The survey commissioned by car subscription service Carbar had a sample size of 500 people, which revealed nearly half had a current car subscription.

More than two thirds of respondents said they'd prefer to access an electric vehicle (EV) via subscription due to the high upfront costs associated with the cars. 

Three quarters, or 75%, said they'd prefer to hold onto their subscription EV for at least a year, swapping vehicles every second or third year, while 17% would finance one and only 6% would consider buying one outright.

Carbar CEO Des Hang said EV adoption is contingent on cost.

"That will be a focus for us as we look to increase our total proportion of EVs in our fleet to 25% over the next few years," Mr Hang said.

"We’re seeing a lot of new auto brands launch directly into the EV market in Australia, and that's really promising for the broadening of this trend.

"Their biggest challenge is building trust with consumers, but we believe subscriptions can accelerate this process, by giving consumers more affordable access to their cars.

"Soon we’ll start to see a correlation between EV adoption and the growth of car subscriptions in Australia. The ability to factor all of your car costs into a weekly budget is proving compelling for Australians, and I believe we'll see many new and existing subscribers take-up EV cars as more become available in Australia."

Carbar has car subscriptions starting from $138 per week, and became the first car subscription service to sign up to the Electric Vehicle Council.

A quick scan of the website shows a 2020 Nissan Leaf EV costs $320 per week to subscribe, while a Hyundai Ioniq EV costs $366.

See Also: Top Five Electric Vehicles Less Than or Around $50,000

Cheapest EVs to own and run

RACQ's car running costs report from 2020 shows the average electric vehicle costs $1,273.10 per month to run, or just under $294 per week.

While five vehicles fell into RACQ's category, only three were fully electric, with the remaining two plug-in hybrids. 

Nonetheless, the rankings were:

  1. Hyundai Ioniq Elite PHEV - $1,098.42
  2. Hyundai Ioniq EV - $1,216.02
  3. Nissan Leaf EV - $1,292.71
  4. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV - $1,306.20
  5. Hyundai Kona Elite EV - $1,452.14 

In 2019, RACQ measured the Tesla Model X100D, which came out at a cost of $25,500 per year, or about $490 per week.

RACQ's study factors in the purchase price, loan repayments, registration and insurance, tyres, servicing and other running costs, using a metric of five years' ownership, driving 15,000km a year, and a loan repayment of 5.54% p.a.

Photo by Ed Harvey on Unsplash