ACL 390611 | MFAA Member | Last updated
Electric Vehicle Loans.One Car. Two Ways to Hold It.
Buy the car yourself with a secured loan, or take the same car through your employer on a novated lease where an exemption may apply. Those two routes can cost very different amounts. We arrange both and we price both before you choose.
15 minutes. Bring the car you are looking at and whether your employer offers salary packaging. No paperwork, no obligation, and no lender is approached without your say-so. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement and we disclose it in writing before any work begins.
Intellect Finance – Electric Vehicle Loans
Independent since 2005 | ACL 390611What Is an Electric Vehicle Loan and How Is It Different From a Novated Lease?
An electric vehicle loan is an ordinary secured car loan used to buy an electric car in your own name. A novated lease is a three-way arrangement between you, your employer and a financier, and where the car qualifies it can attract the fringe benefits tax exemption for eligible electric cars. Same car, two ways of holding it, two very different cost outcomes.
The loan itself is not the interesting part of an electric car purchase. Rates and terms are set the way they are on any vehicle. What is different is that the tax system treats an eligible electric car provided through an employer unlike anything else on the road, and that treatment has a value ceiling, a date, a vehicle type test and a set of catches that are rarely explained at the same time as the saving.
Where the car is for personal, domestic or household use, this is regulated consumer credit and Best Interests Duty applies. Under ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 we are legally required to act in your best interests and to put your interests ahead of ours where they conflict. A car acquired for business use sits outside that framework and belongs on our commercial vehicle finance page.
Common Situations
Why Electric Car Buyers Come to Us
Six situations cover most of it. Five of them are really the same question asked differently: which of the two routes is actually cheaper for me.
Your employer offers salary packaging and you do not know if it wins
The most common one. Someone has shown you a novated lease quote with a large saving on it and nothing to compare it against. The comparison is a car loan on the same car over the same period, and it is the first thing we build.
No employer arrangement available to you
Self-employed, contracting, between roles, or your employer simply will not do it. Then the exemption is not reachable and the decision is a straightforward secured car loan. Most of this page still matters, because it tells you what you are not missing out on.
Buying a used electric car
A second-hand electric car raises questions a petrol equivalent does not, including battery condition, remaining warranty and how a lender values it at the end of a term. It also raises a tax question, because the value test looks at more than the sale in front of you.
You are looking at a plug-in hybrid
The rules changed on 1 April 2025 and most of what you will read online still describes the position before that. If you are comparing a plug-in hybrid against a battery electric car on tax treatment, they are no longer in the same category.
The charger and the car in one conversation
Home charging equipment can usually be funded. It is treated differently to the car for tax purposes though, and knowing which side of the line it falls on before you sign is worth a few minutes.
Part business use or a company car
Once the car is acquired for business purposes it is a different regulatory framework and a different page. Ours is commercial vehicle finance, and a business running several sits on fleet finance.
Social Proof
120+ Five-Star Google Reviews
Car buyers and salary packaged employees alongside home buyers, investors and business owners. Pulled live from Google, not curated by us.
Joseph Sukkar
Principal Broker · ACL 390611
Who You’re Dealing With
Built on 25 Years in Australian Finance
Joseph Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded Intellect Finance in Penrith in 2005. Since then the team has arranged more than 6,500 loans for clients across Australia, from first homes to complex commercial and asset finance.
Electric car work sits with Chantelle, our Asset and Personal Finance Specialist. We can arrange either route, which is exactly why the comparison has to be built properly rather than argued. A quote with a saving printed on it is not a comparison until someone puts the other option beside it over the same period on the same car.
Part of Our 100+ Lender Panel
The names most people recognise are residential lenders. Much of what we arrange runs through funders that do not advertise to the public. Accreditation with a lender is not an endorsement by it, and which lender suits you is decided by your file rather than by who is on this list.
Bring Us the Novated Quote You Were Given
Fifteen minutes and the same car on a loan beside it. Then you can actually choose.What Actually Decides It
How You Hold the Car Decides What It Costs You
Two people can buy the identical electric car in the same week and pay materially different amounts for it, without either of them getting a better rate. The difference is whether the car is bought in their own name or provided through an employer, because the fringe benefits tax exemption for eligible electric cars attaches to the arrangement rather than to the vehicle. Six things follow from that and none of them is the interest rate.
The exemption belongs to the arrangement and not to the car
Buy an electric car yourself with a loan and there is no exemption, because there is no fringe benefit to exempt. The exemption applies to the private use of an eligible electric car provided by an employer. So the first question is never which lender. It is whether the second route is open to you at all.
There is a price ceiling and it is tested more than once
The car must be valued below the luxury car tax threshold for fuel efficient vehicles, and the ATO applies that test when the car is first sold in a retail sale and in any subsequent sale. The threshold is $91,661 for 2026-27. It is a cliff rather than a slope, and a used car that sat above it when new does not come back under it later.
Plug-in hybrids came out of this on 1 April 2025
From that date a plug-in hybrid is not treated as a zero or low emissions vehicle. An existing arrangement continues only where the car was used or available for use before 1 April 2025 under an exempt arrangement and there is a financially binding commitment to keep providing private use. Change that commitment and the exemption stops from the date of the new one.
The electricity is covered. The charger is not.
Associated expenses inside the exemption include registration, insurance, repairs or maintenance and fuel, and the ATO says fuel includes the cost of electricity to charge the car. It also says a home charging station is not a car expense associated with providing a car fringe benefit. For the electricity itself the ATO sets a rate of 4.20 cents per kilometre in Practical Compliance Guideline 2024/2, which applies to a battery electric vehicle rather than a plug-in hybrid and needs odometer records. The equipment and the energy sit on opposite sides of the same line.
Exempt from the tax is not the same as invisible
The ATO is explicit that although the private use of an eligible electric car is exempt from fringe benefits tax, it is still a reportable fringe benefit. Reportable amounts appear on your income statement and are used in income tests. This is the catch that is almost never on the quote, and for some households it is the whole decision.
The NSW purchase incentives are gone
Revenue NSW states that the stamp duty refund and the rebate for all eligible electric vehicle purchases ended on 1 January 2024. They covered new battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles up to a dutiable value of $78,000. A great deal of what is still published about buying an electric car in NSW assumes they are running.
Checked 1 September 2026. Tax rules from the Australian Taxation Office: the electric cars exemption, FBT on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the luxury car tax thresholds and the home charging rate in Practical Compliance Guideline 2024/2. The NSW position is from Revenue NSW. Each rule carries conditions this page does not reproduce. Everything else on this page is described in the important information at the foot of the page.
We are finance brokers rather than tax agents, and none of this is advice on your circumstances. It is here because the tax treatment decides the answer more often than the loan does, and nobody can compare the two routes for you without it. Bring the quote and we will build the other side.
The Honest Comparison
Car Loan or Novated Lease?
The real question on this page. We can arrange either one, which makes it more important to set both out properly rather than to argue for the one in front of you.
Buy the car in your own name with a secured loan
- You own the car and it is nobody else’s business what you do with it
- Nothing is tied to your employer, so changing jobs changes nothing
- Regulated consumer credit, so Best Interests Duty and the responsible lending obligations apply
- No value ceiling and no vehicle type test to fall foul of
- Every dollar is paid out of income you have already been taxed on
Take the same car through your employer where it qualifies
- An eligible electric car can attract the fringe benefits tax exemption
- Registration, insurance, servicing and charging can sit inside the one arrangement
- Payments come out before tax rather than after it
- It needs an employer willing to enter the arrangement and it follows your job
- It is still a reportable fringe benefit even when no tax is payable on it
We can arrange both of these and they do not pay us the same, so here is the offer. Ask us which route earns us more on your particular car and we will tell you the answer before you decide anything. It is in the written disclosure either way, and a broker who will not answer that question in a sentence is telling you something.
The exemption is a cliff and not a slope. A car a dollar over the fuel efficient luxury car tax threshold does not get a smaller benefit. It gets none. That makes the temptation on this page an expensive one: a saving that only exists below a line is not a reason to spend more, and we have watched people talk themselves up a model range until the whole benefit disappeared.
If you are likely to change jobs, weigh that before the rate. A novated lease is tied to your employment, and what happens to it when you leave depends on the arrangement and on your next employer. That is a real risk with a real cost, it is rarely on the quote, and it is a better reason to choose a plain car loan than anything to do with pricing.
And if no employer arrangement is available to you, this decision is already made. Self-employed, contracting, or working somewhere that will not offer it, and the exemption is simply out of reach. A secured car loan is the answer and there is nothing you are missing out on. We would rather tell you that in the first fifteen minutes than let you find it out after you have chosen a car.
Ask Us Which Route Pays Us More
We arrange both. You get the answer in a sentence and the two costings side by side before you choose. Fifteen minutes. No obligation.The Difference
A Quote With a Saving on It Is Not a Comparison
Almost everyone arrives holding one number from one route. The work is building the other side of it on the same car over the same period, and then saying which one wins.
Legally Required to Act in Your Best Interests
A car for personal use is regulated consumer credit, so Best Interests Duty applies to us and the responsible lending obligations apply to the lender. Under ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 we must act in your best interests and put your interests ahead of ours where they conflict. That is a legal duty rather than a promise.
We Build Both Sides
The same car, the same period, a secured loan against a novated arrangement, with the catches priced rather than mentioned. That comparison is the deliverable and it is the reason we sometimes finish it by telling you the route we did not quote is the one to take.
No Fee. Not Even Clawback.
We do not charge you for the comparison, the structuring or the applications, on either route. If a facility is paid out early we wear the clawback ourselves rather than invoicing you for it. Lenders pay a commission on settlement, disclosed to you in writing before any work begins.
We Name the Catches First
The reportable fringe benefit, the value ceiling, what happens if you change jobs, and the plug-in hybrid cutoff. These are the four things that turn a good arrangement into a poor one, and none of them tends to appear on a quote. We raise them before you choose rather than after.
The Process
How the Comparison Gets Built
Four steps. The second one is the whole point and it is the one nobody does for you.
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15 minutes
The car and whether the second route is open
Which car, roughly what it costs, whether it is new or used, and whether your employer offers salary packaging at all. That last one decides half the page. No documents and no applications at this stage.
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We build it
Both routes on the same car over the same period
A secured loan beside the novated arrangement, with the value ceiling checked, the vehicle type confirmed and the reportable amount raised with you rather than buried. If one route clearly wins we say so here, including when it is the one we did not quote.
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You gather
Documents
Less than most people expect on a car, and more if the novated route is chosen because your employer becomes part of it. We confirm exactly what your chosen lender wants before you go looking for any of it.
- Photo identification and licence
- Recent payslips or income evidence
- Recent bank statements
- Living expenses and existing commitments
- An invoice or sale details for the car
- Your employer’s packaging details on the novated route
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We manage
From approval through to delivery
We deal with the lender and the seller, and on a novated arrangement with your employer and its packaging provider as well. You get the written disclosure of how we are paid and why we recommended what we did before anything is signed.
Track Record
Independent Since 2005
Car and personal finance sits with Chantelle, who does this work every day, rather than with whoever happens to be free that afternoon.
Related Options
Other Ways to Fund a Car
An electric car sits inside a wider set of choices. These are the neighbours, and one of them is on the list precisely because we think twice about it.
Car loans generally
The wider picture on buying any car, including what happens at the point of sale and the checks worth running before you hand over money.
A car bought for business use
A different regulatory framework and a different set of tax thresholds, decided by what the vehicle is rather than by how it is powered.
A business electrifying several
Where the question stops being one car and becomes a replacement cycle across a group of them.
Borrowing without the car as security
An unsecured personal loan leaves the car out of it entirely, which costs more in rate and buys you something in flexibility.
Funding a car from home equity
People do it, and it lowers the rate while stretching a car across a mortgage term. Read that page before deciding it is the cheap option.
Every asset we finance
Back up to the full range, including the financing structures set out side by side and how each one is treated.
Find Out Which Route Actually Wins.
Fifteen minutes and you will have both costings on the same car.Questions Answered
Electric Vehicle Loan FAQs
The questions electric car buyers ask us most often before getting in touch.
Can I get a loan for an electric car?
Yes, and it is an ordinary secured car loan. The lender takes security over the vehicle, the rate and term are set the way they are on any car, and the loan is regulated consumer credit where the car is for personal use. What differs on an electric car is not the loan. It is the second route to the same car, through an employer.
Is a novated lease better than a car loan for an electric car?
Sometimes, and it depends on things that have nothing to do with the car. A novated lease is arranged between you, your employer and a financier, and an eligible electric car provided that way can attract the fringe benefits tax exemption. That needs an employer willing to enter the arrangement and it comes with catches. We can arrange either route and we price both.
What is the FBT electric car exemption?
An exemption from fringe benefits tax for the private use of an eligible electric car provided by an employer. The Australian Taxation Office limits it to a battery electric vehicle or a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle designed to carry a load of less than one tonne and fewer than nine passengers, first held and used on or after 1 July 2022, and valued below the luxury car tax threshold for fuel efficient vehicles.
Does the exemption apply to a plug-in hybrid?
Not any more. From 1 April 2025 a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle is not treated as a zero or low emissions vehicle for this purpose. An existing arrangement can continue only where the car was used or available for use before that date under an exempt arrangement and there is a financially binding commitment to keep providing private use. Change that commitment and the exemption stops.
Is there still a rebate or stamp duty exemption on an electric car in NSW?
No. Revenue NSW states that the stamp duty refund and the rebate for all eligible electric vehicle purchases ended on 1 January 2024. They applied to new battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with a dutiable value up to $78,000. Anything you read describing a current NSW purchase incentive is out of date. Other states set their own rules.
Can I finance a home charger along with the car?
The charger can usually be funded, but keep it separate in your head from the tax question. The ATO position is that a home charging station is not a car expense associated with providing a car fringe benefit for electric cars, so it sits outside the exemption even where the car is inside it. The electricity itself is treated differently to the equipment.
If the car is exempt from FBT does it show up anywhere else?
Yes, and this is the part people are not told. The ATO states that although the private use of an eligible electric car is exempt from fringe benefits tax, it is still a reportable fringe benefit. Reportable amounts appear on your income statement and feed into income-tested obligations and entitlements. Ask your employer what your figure would be before you sign.
Does Best Interests Duty apply to an electric vehicle loan?
Yes, where the car is for personal, domestic or household use. That makes it regulated consumer credit, and under ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 we are legally required to act in your best interests and to put your interests ahead of our own where they conflict. A car acquired for business use sits outside that framework, on our commercial vehicle finance page.
Visit Us
Penrith Based.Clients Australia-Wide.
Penrith is our head office and the one you can walk into without an appointment. We also meet clients at Parramatta and in the Sydney CBD by arrangement. Car finance runs almost entirely by phone and email, and we arrange and settle for buyers in every state.
Parramatta
Suite 23, Level 1, 181 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
Commercial finance broker Parramatta →Sydney CBD
Level 18, 25 Bligh St, Sydney NSW 2000
Commercial finance broker Sydney CBD →Ready When You Are
Bring Us the Car and the Quote.
Fifteen minutes with Chantelle. Tell us which car you are looking at and whether your employer offers salary packaging, and we will build both routes on the same car over the same period and tell you which one wins.
No paperwork, no obligation. Penrith based, clients Australia-wide. Intellect Finance Pty Ltd, ACL 390611.
Where a car is acquired for personal, domestic or household use, the credit is regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and the Best Interests Duty applies to us. We disclose how we are paid in writing before any work begins. The tax rules described on this page are published by the Australian Taxation Office and Revenue NSW and carry conditions this page does not reproduce. We are not registered tax agents. Nothing on this page is credit assistance, tax advice, legal advice or an offer of credit, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member
Important information General information only. Not credit assistance or tax advice. We charge you no fee. Every caveat and source on this page is collected here. Tap to read.
General information only. The content on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not credit assistance, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice, and it is not an offer of credit. You should consider whether it is appropriate for you and seek your own advice before acting on it.
Best Interests Duty applies to consumer credit. Where a car is acquired for personal, domestic or household use, the credit is regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, the Best Interests Duty under Part 3-5A applies to us, and the responsible lending obligations apply to the lender. Where a vehicle is acquired wholly or predominantly for business purposes it sits outside that framework and different protections apply. If you are unsure which framework your arrangement sits in, ask and we will confirm it in writing before you sign.
A novated lease is a different arrangement to a car loan. It involves you, your employer and a financier, and its terms, tax treatment and what happens if your employment ends are determined by that arrangement rather than by us. Whether your employer will enter one, and on what conditions, is a matter for your employer and its salary packaging provider. Obtain the arrangement’s own documentation and confirm how it is regulated before you sign it.
The tax rules on this page are summaries and they are not advice. The fringe benefits tax treatment of electric cars is published by the Australian Taxation Office and carries eligibility conditions, definitions and tests that this page does not reproduce. Whether any of it applies to you depends on the car, the arrangement, your employer and your circumstances. We are finance brokers, not registered tax agents or solicitors. Confirm your own position with a registered tax agent, with your employer, or with the ATO before you rely on any of it.
The exemption is conditional and the conditions are not all on this page. Eligibility turns on the vehicle type, when the car was first held and used, and its value against the luxury car tax threshold for fuel efficient vehicles, tested at first retail sale and at any subsequent sale. Thresholds are set annually. Nothing on this page should be read as confirmation that a particular car qualifies.
An exempt benefit is still reportable. The ATO states that private use of an eligible electric car is exempt from fringe benefits tax but remains a reportable fringe benefit. Reportable amounts can affect income-tested obligations and entitlements. What that means for your household is a question for your employer and your tax agent, not for us.
State and territory incentives change and this page covers only New South Wales. The NSW stamp duty refund and rebate position stated here is as published by Revenue NSW. Other states and territories set their own rules and they are not described on this page. Confirm the current position in your own state before relying on it.
Home charging equipment is not the same as the car. Where this page notes the ATO position that a home charging station is not a car expense associated with providing a car fringe benefit, that is a statement of the tax treatment and not advice on how to fund or install one. Electrical work and its costs are matters for a licensed electrician and your own quotes.
Much of what surrounds this decision is lender and provider policy rather than law. Rates, terms, deposit expectations, vehicle age limits, what a lender will fund on a used electric car and how it treats battery condition and residual value are individual lender policy. Policy varies and changes over time. Nothing on this page sets a rule and none should be inferred.
The car is the security on a secured loan. If a facility is not met the lender can take and sell the vehicle, and any shortfall remains payable. Read what you are being asked to sign before you sign it.
Nothing here is a guarantee. Approval, borrowing capacity, pricing, terms, deposit requirements, which cars a lender will finance, age limits and how long anything takes are determined by individual lenders, not by us. They differ between lenders and change over time. Any range or timeframe on this page is indicative and is not a quote, an offer, or a prediction of your outcome.
How we are paid, and the conflict on this page. Intellect Finance does not charge borrowers a fee for arranging finance, and does not charge a clawback fee where a facility is paid out early. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement. We can arrange both a secured car loan and a novated lease, and those routes do not remunerate us identically. The basis of our remuneration on whichever route is recommended is disclosed to you in writing before any work begins, together with the options considered and the reason for the recommendation, and we will tell you which route pays us more if you ask.
Third-party information. Where this page refers to legislation, regulatory guidance or authority publications, that information is sourced from the relevant authority and was correct to the best of our knowledge at the date shown on this page. Those rules change, sometimes without notice. Always confirm the current position with the issuing authority or with us before relying on it.
Found something wrong? If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate or out of date, tell us at joe@intellectfinance.com.au and we will review and correct it.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member