How it works

Choosing a car

We have the UK’s largest range of electric cars on subscription to cater for all budgets and lifestyles. You can view all our available cars here.

We recommend choosing a car which fits your budget, range and size requirements. Our Suitability Tool can help you decide which is the best fit for you.

Top tip: if you see a car listed as ‘coming soon’, you can register interest and we’ll let you know as soon as it is back in stock. 

What you’ll need

Once you’ve selected a car, you’re ready to make the booking. It only takes 5 minutes or so, but to save time, make sure you have the following to hand:

• Driving licence. We need three clearly legible photos of your licence (front, back and front held by your face)
• Proof of address. We need this in the form of an online bank statement or utility bill dated within 3 months
• Additional driver details. If you want to add other drivers to your subscription, you’ll need to invite them with their name, email address and date of birth.

Top tip: before you book, make sure that you’re eligible by reading our eligibility criteria. Sadly, we’ll have to reject your booking if you don’t meet them.

Creating your subscription

Just follow the steps online to build your subscription and make the booking request. On top of the our standard subscription package, you’ll be asked to customise with the following options:

• Choose a package. Pick the subscription package that best fits your needs. elmoSave – commit for a little longer to unlock better value. You can stop or swap any time after the first 12 months. Or elmoFlex – enjoy ultimate flexibility. You can choose to end your subscription or swap cars after the first 60 days.
• Mileage. Our standard package includes 800 miles a month, but you can increase this up to 1,200 a month if you need. 
• Delivery date. Select when you’d like the car delivered – we’ll confirm this date with you once your booking is approved. 
• Additional drivers. You can add up to two additional drivers for £10 per month per driver. 
• Optional extras. We offer a number of extras which you can choose to include in your monthly package including a home charge point and public charging access.

Making the initial payment

You’ll be asked for your first month of subscription upfront in order to request the booking. This payment includes a flat delivery fee of £119*, plus any installation charges as well as your subscription cost. More information on how we treat this payment can be found in our Payments Policy. Subsequent monthly payments are made by Direct Debit from the start of your second month of subscription. We’ll ask you to set up a Direct Debit from your profile once you’ve made the booking.

*Cars delivered to Scotland will pay an extra delivery fee.

Once you’ve made the initial payment to request your subscription, we’ll carry out the following checks to approve your booking:

• Driving licence. We’ll make sure your licence meets our insurer’s requirements and we’ll use the DVLA check code you provided to look up your Driving history with the DVLA.
• Eligibility. We’ll make sure you meet all our eligibility criteria to drive the car you’ve selected.
• Credit check. We’ll run a soft search on you to make sure your credit profile is acceptable. N.B. we won’t accept you if you have any County Court Judgements.

You can expect to hear back within 1 working day.

If we can’t accept your booking, you will receive an email notification and your initial payment will be returned as per our Payments Policy.

If you pass, you’ll receive an email asking you to confirm the delivery date, time and address.

Once we’ve confirmed this is okay with our logistics team, we will issue your Subscription Agreement for review and e-signing. We cannot deliver the car to you until this agreement is signed, so please complete this as soon as possible when you receive it.

Pre-delivery

On the day of the delivery, you’ll receive updates from the delivery driver.

Inspection

When the driver has arrived, they will inspect the car for any damage and ask you to sign the inspection report. (When you hand back the car, a similar inspection will take place to assess for any damage that falls ouside of Fair Wear & Tear).

Handover

Please have your driving licence or other ID to hand so the driver can confirm they are giving the car to the correct person.

The driver will show you around the car, explaining its key features and how it works. Once you’ve got the key, you’re all set to start driving.

Contact

For all general enquiries, please email the elmo team on hello@elmodrive.com or call us on 0330 165 4945 (Monday to Friday 9am-5pm).

Charging

Read our guide or contact us if you have any questions or concerns about charging. 

Accidents & breakdowns

If you find yourself in an emergency situation, please follow the guidance in our Emergency Guide.

Reporting an incident

Please download the elmo Claims App from the Apple App Store (iPhone) or Google Play Store (Android). You should then submit a report following the on-screen instructions.

The app will prompt you for all the details we need; it’s the easiest way for you to get us all the necessary information quickly. You’ll also find guidance on what to do after the incident. Once you and the vehicle are safe, you should view our Emergency Guide and follow the instructions there.

This includes details on how to submit the information through the elmo Claims App, as well as how to inform our insurance company of the incident or get your vehicle recovered out of office hours.

Maintenance, servicing & tyres

Our Maintenance Guide has information on what to do to maintain your elmo car. 

While on subscription with us, servicing and tyre fair wear and tear is covered as part of your monthly payment. This means, when your car needs a service, you should book through the Service Booking Portal. This also includes if your vehicle requires an MOT. 

If your elmo car has a puncture, you should look to replace the tyre as soon as possible at your nearest tyre centre. This will need to be a like-for-like premium tyre or be the same as other tyres on the vehicle. If there is a local supplier you’d prefer to use, please let us know first.

If your tyre is worn and needs replacing due to low tread depth, you should call us on 0330 165 4945, in office hours, and press the option for tyres. This will take you through to our supplier, Nationwide Fleet Services, who will assist you. There’s more information available on our Knowledge hub.

Our Fleet team will be available to assist with any questions. 

Mileage bolt ons

Our monthly package includes 800 miles as standard – plus they are rolled over and averaged out over your subscription term. We do also offer mileage bolt ons if you need to drive more miles. View our packages, plus our over mileage fees on our how mileage works page. 

Referral

For every friend you successfully refer to elmo, you’ll get £50 credited from your subscription (your friend will get £50 off too). More info here.

Giving notice

When you decide to end your subscription, you’ll need to give us 30 days’ notice in line with your minimum contract period:

• elmoFlex – there’s just a 60-day minimum term so you can give us 30 days’ notice after your first month
• elmoSave – with a 12-month minimum, the soonest you can give notice is month 11.

To end your subscription, login to the elmo dashboard, head to subscriptions, then ‘end subscription’. You’ll be asked to confirm a convenient date for your collection.

To swap to a different car, please email us at hello@elmodrive.com.

Collection

The collection driver will arrive on the agreed date and, just like on your delivery day, they will carry out an inspection of the vehicle which they will ask you to sign.

If you are swapping cars, the driver will handover the new car before inspecting the car being returned.

Before returning your car, please clear any personal data from to avoid a £15 admin fee. This includes Bluetooth mobile connections, saved contacts, saved map locations in the car’s sat nav and any other personal information you’ve stored in the car.

Final invoice

If there is any damage that falls outside our Fair Wear & Tear policy or excess mileage, we will let you know and issue an invoice to recover the costs from you.

Why might you need this?

The best way to charge your electric car is through your home charge point. But depending on your driving habits, you will likely need to charge on the road too, every now and again. Just like stopping for petrol or diesel, but much cheaper and cleaner!

How do you access public charge points?

Public charge points are owned and managed by different operators. To access each, you need the permission of the operator i.e. you need to be a member of their app or own an access fob (though you can now access newer charge points with your contactless bank card).

It’s actually quite annoying that there’s no universal system! Your next best option however could be elmoCharge (see below!) 

What’s the elmo option? 

elmoCharge is our public charging solution. We’ve partnered with Paua (the UK’s leading public charging network provider) to provide subscribers with one card with access to over 20,000 charge points across mainland Britain via over 20 networks. We’ll deliver a new card with every subscription; all you need to do is activate it (if you wish!) and then enjoy pay-as-you-go charging.