Hi,
Electric Vehicle Servicing has to be done at the dealerships as there are electronic components that are (now) hard to get at local mechanics.
'Maintenance & Servicing' and 'Parts : Repairs/Replacements' are two components of servicing that are to be watched when it comes to EV servicing.
Regular checkups after 10,000 km for an electric scooter or a car is normal 'Maintenance & Servicing'. Usually the costs are fairly cheap as there is no major costs incurred by the dealership.
There are no oil changes, filter changes, coolants etc etc that are needed for Petrol vehicles.
The costs of 'Maintenance & Servicing' in an EV will beat the costs of 'Maintenance & Servicing' of Petrol vehicles. Every time.
Now coming to part 'Repairs/Replacements'
Electric Vehicles have electronics parts like Motor, Battery Pack, BMS, LCD/Touchscreen Panels, Controller, Onboard Charger (Cars), AC compressor (cars), Energy Management System (cars and some intelligent scooters), Telematics unit and others which are expensive to replace if something goes wrong. These parts usually are under warranty and usually are replaced by the OEM.
But when the warranty is finished then the customer has to pay money to replace the parts.
The problem here is many EV OEM's don't Repair these parts. They just replace it and expect customer to foot the bill. It is a way for an OEM to make money.
We respect OEM's that repair parts or reveal the schematics of electronic components to 3rd party repair shops. But usually they dont do it as companies dont want to reveal trade secrets.
This is a complex aspect of EV Servicing.
But in our experience most electronic parts are fairly reliable as there are no moving parts. Most EV owners don't face issues of part replacements even after 5+ years. But things can go wrong and you have to be prepared.
However with the savings you make with less costs of maintenance and fuel, this should bot be a problem.
We have also observed ICE manufacturers tend to artificially inflate prices of spare parts for EV's, as they don't make as much money from servicing of an EV compared to ICE cars.
That is why we always recommend to buy an EV from a manufacture that sells only EV's. That way they dont have conflict of interests within their own dealers.
Take a look at our Electric Cars and Electric Scooters page for numbers
www.pluginindia.com/electriccars.htmlwww.pluginindia.com/electricscootersbrowse.htmlWe have mentioned some Total Cost of Ownerships for each model.
Hope this helped.
Best,
PluginIndia
