Hundreds of thousands of pure electric car maintenance? Tesla owner: Forget it

What should I do if I encounter sky-high maintenance costs when repairing a pure electric car?

A Tesla owner: Blow it up.

This is not alarmist, the Finnish Model S owner learned that the repair price was close to half of the original price when he repaired the car, and finally chose not to repair the car and blew it up.

Pure electric car owners have long been expensive to maintain.

The maintenance cost of pure electric vehicles is generally high

The base price of the Finnish owner's Model S was US$57,400 (about 420,000 yuan) when it was purchased.

After the vehicle broke down and was sent for repair, it turned out that in order to repair the car, the entire battery pack had to be replaced, and this price was at least $22,600 (about 165,400 yuan).

This not only reached 40% of the selling price, but at that time, a used car of the same model was only 30,000 US dollars (about 219,500 yuan), and you could buy a used car with a little money.

In the end, the owner did not choose to repair the car, but found someone to tie 30 kilograms of explosives to the car, and a dummy with Musk's head on it, and then ignited it and exploded.

△ Source: Tubing blogger @Pommijätkät

It is not uncommon for pure electric vehicles to encounter high or even sky-high maintenance costs when repairing their vehicles.

There was a Polestar 2 owner who had a battery plate dented inward due to a bump during driving, and he also needed to replace the entire battery pack, with a total repair price of 540,000 yuan, while the price of a new car was less than 340,000 yuan at that time.

There is also a Wuxi Model Y owner, who accidentally damaged the rear of the car when reversing, and the car was rumored to be worth 200,000 yuan on the Internet, while the price of the vehicle was only 280,000 yuan, which attracted a lot of attention.

△The picture comes from the Internet

However, later some media verified Tesla's official and learned that the final damage assessment cost of this Tesla was about 110,000, not 200,000. But this is also close to 40% of the purchase price of the vehicle.

Not only serious bumps, but also seemingly minor scratches can lead to high repair costs.

Last year, there was a Xpeng P5, and the collision range was only the position in front of the left side of the vehicle, but it received a repair order with a total cost of 19,022 yuan afterwards.

△The picture comes from the Internet

And there are more and more survey data to prove that the average maintenance cost of electric vehicles is generally higher than that of gasoline vehicles.

Mitchell 1, a large company in the United States that provides software to auto repair shops, showed that the average maintenance cost of Tesla in the third quarter of this year was 5,552 US dollars (about 40,600 yuan), the average maintenance cost of non-Tesla pure electric vehicles was 4,474 US dollars (about 32,700 yuan), and the average maintenance cost of fuel vehicles was 4,205 US dollars (about 30,800 yuan).

WePredict, a data agency, released a report last year that looked at the service and repair prices of about 19 million vehicles between 2016 and 2021. The results show that the maintenance cost of electric vehicles is currently 1.6 to 2.3 times that of gasoline vehicles.

The outbreak of the new energy vehicle industry has exposed the problem of expensive and difficult maintenance.

Pure electric car maintenance is expensive, where is the cost?

Behind the high repair costs, the first thing is that the parts involved in the damaged part are inherently expensive.

For example, the power battery is basically the most expensive and difficult component of a pure electric vehicle to repair.

According to the research results of the 16th phase of the China Insurance Research Institute, the average zero-integer ratio of a single piece of power battery pack for new energy vehicles is 48.85%.

In other words, the price of a new energy vehicle, the price of the power battery can reach nearly half of the price of the whole vehicle on average.

The price of other types of sensors on pure electric vehicles, such as lidar, is also generally high.

For example, the Xpeng P5 in the above example, the main reason for the high maintenance cost is the damage of the lidar, and the price of a lidar reaches 8916 yuan.

△The picture comes from the Internet

This is also because the parts are likely to involve core patented technologies, and it is difficult to achieve universal parts and reduce prices like fuel vehicles.

Or take the power battery as an example, whether it is Tesla, BYD and other car companies that make their own batteries, or CATL, Xinwangda, Honeycomb Energy, EVE lithium energy power battery suppliers, how to make batteries have their own technology and methods.

This leads to the fact that in case the battery needs to be repaired, then only to find the corresponding manufacturer, it is impossible to use a certain part without original parts and analogues like fuel vehicles.

In addition to the power battery, if other parts of the three-electric system of the pure electric vehicle are damaged, there is no way to buy a spare part by yourself, and you can repair it by finding an auto repair shop.

In addition, the manufacturing technology used by car companies also leads to higher maintenance costs.

For example, integrated die-casting, body battery integration, etc., because the battery, chassis or body is a whole part, there are no other parts, once there is serious damage, it is often faced with the overall replacement of parts and batteries.

More importantly, the maintenance of pure electric vehicles requires professional conditions and talents, and there is also a lack of development in China in this regard.

The "After-sales Service Specification for Electric Passenger Vehicles", which was implemented this year, puts forward requirements for new energy vehicle maintenance sites, maintenance personnel and operating conditions.

For example, maintenance technicians should be equipped with safety protection equipment, and electricity-related maintenance sites need to meet the requirements of no grease, no metal chips, no leakage liquid, no splash sparks, and the ground needs to be insulated.

This means that it is difficult for general car repair shops and even 4S shops to meet the relevant conditions. The maintenance of new energy vehicles mainly relies on official direct or authorized service centers.

Kan Youbo, director of the China Transportation Education and Research Association, once estimated that there are 500,000 auto repair factories in the country, of which no more than 10,000 can actually repair new energy vehicles.

In addition, there is a large shortage of domestic new energy auto repair talents.

According to the "Manufacturing Talent Development Planning Guide" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by 2025, the total number of talents for energy-saving and new energy vehicles is expected to reach 1.2 million, but the talent gap is expected to reach 1.03 million. Among them, the field of new energy vehicle maintenance will face 80% of the talent gap.

The high price of parts, the difficulty of generalization, the integration of related technologies, the lack of maintenance stores and talents, all kinds of factors lead to the maintenance of pure electric vehicles, which is not only expensive, but also more difficult than fuel vehicles.

This is also why new energy vehicle companies are basically accompanied by official warranty rights when they are launched, such as vehicle warranty or warranty service, three-electric lifetime warranty service, etc.

In addition to the rights and interests of the official guarantee, you can also use commercial insurance as a backstop, such as third-party liability insurance, vehicle loss insurance, additional insurance, etc., which can be selected according to your needs, in case of accidents, you can also reduce your own costs and risks.

The problem of high maintenance costs exists, but it is not completely unsolvable.

After all, the market share of new energy vehicles has increased from 3% to 30%, and it took only 5 years, which is a small amount compared with the history of the development of fuel vehicles.

And this year, official institutions such as China Insurance Research Institute, China Automobile Dealers Association, and China Quality Inspection Association are constantly drafting and signing relevant specifications and standards for electric passenger car maintenance, damage assessment, and insurance.

The industry is developing too fast, problems are exposed, and it will take time to make up for these shortcomings.

We believe that there will be more solutions in the future that can help car owners make more sustainable choices than blowing up their vehicles when they need to be repaired.

Reference Links:

https://finance.sina.cn/nextauto/2023-03-15/detail-imykxyey2049257.d.html

https://www.163.com/dy/article/IGFBT9FH05278I2K.html

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