RACV Roadside Assistance for Electric Vehicles

Yes, RACV roadside assistance covers electric vehicles, on every plan and at no extra cost. Victoria’s motoring club assists battery electric and hybrid cars under the same unlimited-callout model as petrol cars, and its top tier, Total Care, is explicitly built with EV owners in mind: it includes up to 200 km of towing if you run out of charge, the most generous out-of-charge allowance offered by any Australian motoring club as of mid-2026.

RACV is the club for Victoria, so this page matters most if you drive an EV in Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo or regional Victoria. Reciprocal arrangements with the other state clubs mean your cover travels with you interstate.

What do RACV’s plans cost, and what does each include?

RACV sells three tiers. EV assistance is included in all of them; the differences are towing distance and extras like accommodation benefits when you break down far from home.

A few pricing notes worth knowing. Total Care covers one to two vehicles at the same price, which makes it better value for two-car households than it first looks, and a three-to-five vehicle option exists for bigger garages. Members with five or more years of tenure get loyalty discounts between 5 and 20 percent. And as always, these figures are indicative as of mid-2026; check RACV’s emergency roadside assistance page for current rates before joining.

What happens if your EV runs out of charge?

RACV’s answer is towing, done properly. Run flat and a patrol will organise a tow to the nearest accessible charging station, drawn from your plan’s towing entitlement. On Roadside Care that’s 20 km, which is usually fine in metropolitan Melbourne where public chargers are dense, but can fall short in the regions.

This is where Total Care earns its price. RACV gives battery electric vehicles on Total Care up to 200 km of out-of-charge towing, separate generosity that recognises a drained EV can’t take a jerry can. If you regularly drive the Hume to Albury, the Princes to Gippsland or the Calder to Bendigo, that 200 km figure is the difference between being towed to a fast charger and being towed to wherever your standard allowance runs out.

Unlike NRMA, RACV doesn’t advertise mobile charging trucks. The model is straightforwardly tow-to-charger. In practice that’s an honest approach: a tow gets you to a 350 kW charger rather than a slow top-up by the roadside.

What else do EV owners get from RACV?

The everyday breakdowns are covered the same as any car: flat 12V batteries (still the most common EV callout, as it is for petrol cars), flat tyres, lockouts and wheel changes. RACV reports that around 8 out of 10 issues are fixed at the roadside, and EVs don’t change that much, because most EV breakdowns aren’t traction-battery problems.

RACV has also been active on the charging side, with involvement in destination charging at its resorts and ongoing EV advocacy in Victoria, though it doesn’t run a statewide fast-charging network of its own the way NRMA or RAA do. For day-to-day public charging in Victoria you’ll mostly use Chargefox, Evie and Tesla sites.

One practical note on tow trucks: most EV manufacturers require flatbed transport rather than a conventional lift-and-tow, because dragging an EV’s driven wheels can damage the motors. When you call RACV for an EV tow, say clearly that the car is a battery electric vehicle so the right truck is dispatched the first time. It’s a small thing that saves an hour at the roadside, and it applies to every provider on this site, not just RACV.

How does RACV compare for EV owners?

The headline is simple: no other Australian club publishes an out-of-charge towing figure as high as Total Care’s 200 km. NRMA counters with mobile charging trucks in Sydney and Canberra and its own charger network; RACQ counters with a charge top-up service in Queensland. RACV’s bet is that generous towing beats a slow roadside charge, and for regional Victorian driving that’s probably right.

The trade-off is price. Total Care at roughly $318 to $324 a year is at the expensive end of club cover, and if you never leave Melbourne, Roadside Care at less than half that will almost always get you to a charger. To see how RACV stacks up against NRMA, RACQ, the insurers and manufacturer programs, read our best roadside assistance for EV owners comparison. For the broader picture of what EV breakdowns actually involve and how the whole rescue system works, start with the complete guide to EV roadside assistance in Australia.

The verdict for Victorian EV drivers

If you own an EV in Victoria, RACV is the default option and a good one. City drivers in Melbourne can reasonably run Roadside Care and rely on dense public charging. Anyone who regularly drives beyond the metro boundary should price Total Care: 200 km of out-of-charge towing plus 100 km of general towing covers essentially any gap between fast chargers in Victoria. Verify the current pricing and terms on RACV’s site, as plans and figures here are accurate as of mid-2026 and do change.