Damage to the EV’s battery voided the vehicle’s warranty, and the estimated $60,000 replacement cost exceeded the value of the new car, so ICBC wrote off the nearly new car and scrapped it.
A Vancouver electric car owner was shocked to learn earlier this fall that seemingly minor damage to his car’s battery required the unit to be replaced, resulting in a repair bill of $60,000, more than the list price of his new car. I received it.
The owner was told that this damage voided the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5’s warranty and was forced to file a claim with ICBC, but ICBC simply wrote the car off citing unusual costs. Ta.
Automotive journalists Zach Spencer and Andrea Spencer documented the incident on Motormath’s YouTube channel, and the incident comes as the City of Ottawa introduces new rules to accelerate EV adoption. It said it raises big questions about battery replacement costs and repairability.
“What this means is that people are buying these cars without knowing the true cost of replacing the most important parts of the car,” said Zach Spencer.
In this case, the Ioniq 5’s battery cover plate on the bottom of the car had scratches and minor deformations, indicating that the battery had been impacted.
Andrea Spencer said that if manufacturers can’t lower the cost of batteries, the industry will be forced to do so because “you can’t write off electric cars because the batteries are damaged and the price is too high to repair the vehicle.” He added that the whole thing is problematic.
“This is a wake-up call and really big news,” Andrea said.
Spokesman Greg Harper said it’s difficult to determine how big of a problem write-offs on damaged EVs are in British Columbia over battery replacement costs, and the province’s insurer ICBC tracks that information. He said this is because there is no such thing.
British Columbia has one of the highest EV penetration rates in Canada, but at the end of 2022 there will be 81,415 light-duty vehicles on the road, just 3% of the province’s private car fleet, according to ICBC. It’s nothing more than that.
Harper said the insurance company’s claims staff has reported that it is an “extremely rare occurrence” for a vehicle to be written off solely due to battery damage.
However, if the cost of repairing damage to a vehicle exceeds its cash value, ICBC will consider the vehicle a total loss.
Reuters reports that even in the larger U.S. market, data is hard to come by, but insurers are increasingly writing off low-mileage, zero-emissions vehicles with minor damage. It is said that there is
Reporters found that some manufacturers, including Ford and GM, say they are making it easier to repair battery packs. However, vehicles still have to be written off because technicians often lack the necessary diagnostic data to assess even minor damage.
“The battery pack alone is often more than 30 per cent of the actual vehicle price,” says Werner Antweiler, a professor of renewable energy at British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business. “So this is very important.”
Antweiler said manufacturers are trying to balance the tradeoff between making batteries light enough to be useful without making them too expensive.
Many manufacturers place the battery at the bottom of the car to better balance the car, which makes it more vulnerable to collisions and scrapes with road obstacles, Antweiler said. .
That means batteries need to be better protected or battery packs with more modular components must be manufactured so that damage to one part doesn’t affect the entire unit, Antweiler added. Ta.
“So it’s a design question,” Antweiler said. “And manufacturers are still learning that this is a real problem to solve.”
One challenge for repair technicians is that automakers are so busy building cars for the road that they don’t have many replacement parts available, but service departments are trying to catch up, he said. Deputy Dean Mubasher Faruqui said. I studied in the automotive program at the BC Institute of Technology’s School of Transportation.
Farooqi said another big part of the problem is that there are few experts to diagnose whether battery damage can be repaired, and there are no standards or regulations to determine whether a repaired battery can be put back on the road. he added.
But aftermarket parts manufacturers are starting to step into producing replacement parts such as battery contacts, busbars and fuses, which could make repairs more possible, Faruqui said.
At BCIT, he said experts are doing their own research and development on what types of battery damage can be safely repaired using parts availability.
The company is also working with the Canadian Standards Association to develop standards for battery repair and technician certification, which will help reduce EV repair costs.
“We’re literally building planes as we fly, so these things can really start to go mainstream,” Faruqui said.
For auto journalist Spencer, the incident he is investigating leaves more questions open when evaluating EVs on behalf of consumers, including whether batteries are repairable, what the warranty covers and how much repairs will cost. Become. Do you want to replace the battery?
“If you’re interested in buying an electric car, you should always have an EV checklist ready when you go to the dealership,” Andrea said.