Electric cars often in the workshop

Electric cars often in the workshop

German car repair shops are not running out of work with electric vehicles either. This is the good news from the EV after-sales study, which the Stuttgart market research company “Uscale” conducted for the industry for the third time in December 2023. The downside for electric car drivers: technical defects, recall campaigns and software problems with electric cars are significantly higher than with combustion engines. To obtain the results, Uscale surveyed 2,154 e-car drivers and compared them with 404 drivers of combustion vehicles. The average age of all vehicles in the study was three years. The evaluations show that e-cars are significantly less likely to be used by breakdown services than the comparison group of combustion vehicles. At the same time, however, the number of technical problems and recalls is higher.

The differences between the brands are significant: Skoda, Audi and Opel have to go to the workshop much more often; Mercedes, BMW and Nissan are significantly rarer. In many cases, repairing e-cars is more difficult than planned. One in five users wait longer than expected. At the same time, the workshops improve their performance and the frequency of visits to the workshop also decreases significantly. As expected, the effort of the workshops in the area of ​​software and digital has increased significantly. This particularly applies to software updates, 63% of which are carried out in workshops and not “over the air”. This annoys customers who are used to something different from their smartphones and who also lose valuable time in workshops. However, compared to petrol and diesel vehicle drivers, e-mobilists have less need for inspection and maintenance with their cars and seasonal checks are also requested significantly less frequently. As expected, the need for wear repairs is also falling significantly.

It's not just for e-cars that digital services are increasing and the vehicle app is becoming more important, e-car drivers are also digitally savvy and want more digital contact channels with the workshops. Compared to combustion engine drivers, EV users generally see a high added value in software updates, are open to new digital offers, want additional services and use the brand hotline more often. Personal contact remains a preference for combustion engine drivers. Overall, the workshops still leave many of the eCar drivers' wishes unfulfilled. An example: 73% of e-car drivers expect that a replacement car provided by the workshop will also be electric. While no combustion engine customer expects the workshop to refuel the vehicle for free after the repair, 32% of EV drivers believe that free charging is “in any case” or “actually” part of it for them. Axel Sprenger, Uscale founder and managing director, on the study results: "Many workshops are worried that they will run out of work with electromobility - this seems unfounded for the time being. In the long term, however, it can be expected that the quality level of electric cars will continue to rise and workshop visits will decline again."