Remarketing
Battery repairs, and broader EV-specific maintenance programmes, have existed for a while. The Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Repair Alliance (Hevra) was formed in 2017 and is a not-for-profit network for technicians to tap into expertise around EV repairs. Most of its 330-strong UK members are independent garages, but they include some authorised repairers and main dealers, all of whom pay an annual subscription fee of between £600 and £1,560 plus VAT, depending on the membership level (there are three). “Imagine you’ve got a problem with your car, and you take it to the garage,” explains Hevra’s founder and technical support lead, Peter Melville, “they need to get familiar with the faults, work out how it should work and which bit of it isn’t working, then come towards a fix. Essentially, we try to do that legwork once… [so] every time we see the same fault again, we can reproduce that diagnosis and repair method in different garages.
“It’s like that bit in Harry Potter, where he has a textbook, and someone’s written all these little tips in the margins that get him to the top of the class.” The organisation’s focus is the entire vehicle, not just the battery, and Melville says technicians often encounter problems with cabin heating and plug-in charging components, because they are unique to EVs (heaters are standalone items, as warmth comes from the engine on ICE vehicles) and therefore less tried and tested than well-established parts. As for batteries, he says there is more to them than the cells, so repairs can comprise ancillary components, such as circuit boards that measure the cell voltages, cooling systems and disconnection devices. On cell repairs, though, Melville agrees with Gray: “This is when what car you’ve decided to buy makes a big difference,” he explains, “for example,
BMW, Volkswagen, Renault, Nissan, Jaguar – that’s not necessarily an exhaustive list – but there are manufacturers out there who consider the battery to be an assembly, made of lots of different bits. If you’ve got one of those cars, then it’s good news, because you can buy all the bits, establish what the problem is and do the repair.
“It doesn’t work for all battery technology... but there are instances now where we can carry out viable, economic repairs.”
“But if you’ve got a different manufacturer that considers the battery to be one part, that is when it becomes a bit trickier. If you take it to the dealer, they’ll say – often quite correctly – ‘this one part has failed, it’s really expensive and it’s replaced as one unit’. That’s what we find with Mercedes, Peugeot, Citroen and various others that consider the battery to be a non-repairable thing. And that isn’t just the policy of the parts department or the company’s internal politics – it tends to be a bit of an engineering difference.”
Independent garages may not be the traditional first port of call for fleets and leasing companies with maintenance contracts, but Melville says they are used by the corporate sector, because they can be faster and more convenient routes to repair. “We have had conversations with various leasing companies, and some of them are showing
a preference towards using independents,” he explains, “I know they’ve had some feedback from their customers that [independents’] customer service is better, their lead times are shorter, and they tend to be nearer.
“I think the leasing company is thinking, ‘actually, if the customer prefers this and it’s potentially going to be cheaper, then it’s a bit of a no-brainer’. They’ve approached us because they’re a bit wary about going to just anyone… we only let people in who have that foundation [level three in electric and hybrid vehicle repair] qualification.”
The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), which administers such training programmes, last year predicted a 3,000 EV technician shortfall by 2031, rising to 16,000 by 2035, which suggests those in the EV repair business are unlikely to be short of work. More recently, auction firms have reported steadier used electric car prices. In March, Indicata claimed EV values had “bottomed out,” having reduced by only 0.8% between July 2024 and January 2025. Manheim said used EV prices had “stabilised,” citing the average price of a two-to-four-year-old electric car at £15,142 as of the end of February, up 1.1% (£162) from January but down 6.5% (£1,061) year-on-year – 23% (£3,477) cheaper than an equivalent diesel car and 11.6% (£1,750) more expensive than an equivalent petrol.
EVs have been anything but predictable and there is a bleakness to the IMI’s outlook for technician numbers. However, Cox’s and Hevra’s efforts show willing at two ends of the same spectrum, and if a broader and more capable repair network and stabler residual values are signs of things to come, then fleets should take some solace. If nothing else, sensible pricing and practical repairs are good counterweights to misinformation.
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www.businesscar.co.uk | March/April 2025 | 27
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