10 little tips to get the most out of your new electric car

Just got an electric vehicle, got one on the way, or thinking of switching? Welcome to a new, growing and very enthusiastic club.

In April 2026, nearly one in five new cars sold in Australia was electric, and the ongoing Middle East oil crisis was the final push many families needed to purge themselves of petrol.

But while you can enjoy the novelty of paying no attention whatsoever to petrol prices, like any new technology, there can be a lot to know to get the best out of it.

And once you do know, you can save some serious bucks – some higher-mileage Australians are saving up to $10,000 a year driving an EV over a petrol car.

In this article, we run you through 10 tips (with many more woven throughout) to get the best out of your new EV. Put them to work, and you’ll be 90 per cent ahead of those who haven’t.

If you’ve already bought one, we’re off to a bad start… but if you haven’t, and your employer offers novated leasing options, you might be able to take advantage of the Australian Government’s current Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemption for EVs under $91,387.

You also don’t pay upfront GST on the vehicle’s purchase price. It won’t suit everyone, but the higher your income, the more tax you might be able to offset – just by paying off your car and all its running costs.

But beware: it pays to do your own research, to carefully read the fine print, and to understand what you’re signing. Some novated lease providers will sting you with high interest and hidden fees – and you’ll want to make sure the financial benefits of the FBT exemption are going into your pocket, not that of your novated lease provider.

If you're considering making the fully electric transition, opting for a novated lease could be financially beneficial depending on your circumstances.

First, your EV will likely come with ‘connected services’, meaning it’s connected to the same network as your mobile phone and can communicate with it via an app. Download this, set it up and play around with it.

It can unlock an entirely different experience of owning an EV (including some features we’ll come back to) and might even let you use your phone as the car’s key.

Next, there might be public EV chargers available nationwide, but they are supplied by a web of different companies, each with its own app. You’ll want to download the big ones ahead of time, enter your credit card details, and have them ready to go.

The main ones are Tesla, Evie and Chargefox, but there’s also BP Pulse, Ampol AmpCharge, NRMA and more. If you’re going to recharge your EV at public chargers, check your area to see what’s available nearby.

When you’re on a road trip with 10 per cent battery, screaming kids and pulling into some remote public EV charger in the pouring rain, you will thank yourself.

If you will be travelling all over the place with your EV and charging with lots of different brands – and maybe outside of mobile reception – research getting an RFID card.

Forget home solar, if it’s the closest thing to ‘free’ motoring you want, charging at work with the boss’s permission could be it, provided you can find a plug and park close enough to it.

Separately, as a general rule, keep an AC charging cable in the car. On-site AC chargers are popping up everywhere – at hotels for guests, at leisure centres with local councils. Many are ‘free’, but many also require you to BYO cable.

If you can’t charge at work, charging at home is the next best thing. If you only do 30km or so each day – about the same as the average Aussie – the wall socket in your garage might be fine overnight.

If you find that overnight charging and a standard powerpoint aren’t quite working for you, talk options with an electrician. You probably won’t need a dedicated AC wallbox, professionally installed, unless you do big kilometres in your EV each day.

Many pair their EV with a home solar setup, but before you shell out thousands for that, look into EV off-peak electricity plans first – while peak rates are higher, some offer rates as low as 5c/kWh between midnight and 6am.

Most EVs allow you to schedule charging to the hour, either in the infotainment screen or via the app. If you have a 12am to 6am plan, there’s no harm in scheduling your dryer to come on after midnight in winter, and all the heaters in the house for 30 minutes from 5.30am.

Depending on how much you drive each day, charging your EV at home with a standard wall socket may be a better option than charging at work.

From not leaving your car plugged in and fully charged while people are waiting to charge only to 80 per cent, we’ve written an entire article on public charging etiquette.

It also helps to know what battery your EV has. Most EVs have a lithium-ion nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery, and manufacturers recommend not charging past 80 per cent regularly to minimise long-term battery degradation.

Also, at public charging stations, your EV's charging can slow considerably after reaching 80 per cent, making it pointless if 80 per cent is all you need and people are waiting for the charger.

Some newer EVs now employ lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery tech, which can be recharged to 100 per cent with fewer long-term degradation concerns. It pays to know what your car has.

Once you’ve downloaded the manufacturer’s app (if your EV has connected services), get your head around pre-heating or pre-cooling your car’s interior.

The days of getting into a freezing car on an early winter’s morning and waiting for the engine to warm up before the heater works will feel like something the Flintstones did.

Or, if you’ve got one very upset little baby and it’s a 40-degree day, pre-cool your EV’s interior using your phone so that you are putting bub into a beautifully cooled car.

Even better, pre-heat or pre-cool your car’s interior while it’s plugged in at home, so you’re drawing power from mains rather than the car’s battery, preserving range when you set off. Some EVs will let you schedule a ‘set-off’ time and take care of the climate for you in advance.

Modern electric cars can easily pre-heat or pre-cool your vehicle's interior through their connected services.

Many EVs come with a household 240-volt power outlet, turning them into an enormous, days-long power bank. This is called Vehicle-To-Load (V2L). There is a dizzying number of ways you can take advantage of this.

Some people use their EV to power household appliances when camping, such as lights or a coffee machine, or to recharge devices like electric mountain bikes.

Some have used their EV’s V2L to keep phones charged and power their garage chest freezer (full of food) during blackouts – or for far more important things like dialysis machines.

Some use it to recharge a laptop between work meetings or for power tools on worksites. Some car brands have sent small fleets of V2L-equipped EVs into disaster areas for blackout relief.

Picture this: you fill your EV with the entire family, a weekend’s worth of luggage, put mountain bikes on the roof racks and then need to blast the heater so those in the back don’t complain.

At 110km/h, in these circumstances, as you venture into public fast-charger wilderness, you might find your EV’s range is nowhere near what you thought.

Aerodynamic drag is the greatest variable for energy consumption in an EV – even slowing down from 110km/h to 90km/h can increase range by up to 20–30 per cent depending on the car.

An EV's real-world driving range depends on several external factors, such as the car's weight and even its speed.

Range and energy efficiency matter more to an EV than arguably a combustion car; tyre pressures also matter more. Too-low tyre pressures will impact your EV’s range.

Also, don’t leave things like roof boxes on your EV unless you need to, as they can reduce range, especially at higher speeds.

Your EV might have 500km of range, but it’s still worth thinking through where you’ll charge it on longer trips – and checking ahead of time whether the chargers are in working order.

Download PlugShare, which relies on crowd-sourced data from the EV community. It's invaluable for researching chargers on a road trip and seeing if ones ahead of you are free or occupied (don’t forget to check in yourself and let other app users know how long you’ll be).

Do you own an EV? What are some tips or tricks we’ve left out that you think a new owner should know? Let us know in the comments below.

Dylan Campbell has been road-testing and writing about cars and the new-car industry since 2006. An independent motoring expert based in Melbourne, Dylan is a former Editor of Wheels Magazine, MOTOR Magazine and the TopGear Australia website.

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