E-car drivers don’t have it easy: Electricity, which is actually cheaper, is offset by the higher acquisition costs than for a combustion engine. If the worst comes to the worst, there is also the repair, which can also cost money in the case of an electric car. At least when it comes to insurance, e-car drivers should no longer pay – for the time being.
Bitter for e-car drivers: The repair is so much more expensive
Repairs to e-cars can be quite painful for drivers. The cost difference in plug-in hybrids is particularly severe: workshop costs should “about 40 percent more than the cost of conventional vehicles” lie, explains Carsten Reinkemeyer, Head of Security Research at the Allianz Insurance Technology Center (source: Wirtschaftswoche).
But repairing purely electric cars often costs more than comparable petrol or diesel vehicles. Allianz had already established this in its own investigation. Overall, the costs of repairing damage should therefore be around 10 percent higher than with combustion engines. In the event of damage, the difference increases to 30 percent.
Insurance for e-cars: Consumers should no longer pay
For some e-car drivers or those who are interested in buying one, this may put a damper on their enthusiasm for e-mobility. But Reinkemeyer also gives the all-clear: Der Insurance costs for e-cars will not increase he expects. The reason is that other types of damage are less common in electric cars. For example, without the combustion engine, some typical wearing parts such as spark plugs or V-belts are eliminated, and electric cars do not share the high-maintenance and potentially vulnerable transmission with their predecessors.
“Thereby the higher repair costs can be compensated for at the moment“, according to the Allianz expert. However, this is not a guarantee for the future, especially since many other factors also influence the sum insured. The Opel parent company Stellantis, on the other hand, fears that e-cars will generally become too expensive.
If not on the insurance, you can still save elsewhere with the e-car – which also speaks for a purchase:
According to Reinkemeyer, it’s the manufacturer’s turn. You should keep repair costs in mind when designing future electric cars. That is quite possible: “We crashed an electric car that even had lower repair costs than a similar combustion engine.”
So far, according to the Allianz study, it has often been the strict manufacturer specifications, such as battery replacement, that have caused high workshop costs. In the case of high-voltage cables, savings of up to 97 percent can be achieved by replacing the sheathing.