The BYD Atto 1 has landed as Australia's cheapest electric vehicle, priced from $23,990 plus on-road costs. For anyone who's been priced out of going electric, this is the car that changes the maths, especially once you consider novated leasing.
Meet the Atto 1
The BYD Atto 1 is a compact city hatch, think the same size as the Toyota Yaris, but built from the ground up as an EV. It comes in two variants:
Atto 1 Essential - priced from $23,990 plus on-roads, with a 30kWh battery, a 65kW/175Nm motor, and 220km of WLTP range.
Atto 1 Premium - priced from $27,990 plus on-roads, with a larger 43.2kWh battery, a 115kW/220Nm motor and 310km of WLTP range, plus a quicker 0-100km/h time of 9.1 seconds.
The cheaper price tag doesn't compromise on your driving experience. Both variants get a 10.1-inch touchscreen, wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, a full safety suite, and V2L capability.
BYD allows you to drive with peace of mind with a 6-year/150,000km vehicle warranty and 8-year/160,000km battery warranty. Giving novated lease customers solid long-term coverage over a typical 3-5 year lease term.
Save More With The Electric Car Discount
Eligible EVs may benefit from the FBT exemption, offering significant savings on EVs in addition to the usual benefits of a novated lease.
This means that you can drive your eligible EV entirely pre-tax and GST-free. When comparing a similar value EVs and petrol cars, EVs can offer significantly more savings.
Why the price tag matters more than usual
Novated leasing can be a beneficial option thanks to lower running costs, since lease payments and car running costs can all be bundled into pre-tax and post-tax payments. But the starting point still matters. A lower vehicle price means:
- Lower lease repayments across the term, since both the principal and the GST savings on the vehicle scale with price.
- More headroom for novated extras like insurance, charging costs, tyres, and servicing within your budget, without blowing out your weekly take-home pay.
- A shorter runway to genuine savings, since you're financing less car from day one.
At under $24,000 before on-roads, the Atto 1 Essential undercuts not just every other EV on the market, but a long list of petrol and hybrid city cars too, including the Mazda 2 and Toyota Yaris. Combined with the FBT exemption, that's a rare combination: an affordable vehicle and a tax-effective structure working in the same direction.
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Best use cases for an Atto 1 novated lease
The Atto 1 isn't trying to be everything to everyone, and that's actually its strength. It's a specialist, not a generalist. Here's where it really earns its keep.
The second car in a two-car household
If your household already has a larger car for road trips, the Atto 1 is a near-perfect fit as the second car. It handles the school run, the grocery run, and the daily commute without you needing to pay for range or space you'll never use. Packaging it through a novated lease means that second car, often an overlooked expense, starts working in your favour instead of just sitting on the driveway as a sunk cost.
Metro and inner-city driving
Compact dimensions (3990mm long, 1720mm wide) make the Atto 1 genuinely easy to park and manoeuvre in tight inner-city streets and multi-storey car parks. If most of your driving happens within a 20 - 30km radius of the CBD, with stop-start traffic, tight parking, and short trips between errands, this is exactly the environment the Atto 1 was designed for.
Shorter, predictable commutes
With 220km of WLTP range on the Essential (310km on the Premium), the Atto 1 comfortably covers daily commutes in the 20 - 60km round-trip range with plenty of buffer, especially if you can charge at home or work overnight. If your commute is short and consistent, you're unlikely to ever feel range anxiety, and you'll benefit from BYD's claimed home charging costs of 5.4 cents per kilometre, a fraction of what you'd spend on petrol.
First-time EV buyers testing the waters
For people who've been EV-curious but put off by sticker shock, the Atto 1 offers a low-risk way in. Pairing that low entry price with the tax advantages of a novated lease lowers the barrier even further, making it one of the more accessible ways to find out if electric driving suits your lifestyle before committing to something larger.
Is it actually the best salary packaging deal?
"Best" depends on what you're optimising for. If you're chasing the lowest possible cost of entry into an EV novated lease, paired with genuine FBT savings, the Atto 1 is very hard to beat right now. It's the only new EV in Australia priced low enough to undercut popular petrol city cars outright, while still qualifying for the same FBT exemption as a six-figure luxury EV.
If you need more range, more cabin space, or you're planning to put serious kilometres on the car each year, a larger EV like the BYD Atto 2 or Atto 3 might suit your situation better, even if the lease payments are higher. The exemption applies across BYD's eligible EV range, so the right call comes down to your driving patterns, not just the price tag.
This is exactly the kind of decision where a personalised quote makes all the difference. Two people with the same salary can end up with very different numbers depending on their kilometres, location, and existing benefits.