The Expert Podcast

Will repair cost be the Achilles' heel that kills electric vehicles? Obviously, there are more forces at play, but let's take a look at some very troubling news from the electric vehicle market and the profession of these types of vehicles. Here's an article from Property and Casualty, an insurance publication. What they talk about is EV repair claims rising as costs remain higher than internal combustion engine vehicles. The insurance companies are seeing that it costs more to fix these cars. This is not subjective; it’s based on actual data.

This is not just Joe Schmo saying, "Hey, my repair bill was high." Insurance companies are seeing hundreds and thousands of cars come through their fleets, and it costs more money. What is the reason that EV costs are more expensive? Insurance companies are demanding that perfectly good EVs be scrapped or are hiking repair bills for no good reason. The reason why is because the way the cars are built. It's not modular; these cars are all put together as one, kind of like your phone. If your phone had some kind of damage, you wouldn’t fix it—you’d get a new phone. Is that a problem? Well, it is a problem because electric vehicles are also less reliable. The reason why is because they're high-tech vehicles. They're not more simple, like put a wrench, turn a bolt, or adjust things. It’s all electronic.

EVs have 79% more problems than gasoline vehicles—that’s almost double. So, you have an electric vehicle expected to be in the shop almost twice as much as your gas car. And how much does it cost? Here’s an example: a guy had an EV battery go bad, and they told him the battery was going to cost $50,000 to replace. That’s how much the car should cost.

Speaking of batteries, here’s a story where a Tesla drove into the water. It wasn’t on fire when it went in the water, but it did catch on fire after it went in the water because the water shorted out the battery, releasing all the energy and causing it to burn underwater. So, what does that mean for electric vehicles? These types of experiences and stories are going to affect the market. They’ll affect what people want to buy. If the government, manufacturers, or any other powers that be want EVs to succeed, they have to make it so that people want to buy them, unless they plan to force it on people and say, "You have to buy it no matter how junky the car is."

I know you have an opinion about that. Do you think the cars are going to get better? Do you think people will want to buy them? Or do you think these cars will always be inferior, and we’ll be forced to buy one because we won’t be allowed to buy a gas car anymore? What do you think?