Are EVs cheaper to maintain?

The government has recently announced the new Road Tax regulation for EVs. This announcement adds a new price tag for prospective EV car owners to consider before buying their dream car. So, is it worth it? In this article, we will compare the yearly ownership costs of several EVs and see how they compare with a Carro Certified car.

EV maintenance costs

When it comes to maintenance, petrol cars have a greater variety of options. You can go to your brand’s authorised service centre or find any local mechanic to get everything sorted out. No matter the brand and make, if your car runs on petrol, you will be able to find a mechanic for your petrol car.

However, EVs were introduced to the market relatively recently, so local mechanics lack the know-how to fix and maintain these vehicles, not to mention the lack of parts. This leaves authorised service centres like BYD, Chery, and GWM. Tesla also has a service centre but the pricing has not yet been made public, so we will be using the numbers obtained from servicing it at a local mechanic.

The EVs will be compared with the standard Mazda services as a comparison. Labour fees are included.

Surprisingly, servicing an EV is significantly more expensive than servicing a Mazda 3 for 7 years, despite the latter having many more items requiring servicing. The exception is the Ora Good Cat, which has neither labour costs nor SST for the first 5 services which makes it slightly cheaper to service than the Mazda 3.

EV battery replacement costs

Next up is battery replacement. Although expensive in 2024, prices are expected to become more affordable as more countries develop their own battery production facilities and technology improves. For example, prices dropped 14% from 2022 to 2023.

Since the estimated price of a battery is $80/kWh or RM377.56/kWh in 2030, we will use it to compare the average yearly cost over 7 years between the BYD Atto 3, BYD Seal, Chery Omoda E5, GMW Ora Good Cat and the Tesla Model 3 with a full battery replacement.

As you can see, battery replacement pushes EV maintenance costs of all the EVs into the four-digit range. Compared to the Mazda 3’s RM386/year, that is a rather steep price to pay.

EV road tax

For now, EVs are not required to pay any road tax, but this will change in January 2026 when EV owners will start to pay road tax for their electric cars. The car’s electric motor’s power determines the road tax you have to pay. You can see the full chart below.

• BYD Atto 3 – 150 kW
  • RM160
• Chery Omoda E5 – 150 kW
  • RM160
• GWM Ora Good Cat 500 Ultra – 105 kW
  • RM80
• BYD Seal Performance – 390 kW
  • RM965
• Tesla Model 3 Performance AWD – 393 kW
  • RM1,015
• Mazda 3 Sedan High Plus Skyactiv-G 2.0L – 1988cc
  • RM379

Do note that the ICE road tax prices are generally lower than their EV counterparts except the BYD Seal and Tesla Model 3 which have monstrous 390 kWh electric motors that make their road taxes more expensive.

Read more: How to do online road tax renewal

EV recharging costs

One of the biggest expenses for car owners is fuel, and naturally, a car’s fuel efficiency often correlates with lower long-term payments. As the government mulls over when to remove the RON 95 subsidy, it is only a matter of time before petrol costs increase, even if it doesn’t rise to the estimated RM3.35 a litre. To make a fair comparison, we will add recharging costs into the calculation for a more complete picture of EV ownership costs.

Read more: RON95 vs RON97

When it comes to EVs, where you recharge matters. Charging at home will always be cheaper than outside, plus you get the benefit of charging it overnight and not having to wait by your car doing nothing. So even if your electricity bill might spike a little at home, the bill is still much cheaper than petrol based on the table below:

Using the domestic rate of RM0.57 per kWh, we can calculate how much the 5 electric cars would spend to travel 100 km and compare it with the fuel consumption of a Mazda 3 at RM3.35 per litre of RON95.

As shown in the table above, Mazda 3’s fuel consumption is about double the Tesla Model 3’s recharging cost, the most expensive EV.

Tallying the total costs

Now that we have all the information, we can add it all up and get the average yearly maintenance cost for each car.

As seen in the table above, Mazda 3’s yearly costs are lower than all the EVs! This is despite the Mazda 3 being a sedan like the Tesla Model 3 and BYD Seal. Even the cheapest EV, the GMW Ora Good Cat, has a maintenance cost of roughly RM1,000 more than the Mazda 3, despite being only a hatchback!

The maintenance costs will only increase from there, with the Tesla Model 3 costing almost double the yearly commitment of the Mazda. So if you are considering an EV, perhaps you should consider a Carro Certified car instead! You’ll get more bang for your buck!

Not convinced? All Carro Certified cars are thoroughly inspected through our 160-point inspection before being thoroughly refurbished to be As Good As New. Our cars are also guaranteed to have no mileage tampering, no major accidents, fire and flood damage and also receive a 12-month warranty for the engine & gearbox. Check out our catalogue of Carro Certified cars for the right car for you and book a test drive today!

EV road tax chart