Cost of ownership
Cheapest Cars to Maintain
Ranked from the CarEdge Car Maintenance Cost Rankings (10-Year) (2025). CarOutlay adds the ownership-cost lens — what each result means for the real 5-year cost of owning the car.
The ranking
Top 20 lowest-maintenance models by CarEdge's projected 10-year cost. Lower is better.
- Toyota Mirai Cheapest to maintain Hydrogen fuel-cell; lowest projected 10-year cost. $3,179
- Nissan LEAF Electric. $3,216
- Toyota bZ4X Electric. $3,479
- FIAT 500e Electric. $3,517
- Hyundai IONIQ 6 Electric. $3,893
- Toyota Corolla Hatchback Cheapest non-electric model. $4,198
- Toyota Prius Hybrid. $4,359
- Toyota Prius Prime Plug-in hybrid. $4,427
- Toyota Corolla $4,434
- Toyota GR Corolla $4,566
- Honda Prologue Electric. $4,570
- Toyota Camry $4,580
- Nissan ARIYA Electric. $4,635
- Hyundai Kona Electric $4,709
- Volkswagen ID.4 Electric. $4,768
- Toyota GR86 $4,805
- Subaru Solterra Electric. $4,811
- Toyota Crown $4,897
- Kia EV6 Electric. $4,978
- Hyundai IONIQ 5 Electric. $5,011
Cheapest brands to maintain (10-year)
Brand-level 10-year maintenance projections from CarEdge. Lower is better.
- Tesla Cheapest brand No oil changes; fewer wear parts. $5,867
- Toyota Cheapest mainstream gas/hybrid brand. $5,996
- Lexus Cheapest luxury brand to maintain. $7,786
- Mitsubishi $7,787
- Honda $7,827
- Mazda $8,035
- Nissan $8,088
- MINI $8,155
- Volkswagen $8,166
- GMC $8,429
Why this matters for your cost of ownership
Maintenance is the cost-of-ownership line you have the most control over at the point of purchase. Two cars with similar sticker prices can differ by thousands of dollars in projected 10-year upkeep, and that gap compounds the longer you keep the car. EVs and hybrids win the maintenance line but can lose it back on depreciation and insurance, so maintenance alone never settles the question. Plug a model's maintenance tier into our TCO calculator alongside its depreciation, insurance, and fuel to see the real five-year total, not just one line of it.
Open the 5-Year TCO calculatorHow this ranking is measured
CarEdge projects each model's accumulated maintenance and repair cost over a fixed ownership window (here, 10 years) and ranks 186 popular models from lowest to highest. The figures cover scheduled maintenance and unplanned repairs but exclude fuel, insurance, depreciation, and collision damage. CarEdge's broader maintenance dataset is built from more than 16 million vehicles across 356 models and over $2 billion in real service costs. Electric and hydrogen vehicles cluster at the top of the cheap list because they have no oil changes, fewer moving parts, and regenerative braking that extends brake life; conventional Toyota hybrids and compacts follow closely.
Source: CarEdge, Car Maintenance Cost Rankings (10-Year) (2025). CarEdge ranks 186 popular models by projected accumulated maintenance and repair cost over 10 years. Its underlying maintenance dataset draws on more than 16 million vehicles across 356 models and over $2 billion in service costs. View the original study ↗
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest car to maintain?
By CarEdge's projected 10-year maintenance data, the Toyota Mirai is the cheapest car to maintain at $3,179 over a decade, followed by the Nissan LEAF ($3,216) and Toyota bZ4X ($3,479). Electric and hydrogen vehicles dominate the cheapest list because they skip oil changes and wear their brakes more slowly. Among conventional cars, the Toyota Corolla Hatchback leads at $4,198.
Are electric cars really cheaper to maintain?
On the maintenance line, generally yes. EVs have no engine oil, spark plugs, or multi-speed transmission, and regenerative braking extends brake life, so routine maintenance is lower — which is why they fill the top of CarEdge's cheapest-to-maintain list. But maintenance is only one line of total cost of ownership: EVs tend to depreciate faster, so a cheap maintenance bill does not automatically make an EV the cheapest car to own overall.
Does cheap maintenance mean a car is cheap to own?
Not by itself. Maintenance is usually a smaller line than depreciation and often smaller than insurance over five years. A model with low projected maintenance can still be expensive to own if it loses value quickly or costs a lot to insure. Use maintenance as one input — then run the full picture, including depreciation and insurance, through a total-cost-of-ownership calculation.
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