The news has been full of stories recently about electric cars. Volvo is phasing out gas-only cars in 2019. GM will have 20 electric cars by 2023. Tesla’s Model 3 has a waiting list of more than 300,000 people.
Odds are, however, that you aren’t seeing many electric cars in your shop. In fact, the odds are that you aren’t servicing electric cars at all – and you probably aren’t receiving many calls asking about them, either.
Electric Cars Predictions
When will all of this “electric noise” matter for the average repair shop? On the one hand, there’s certainly a benefit to being the first shop in town to offer a service that will become more and more popular over time. On the other hand, why invest valuable time and money into a service that won’t pay back for years – or decades? Between now and 2023, fuel standards may become less stringent than expected. Gas prices could go down – or up. Large vehicles may become more popular. Any of this could shift the adoption of electric vehicles a few years in either direction. And despite the intentions of vehicle manufacturers, if people aren’t buying electric cars, they won’t be making them.
The most recent forecast by the US government predicts electric vehicle adoption growing rapidly from 2020 to 2025 before slowing. By 2025, plugins and battery-electric vehicles will combine for around 9% of the market – a sizeable enough percentage that many shops would want to know how to service them. Other forecasts, including Bloomberg’s, are more aggressive, especially in the later years. This is based on the cost of batteries coming down rapidly, which has happened in the past few years and may continue.
Regardless, it’s going to be in the middle of the next decade before electric cars are so common that most people would consider one when shopping for new cars. It’s also going to take a few years before this vehicles’ warranty coverage expires, so unless you’re in a major electric vehicle haven like California or the northeastern US, it probably won’t make much sense to invest heavily in electric maintenance until 2025-2028 unless you want to be a niche provider of that service. There’s little doubt that electric cars will shape transportation in the future, but it’s unlikely to happen soon.
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