Here's how much it costs to service every electric car currently available in Australia.
Cost is often considered the biggest barrier to the uptake of electric cars in Australia, with battery-powered vehicles typically attracting a price premium over their fuel-powered counterparts.
However, while the purchase price may be high, electric cars typically have cheaper ongoing running costs than petrol or diesel cars – particularly when it comes to servicing.
For example, the fuel-powered BMW X3 costs $2010 to service over five years, while its electric twin, the BMW iX3, costs $1650 over six years – with service visits only required every two years.
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In fact, the electric cars that are the cheapest to service also happen to be the ones with some of the highest purchase prices.
The Audi e-tron, which starts at $139,900 plus on-road costs, offers free servicing for the first six years, while the Jaguar I-Pace, priced from $142,580 plus on-road costs, provides free servicing for the first five years or 200,000km.
The Polestar 2 and Volvo XC40 Recharge are also offered with complimentary servicing coverage for five and three years, respectively.
The Polestar 2 electric car is offered with five years of free servicing.
Excluding models with free servicing plans, the most affordable electric cars to service in Australia include the MG ZS EV, which costs an annual average of $223 over a six-year period, or the Kia EV6, which costs an annual average of $226 over a seven-year period.
“Electric vehicles have far fewer moving parts than internal combustion-engined cars,” Behyad Jafari, CEO of the Electric Vehicle Council, tells Drive,
“There are less things that can go wrong and the most common maintenance checks – like oil changes – often don’t exist.
“You’ll still need to get your brake pads changed and your tyres might wear out, but not every six months, so service intervals can be a couple of years.”
The MG ZS EV costs an average of
While electric cars can remove certain servicing issues altogether – like oil changes, or spark plug or fuel filter replacements – they do have their own set of challenges and considerations.
“It’s less about wear and tear and more so to do with faults inside the car,” Mr Jafari says.
“Given electric vehicles are new cars with lots of the latest new technologies, it might be more to do with an alert on your phone telling you something.
"[Unlike internal combustion engine cars] It’s not something the driver has to think about, the car will alert you and do the thinking for you. A lot of electric vehicles the software systems have over-the-air updates too.”
To see the quoted servicing costs for every electric car currently on sale in Australia, keep reading...
* Highest annual average cost was calculated by taking an annual average from the most expensive pre-paid or capped-price servicing plan available. It doesn't account for servicing costs beyond the stipulated pre-paid or capped-price servicing term.
Susannah Guthrie has been a journalist since she was 18, and has spent the last two years writing about cars for Drive, CarAdvice, CarSales and as a motoring columnist for several in-flight and hotel magazines. Susannah’s background is news journalism, followed by several years spent in celebrity journalism, entertainment journalism and fashion magazines and a brief stint hosting a travel TV show for Channel Ten. She joined Drive in 2020 after spending a year and a half at the helm of Harper’s BAZAAR and ELLE’s online platforms. Susannah holds a Bachelor in Media and Communications from the University of Melbourne and cut her teeth as an intern for Time Inc in New York City. She has also completed a television presenting course with the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and her one-year-old son who, despite her best efforts, does not yet enjoy a good road trip.
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Copyright Drive.com.au 2022ABN: 84 116 608 158
DAP Pricing– Unless otherwise stated, all prices are shown as Manufacturer's Recommended List Price (MRLP) inclusive of GST, exclusive of options and on road costs.