For most people, renting a car out is about offsetting their car’s costs, while still being able to drive it when they want to. If making a profit is your driving motivation, or you’re looking to buy a car and want one that will earn as much as possible while it’s rented out, this data on average earnings will be helpful.
In summary
The highest earning cars in the Car Next Door fleet are vans, located within 5 kilometres of the city. Other cars are also in demand - the biggest factor affecting earnings is how much of the time the car is available for bookings.
For all of the data presented in this article, we have looked at cars that:
- meet our minimum availability requirement (50% weekday availability and 50% weekend availability); and
- are well established (have been rented out on Car Next Door for at least 6 months)
In this article, we look at gross earnings - that is, the car owners’ share of time and distance income from renting their car out. Car owners can set their own time charges, and also get paid 25c for each kilometre that borrowers drive. Car owners will use part of their earnings to pay for their cars’ running costs: fuel, tyres and servicing. These costs vary a lot depending on the type of car and its fuel consumption and maintenance needs.
Top earning car types
- Van
- People Mover
- SUV/4WD
- Ute
- Convertible
We have not seen any trends towards particular makes or models.
Median monthly earnings by car type
Other factors that impact on earnings
Aside from car type, there are several other factors that impact on earnings. The relevant combination of these factors will have a big impact on your car’s earning potential.
Due to the consistent high demand for vans, these factors have less impact on van earnings than they do on car and ute earnings. For all the graphs below, we’ve presented the data separately for vans to provide a more accurate picture of how the various factors impact on median earnings across the Car Next Door fleet.
People movers are also in high demand and are less affected by factors like availability and age, but the same general trends apply to people movers as to other cars and utes.
Availability
Availability is the number 1 factor impacting on earnings. There is a definite trend between availability and earnings. The more available your car is, the more bookings it will get and the more money it will earn.
Cars and utes: Median monthly earnings by weekend availability
Vans: Median monthly earnings by weekend availability
Age
New cars (under 3 years old) are popular and earn more - but there’s not a lot of difference between a 5 year old and 12 year old car’s earnings. Older cars are great to rent out, as long as they are well kept and in good mechanical condition.
Age isn’t really an issue for vans: they earn just as much if they’re 10 or 12 years old as if they’re new.
Cars and utes: Median monthly earnings by year of car
Vans: Median monthly earnings by year of van
Transmission
Borrowers are not able to borrow manual cars unless they are experienced manual drivers, so manual cars get fewer bookings. Automatic cars earn around 52% more than manual cars, and automatic vans earn about 50% more than manual vans.
Cars and utes: Median monthly earnings by transmission
Vans: Median monthly earnings by transmission
Common questions
Related articles
Eligibility criteria for cars
The income guarantee
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