Buying a luxury car? Your gas and EV options cost about the same. Otherwise, expect to pay nearly $16,000 more to go electric.

• Premium electric vehicles now cost nearly the same as premium gas-powered cars, JD Power says.
• But mass market EVs are still significantly more expensive than their mass market gas counterparts.

One of the biggest sticking points about EVs right now is their price. But while it might sound counterintuitive, luxury electric cars might cost shoppers less than mass-market EVs.

Take one interesting match-up as an example of the pricing dynamics: Drivers could get a luxurious EV from Mercedes-Benz for a more affordable price tag, on a relative basis, than a Ford Mustang Mach-E, a new analysis out of auto market research firm JD Power found.

JD Power says the Mercedes-Benz EQB (what it calls the most affordable EV relative to its comparable ICE models in the compact premium SUV segment) will run a driver $72,107 over five years. Buying the comparable gas-powered ride would cost about $71,420 across the same period, or a $687 difference.

But the Ford Mustang Mach-E (which JD Power calls the least affordable EV in the mass market compact SUV segment) would cost about $67,719 over five years. Meanwhile, a comparable gas-powered ride would cost $51,477 during that period, a dramatic difference of $16,242.

The pricing dynamics are even more stark when leasing. The average total cost of ownership on a three-year lease (including the payment, operating costs, and more) for a Mach-E hit $39,868 in July, while the EQB cost $36,969 — $2,899 cheaper.

(JD Power did note that once Ford started passing through the full federal tax credit of $7,500 to Mach-E lessees, leasing costs came down.)

A look at the numbers

It's interesting to compare the cost of driving a luxury or premium EV with the cost of driving a premium internal combustion engine vehicle, alongside the cost of driving a mass market EV compared with that for driving its gas-powered equivalent.

For instance, a premium compact electric SUV has an average five-year total cost of ownership of $71,707, according to JD Power — high, but just $287 higher than the average for gas-powered cars of that segment.

But for a mass-market compact electric SUV, the average five-year total cost runs $60,736 — or a whopping $9,259 more than the average for comparable internal combustion engine vehicles, per JD Power.

"That dynamic is playing out in favor of the premium brand buyer where the affordability gap between EVs and comparable ICE vehicles is negligible," the JD Power analysis said. "In the mass market segment, however, EVs come with a hefty premium over their ICE counterparts."

Overall, mass-market EVs cost $16,000 more than their gas-market counterparts. The TL;DR? Higher-end buyers essentially have more comparable EV options to buy today than everyday consumers.

What this means

Most consumers assume all electric vehicles are more expensive than gas-powered ones, and to some extent, they're right. The average transaction price for a new EV cost $53,376 in August, while average transaction prices for cars overall hovered around $48,451, per Kelley Blue Book.

Certainly, there are costly, $100,000-plus EVs, like the Lucid Air, and far more affordable ones, like the $27,000 Chevrolet Bolt. Regardless, pricing, in general, is improving as battery tech improves, automakers scale, more consumers buy electric, and inventory builds up.

The industry is racing toward price parity between EVs and gas cars. It's especially important for the electric cars that drivers actually want to drive, like SUVs.

Many shoppers are anxiously awaiting products like the electric Chevrolet Equinox, which is supposed to launch at around $40,000 with a later $30,000 offering, a sweet spot in terms of the pricing of rival products also in the compact SUV segment.