Car manufacturers who are only learning to design and manufacture electric cars suffer from reliability, so the costs of servicing electric cars are initially high. A service company called We Predict reviewed the service history of 19 million vehicles launched between 2016 and 2021 to examine the distribution of repairs made totaling $20 billion.
In general, vehicle maintenance costs increase over the years, but the opposite is true for electric vehicles. Not only does it take less and less servicing of an older electric car, says James Davis, CEO of We Predict, but the overall cost is less than cars with an internal combustion engine. The company’s research shows that the three-month-old electric vehicle is overhauled 2.3 times as much as its conventional counterparts. This number is only 1.6 for cars that are one year old.
One year after the launch of the new electric model, the number of failures per thousand vehicles will be reduced by 33 percent and repair costs by 27 percent. The vehicle introduced two years ago is affected by a 14 percent reduction in the number of breakdowns, while service costs are significantly reduced by 65 percent.
Some will solve it
Ford has outdone its competitors by successfully eliminating the initial malfunctions of the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV. The lowest service charge of $93 in the premium electric SUV class belonged to the Mach-E for the first three months. The Audi e-tron 366, Porsche Taycan 667, and Jaguar I-Pace require $834 in service. The costs are too high, Davis says, because manufacturers have to try the right diagnostic and repair methods. In this case, unnecessary repairs can also be carried out. Thanks to its good design, Ford avoided all this.
The software that controls the battery pack and power supply is often a problem. The Chevrolet Bolt was widely recalled by the manufacturer after the cars caught fire on their own. Davis says the new and improved model is a reliable all-round small car.
Seeing the success of the Mustang Mach-E, Davis believes that the introduction of the electric version of the popular Ford F-150 pickup in the United States will be similarly smooth. Forbes wrote that as automakers gain experience in the world of electricity, the cost of servicing small cars will go down and down.
