Reply With QuoteIt would hardly be a shockOriginally Posted by Alansmithee
What happens to all of the independent garages? tune-up places? (likely trying to adjust the software is noted and invalidates the warrenty)?
It would hardly be a shock
I think what goes on under the hood has increasingly become a huge mystery even for some main dealers. There will always be tyres, suspension and body repairs. You could argue that electrickery is less complex than ICE and discrete electronics are a thing of the past anyway, you just change a unit or board.
The sale of new ones might be banned but there will be plenty of petrol and diesel engine cars on the road for a long time to come.
If we are lucky legislators will act to prevent manufacturers having a monopoly on servicing and repair of EVs, much as they have trimmed efforts by ICE manufacturers to tie you to min dealers by various methods.
Don't a few of the brands also use bespoke tool-kits to prevent an independent servicing a car or did I dream this?
I know if certain components are changed on my BMW they have to be coded back to the car. I understand the software is on the expensive side so may seem more specialist independents
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Nope! If anything it's going the other way, Tesla are obviously the glaring example, however BMW, Nissan, VW,etc are going the same route.
Of course they will try until restrained, hence the need for prevention of monopoly/unfair trading. No doubt the manufacturers will be lobbying hard, citing safety concerns and f generally making it as hard as possible for the owner or a specialist to get in.
I long since stopped having my Nissan EV serviced.
For an ever increasing amount of money, they face it a quick visual check, topped up the washer bottle and replaced the pollen filter. For £50 more on alternate years they also replaced the brake fluid.
An MOT is a much more thorough check and the rest I can do myself for peanuts.
That’s all there is to it, no engine, gearbox, exhaust etc to worry about.
It is and will continue to be very difficult for anyone (main dealer or independent) to justify charging large sums for servicing vehicles that don’t actually need servicing.
With Electric cars the various cartels will have a much more usable argument for the legislators, Safety, claiming that if unapproved repairers start sticking their fingers in places they shouldn't it is dangerous, all its going to take is a few frazzled fitters and they will get their own way.
I'm sure they will find a way. :) My thinking is that if autonomous technology continues to progress we are probably a generation, or two at most, away from the end of widespread car ownership, especially in cities. In the interim we will move more and more towards EV as a Service. Traditional independent garages will die out but I'm sure some new style service industry will develop around EVs.
I think the future will evolve more and more into lease hire. In a very similar way to the mobile phone market. You pay a monthly fee and all costs are covered. With EVs unless something catastrophic goes wrong with the motor most of the maintenance is routine e.g brake pads, suspension and tyres etc. The wizardry seems to happen in the software
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When we're forced to go fully electric, I think our attitudes to car ownership will change. So many houses don't have off street parking, so couldn't charge an EV.
House's with offroad parking will see an increase on value as you'll be able to charge at home. Councils may be forced to allocate roadside parking immediately outside houses to the house owner. Or they may just refuse, as they know that without an allocated space, car ownership becomes very difficult. I forsee rubber mats over pavements with the cables underneath.
Charge times are not going to come anywhere near fossil fuel refuelling times. Charging faster has a very marked effect on battery longevity. So "petrol stations" are likely to become larger as there will be a need to refuel more cars at any one time, to keep the queues down. Shopping malls could well fill this need, what better to draw customers in for half an hour of retail therapy than the need to charge their car?
With so many people having discovered working at home, we may find that giving up cars is not as difficult a step as it may have been.
As for the original question, I think there will be a small market for tuning electric vehicles. Just as petrol cars aren't tuned for maximum power, electric cars won't be either. With a petrol car, you'd be looking for knock resistance to stop warranty claims (& sometimes just de-tuning to allow you to sell a hotter version of the same engine), with a electric car it's about battery longevity. To make the batteries last longer, you can limit the maximum current and not use the full capacity of the pack. I can't see why there won't be a market for re-maps that open up these limits, after all the tuner doesn't care if your battery starts degrading a few months later.
Similarly, there's likely to be a market for motor & controller upgrades. Battery upgrades could well be prohibitively expensive.
My friend owns one of the largest chip and remap companies in the UK, and things are in place, they will be just fine, the guys are clever enough to adapt very quickly
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Just imagine a world where there are parallels between the EV car world, and overclocking PC's, flashing firmware onto mobile smartphones, 'hackintosh' Mac builds, etc etc. Tesla are a good example, with the various power and range options being dictated by software. It's what allowed Tesla to unlock extra range in a recent Florida hurricane season to allow people to get out of the city (LINK). Once tuners work out how to do this themselves they'll be laughing.
Also, I read an article somewhere recently (if I find it again I'll share it) that spoke of car dealers being very disinterested in EV sales, as there is no ongoing money to be made from it. The margins on selling cars is terrible, the real money comes from ongoing service, repair, warranty agreements, etc, all of which shrink massively in the EV world. How true it is I don't know, but it feels believable.
I guess this is an example of how they will adapt
Really!! How does he work that out? Remembering this thread is about electric cars.
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