230 km under good conditions.

First, we are homeowners, so we can charge at home. Currently, we do not have an electric charging station, but we may have this in the future. So we charge on 230V. Since we have the car for long periods of time, this is not an issue for us.

Then, we have solar panels. So, we try to charge as much as possible when the sun is up. This gives us very cheap power to charge our car.

Finally, since this is our second car, we do not have any issue with capacity. We will never drive more than 200 km (likely not even more than 100 km) with this car.

For us, the electric car was a clear winner for our second car.

In about two and a half years, we will have to change our primary car. At this point, I am already convinced we will go with an electric car. However, we will need a long range for our primary car. We sometimes go to a neighboring country and would like to go there without a recharge in the middle.

Conclusion

Overall, I believe that electric cars are a great alternative to traditional cars. They are cheaper in the long term and have a lower total cost of ownership. We are happy so far with our electric car.

However, we must be rational and realize that electric cars are not perfect. The batteries are not environmentally friendly, and recycling them is not a solved problem. Also, electric cars are only convenient if you can easily charge them. But this is generally only true of homeowners (although renters can sometimes strike a deal with landlords). The public charging grid in Switzerland is not great, so relying entirely on it may not be practical. But things are getting better.

So, if you have easy access to a charging station and you are not driving very long distances with short pauses, electric cars are great!

If you are going to buy a car, you should think about how you will finance your electric car.

What about you? What do you think about electric cars?