A little electricity, that’s all that electric cars need. The fact that they are cheaper to run than combustion engines is only partially true. If something goes wrong, the costs go up significantly. Spare parts are expensive and many repairs can only be carried out by specially trained mechanics with special tools – and usually only in the manufacturer’s expensive authorized workshops. “In terms of total damage, we see a ten percent higher proportion of collision damage in electric cars. Within the collision damage, in turn, we see around 30 percent higher repair costs for electric cars compared to the market,” explains Carsten Reinkemeyer, Head of Safety Research at the Allianz Center for Technology.
Outwardly, electric cars hardly differ from vehicles with conventional drives. But because of the battery, they are heavier and usually also stiffer. The battery must be protected as well as possible against damage in the event of an accident. That is why electric cars under the sheet metal are constructed differently than vehicles with conventional drives. The figures from the insurers show that the impact protection basically works: vehicle fires are a much smaller problem than is often presented.
Vehicle fires are much rarer with electric cars than with combustion engines
“Of the 15,000 vehicle fires registered with all insurers every year, not even 50 occurred in electric vehicles,” said Reinkemeyer. In any case, most accidents are only minor and parking damage: “Only three percent of collisions are airbags deployed.”
The damage pattern in electric cars is in principle comparable to conventional cars, but clear differences can be seen in accident repairs. This is shown by evaluations by Allianz for the period from 2018 to 2020. The fault is the high-voltage system, which is repaired by strict regulations and manufacturer specifications. “Mercedes has every battery removed and replaced at great expense after an airbag has been deployed, for example, while Renault also works with replacement batteries in some cases,” reports Carsten Reinkemeyer: “Very restrictive requirements drive repair costs and ultimately also affect the insurance classification.” If the battery has to be disposed of, used electric vehicles can quickly become a total economic loss.
Even a high-voltage cable bitten by a marten cannot be repaired today. This increases the cost of claims significantly. A necessary cable set costs up to 7,000 euros. But there is another way: some automobile companies use protective coatings that can be exchanged. This can reduce repair costs by up to 97 percent.
In principle, a Stromer can only be repaired in a workshop that has a qualification for “intrinsically safe high-voltage vehicles”. In the case of severe damage, this is no longer the case and there is a risk of fire due to short circuits. With this relatively small but expensive part of the damage, the qualification of the workshop personnel is no longer sufficient. In practice, such delays in claims processing extend the repair time.
“That does not correspond to our demand for customer satisfaction. Here the manufacturers have to create standardized solutions”, demands Reinkemeyer. Another difference to accident repairs on vehicles with conventional drives is that the battery often still contains a lot of energy even when the system is no longer functional. After a rescue, for example, additional costs arise due to the necessary fire precautions.
High costs? The insurance company passes the buck to the customers
“So far, all-electric cars have on average a low annual mileage and a correspondingly low damage balance. Nevertheless, they are not classified more favorably than gasoline-powered vehicles,” explains Carsten Reinkemeyer are usually more powerful and also move a lot. ” Per type class you can expect an eight to ten percent higher premium compared to combustion engines. “The insurance ratings of plug-in hybrids are around 50 percent above the market average.”
So it can get expensive not only when the electric cars crash. A development that experts have been observing since 2013 is continuing here: Because there is a quasi-monopoly of car manufacturers on the market, spare parts prices have risen by almost five percent between 2019 and 2020, according to the German Insurance Association (GDV): “The The cost of car spare parts is rising rapidly and significantly faster than the inflation rate: While the consumer price index has risen by 8.8 percent since January 2013, car manufacturers have increased their spare parts prices by an average of over 35 percent. “
Reports of high spare parts prices are increasing, especially for used e-cars. The US market analysts from “We Predict” evaluated 1.6 million maintenance and repair orders in a study. The surprising result: the service costs for battery-electric vehicles in the first three months after the initial registration are an average of 105 euros as high as for combustion engines.