A new Chinese electric vehicle sits under a tarp in a dusty Australian scrapyard. Damage to the car, although clearly visible, is relatively minor but the car has been written off.
It’s a scenario that has plagued some early adopters of electric vehicles in the country as challenges persist in the fledgling repair network including a lack of qualified mechanics to work on the modern cars.
The BYD Atto 3 sitting under the tarp had been written off by the insurance company, ostensibly deemed too much trouble to fix.
“It had only done 300 kilometres. It was basically brand new and it was rear ended,” car expert Paul Maric told Yahoo News.
“It had very minor rear-end damage. There was no damage to the battery and no further damage to the structure of the vehicle, and despite this, it appears the insurer wrote off the vehicle.”
In the end, his electrician brother bought the car for about $2,500 to repurpose the battery as part of a solar storage system.
“If you look at what is happening in electric cars in general, the repair network doesn’t have the skills required at scale, and definitely not on the scale that the government wants,” Maric said.
“At the moment there’s a lot of hoops for panel beaters to jump through to make it viable to repair an electric car, as a result of that you don’t have many of them, and as a result of that it’s very expensive to fix them.”
Proposed law change could make EV repair issues worse
Nicolas Rio is the general manager at Right2Drive, a company that supplies motorists with a replacement vehicle when they’re involved in an accident and it’s not their fault. Because the business aims to provide a like for like replacement, it is having to stock more EVs in its fleet and is in constant contact with repairers.
“We work very closely with the repair network on understanding how those processes take place,” he told Yahoo. “We’re starting to get more clarity on best practice, safe practice on electric vehicle repairs.”
He said while there is an increasing number of accredited EV repairers establishing themselves, any damage to the battery can still cause major challenges.
“When there’s damage to the battery that can often be a very expensive repair which may exceed the value of the car,” he said. “That is a factor with electric vehicles.
“But generally speaking, the repair network that supports electric vehicles is strengthening, and definitely in metropolitan areas.”
However there are concerns in the industry that NSW could be about to introduce a major speed bump on the road to that improvement.
There is currently no coordinated national pathway for repairers to get officially certified to work on EVs. To help address that NSW Fair Trade is currently proposing changes to the state’s Motor Dealers and Repairers Regulation including requiring mechanics to pass certain training courses before they’re legally allowed to service and repair electric and hybrid vehicles.
The changes would come into effect from July 1, and the industry says it could badly exacerbate shortages and ultimately lead to more damaged cars sitting idle in carparks and scrapyards waiting for repairers to jump through more regulatory hoops.
The CEO of the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association (AAAA), Stuart Charity, warned this month that it would “reduce access to essential repair services and increase costs for NSW motorists”.
“We agree that technicians working on high-voltage vehicles must be trained and competent — and that’s already happening. But this proposal creates a legislative barrier that will drastically reduce the number of qualified service providers overnight,” he said.
Members of the public have until the end of the month to provide feedback to the state government over the proposed changes.
Real risks to working on EV batteries
Maric said the changes could mean workers carrying out ordinary tasks like changing tyres would need to do the mandatory certification which “just seems outrageous”.
“We sometimes underplay the amount of energy stored in one of these batteries and how much can be discharged if you mishandle a high voltage cable, or if you penetrate a battery,” he said. The batteries can discharge enough energy to kill someone, he added.
“There are some real risks working on an electrified vehicle if you don’t know what you’re doing. So I agree we do need some [coordinated] licensing or training that people undertake, but there needs to be logical reasoning behind it.”
For now, NSW Fair Trading says no final decisions have been made as it continues consultation with the industry.
According to the AAAA, fewer than 10 per cent of NSW automotive technicians are estimated to have completed any formal EV training.
Meanwhile the state government is aiming for more than half of new car sales to be EVs and hybrids by 2030.
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