For all the people dreaming of "cars" that fly, wait until you see how insurance companies and FAA certification handle that.

I saw the thumbnail, and immediately knew what the rest of the title was. It's ALWAYS complicated.

How to reduce battery write-offs: give up on monolithic packs, break them down into standardized modules that can individually be swapped out. That way, in most impacts, only 1-3 modules out of 8-12 will need to get written off and off-the-shelf replacements will be much easier to get a hold of and much cheaper than the model-specific proprietary stuff we have today, at the expense of losing ~10% on pack energy density. The same ~100V modules could also be used for home batteries and other places that could benefit from standardized ~25kg 100V modules. The step back in overall density in favor of sustainability will eventually be offset by cell-level gains.

Written off EVs are the best source of storage batteries.

Someone backed into my Bolt EV slightly damaging the plastic pseudo-grill in the front. The other driver's insurance company didn't write off the vehicle, and my Chevy dealer replaced the part. Took a while. My 2020 Bolt (bought used last year) required no other service in 12k miles until last week when I had a flat tire replaced at the Chevy dealer. The next day (or the day after), my "service vehicle" light came on, and a message like "propulsion reduced" appeared, and my AC didn't work. My local Chevy dealer (that changed the tire) said they couldn't work on the car because they don't have a certified EV service tech, so I drove it to another dealer and dropped it off a week ago, and I still don't have a diagnosis, but I expect one today. The independence day holiday didn't help. I'd like to have my car back, so I'm hoping for a simple fix, but I won't be shocked if GM replaces the battery. I also recall this channel's experience with a $3000 AC compressor repair. I'm hoping that's not it or that my warranty covers it. Your repair wasn't repaired, but my drive train warranty is still in effect. I love my Bolt, but if I have a $3k repair at this point, my opinion of the Bolt will change markedly for the worse. If GM replaces my battery, I suppose I'm better off, but I expect to wait many weeks for a new battery, so I hope I can continue to drive my car (with AC) in the meantime. I almost never charge beyond 80% anyway. The current battery only has 20k miles on it, and it passed the 6k miles diagnostic after GM installed the diagnostic software just before I bought the car though I read recently that this software didn't work properly on some vehicles. Fortunately, I'm married and work from home and my wife (a school teacher) is out of work for the summer, so we're doing well enough with one car. We're also taking a vacation next week, but if my car is still unavailable when we return, I'll likely rent a car, and Chevrolet already told me that a rental is not covered. Maybe that'll change if my battery is replaced ... Update: GM is replacing my battery, and I can get a rental car though I'm leaving on a week's vacation in a few days anyway. I knew the battery replacement was a possibility when I bought the car, and the 8 year battery warranty starts over with the new battery, so I'm more happy than not about it, but after the 6k mile diagnostic period expired, I did park my car in the garage while charging for another 6k miles, typically charging to 80%. All's well that ends well ...

One of the reasons that insurance companies will write off vehicles for what appears to be minor damage is that they have to replace damaged parts with parts from the original manufacturers. This is obviously much more expensive that the way people like Rich rebuilds replaces parts. Rich is not legally responsible to the owner of a damaged car if a part that has been replaced turns out to be faulty or of inferior quality, but the insurance company is.

BMW have not stopped using composit for chassis, its still used on the IX models. Do not know what they will use for "neue klasse"

I wonder if auto makers with in-house insurance offerings have the same write off statistics?

Liability is the answer - insurance don’t want the potential liability if the battery decides to go thermal runaway after repair.

Land/Range Rovers tend to be stolen a lot due to parts availability issues. Hence why in some parts of the UK it's hard to insure one.

Regardless of whether ICE suffers from similar issues, failure to repair means a car's (EV's) potential climate benefits are out the window. Producing a Rivian R1T according to Rivian requires 39 tons CO2e. A BMW i5 according to BMW, 17 tons CO2e. To reach zero carbon, worldwide annual per capita CO2e is 2 tons for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, shared resources, military, etc. So we've got a yet another sustainability issue with luxury, large battery cars/SUVs/pickups that are being scrapped mere months after manufacturing due to collisions or in some cases simple BS like barely hopping a curb in a drive-through, as we've seen with BMW i4. Modularity, standarized parts, and simplifying the massively overcomplex vehicles will be needed. For example, VW going to Rivian to learn how to create zonal architecture that is proprietary and which potentially renders vehicles unrepairable when Rivian goes under, is a step in the wrong direction. Taillights don't need microprocessors nor do they need to be powered by an ECU via CAN bus that is centralized. They're far more repairable if they are simply a lens with two LED bulbs that could be replaced should one ever fail, powered by the 12V system that is easily understood and traced for repair by a shadetree mechanic. Tesla's approach of a CPU or dozens of CPUs being necessary to operate a car WILL render their cars eventually unrepairable because of obsolescence. And of course they're not alone. Maybe study an Ami and see how much more repairable a simple car is compared to a bloated luxury segment car with many more points of failure. This isn't just about collisions. It's also about how soon a car loses value to the point that it's scrapped for the next needed repair. Do you see all those Sparks and iQs on the road today? Me neither, because a cheap car gets relegated to scrap more quickly due to depreciation value dropping them below a modest repair cost. So we need to break the cycle of consumerism with automobiles and treat car manufacturing like we're building housing. Can we make them last for decades in the hands of the same purchaser, not build them with the intention of selling a new model to new car buyers every 3 years. That will require policy/regulation/break from market driven transportation model.

My husband's 2022 Model 3 was recently totaled when a drunk kid rear ended him at high speed on I-5. The collision was severe and, because the impact sent him spinning into the center cable median, every panel but the roof was damaged. Thankfully he walked away with only a sore neck that lasted about 12 hours (and PTSD, but that's another story). The *only* EV specific thing that was damaged was the charge port. A big reason that cars (in general) are getting written off more now than before is that cars are more expensive than ever to get repaired, as mentioned here. The reason for that isn't greed from automotive shops, its because it takes far, far, far, *FAR* more training, certification and expensive tools to repairs cars now. That expensive is sometimes partly covered by repair shops, but in almost all cases that cost must be covered by the technician themselves. This has meant the expense incurred by technicians just to do their jobs has increased exponentially, but their pay has not. This is why there is a shortage of quality technicians: good techs are leaving the industry (like me) and not being replaced because nobody is coming into the industry. That is a bit of a tangent, but the fact of the matter is the cost for shops to repair vehicles (in general, not just EVs) has sky rocketed, as has the standard of repair required to get a vehicle to be safe, so less severe damage now costs more to fix.

The Fisker was probably worth more as an insurance claim, than it was on the road. At least now, the owner doesn’t have to worry about the vehicle dropping further into the financial abyss. And who claims for a wonky hinge in the first place? There’s plenty of vehicles around, that were built by companies that are no more. Do people who own a Trebant or original Studebaker or Alvis or AMC simply make a move to get them scrapped if the door slightly drops? No. They go to a local fabricator or garage or look for spares online.

I can speak from first hand experience of wrecked EVs having the potential of invisible battery damage. The battery that is in my leaf right now was swapped from a wrecked car, and can not read the battery state of health. Unless something nefarious was done by the shop to sell a battery as "100% condition" >.>

A HV battery leak is detected by the isolation circuit, like a ground fault outlet. While the bms measures the cell performance. All the tools are there to evaluate the batteries getting health. Only the training and procedures are missing.

They are places in UK, Norway (and I imagine in UsA too, that they check and potentially repair batteries as often only a single cell issue could save the whole battery pack… but not sure if these faults are after accidents or it is mainly due to “just faulty cells” with aging, etc…

Another reason EVs are written off is scarcity of personnel who are trained to work on the traction electrics. Especially away from major cities. Sister had a red light runner T-bone the far-side rear corner of her EV. (Yes there can be a disadvantage to that much quicker off the mark acceleration - The RLR saying he ‘couldn’t believe how quickly she had gotten in his way’ (🤔😳🤯) as he tried to blame her. [Good thing for her Dash Cam]). The charging port was damaged in the impact & not one repair centre in a regional NSW (Australia) town would touch it as ‘their staff weren’t trained & authorised to do the associated electrical work.’ The insurance company ummed & ahhed as to whether to hire a flat bed tow-truck to take it to the OEM head-office 700km away in Sydney to get the port disconnected. Then have another FBTT to take it to a nearby repairer. Then take it back to the OEM head office to have to charge port fitted, and then have it delivered back to my sister. In the end, they decided the cost of all the tows, their additional administration time to organise & the additional time it would all take whilst paying for a hire car meant it was just easier to write-off what was repairable damage. Obviously issues like this will be overcome as people are trained & certified, but at the moment it’s another factor in the write-off/repair decision in Australia.

TL;DW: (Before watching video): The parts are proprietary and in limited supply.

Liking and commenting for the proper use of "couldn't care less"

Great summation of the issues! But, I think you miss one important point. EV residual values have been eviscerated over the course of the last year thanks primarily to Tesla's slashing of prices. The long-standing rule of thumb for insurance companies is to total a car was 30% of residual value. If there is a statistically significant difference between the rate of total vehicle losses between ICE vehicles and EVs, I think it will deminish and shrink over time as residual values stabilize. Again you have done a great job framing the issues my perspective may be skewed having grown up in a family with a number of insurance executives.

A while back I checked out the cost of a drivers door for a CT and an F150. The door prices were about the same but with the Ford you would end up eating the bill to paint it. Win for the CT. The CT body panels have the 1.4/1.8 SS skin backed by a steel support that is bolted to the cast aluminum endoskeleton. With bolted on body panels all the way around the CT labor should be less. The problem is that at this point there are few or no collision shops outside Tesla that know how to repair them. This needs to change. Should note that a regular truck may make several trips to the body shop that the CT may no need during its lifetime.

The battery is the issue. They are just such a massive percentage of the vehicle's overall cost and are relatively exposed.

Half the time I think insurance writers and autobody need more education on EVs to reduce the amount of write offs.

A common complaint with EVs is flat tyres. Tickets for speeding, and parking, are really annoying with EVs too. I know someone who even got a ticket for driving their EV on the pavement (that's the sidewalk for all those Americans who don't talk proper English like what we British does). Nothing but problems with EVs.

A salvage title is almost uninsurable & is risky. People think "comliance" cars are inderior, but there are billions of Fiat 500e that share body parts. There should be 2 categories of salvage, saftey or economic.

"....absolute nightmare..." shows an Mazda MX-30. I never buy new and don't buy collision insurance. Rarely comprehensive. So far I'm WAY ahead. I fix minor boo-boos myself or just forget about them if they're cosmetic. when I get rid of a car, most damage is a minor consideration to the purchaser. All they want is cheap wheels that roll by that point.

And we in the west used to glee in making fun of the Russian Lada as it had not changed in 40 years and the problems you are talking about never occured to Lada owners. !

Do new (first year of manufacturing) vehicles get written off at a higher rate?

Thank you.

Here in Texas the insurance company would register the VIN in a state government database as totalled - granting "salvage" status to the title, pending repairs and an inspection by certified technitions. The owner may tow the Tesla to a Texas DMV inspection station - can't be driven there. By this time, it's likely owned by the insurance company - which wants to get rid of it If the "owner" schedules the DMV to perform a safety inspection to determine whether the vehicle is repaired to be structurally safe to drive, but the DMV inspector isn't qualified to inspect the battery. Will Tesla be gracious and certify that it's safe? Maybe, maybe not - the original vehicle owner has already taken the insurance settlement and the Tesla sits in a salvage yard. The longer it sits the greater the chance that it is never repaired. There are insuffucient shops that can inspect the batteries - with the "salvage" title only a limited number of shops can verify the battery - maybe zero in your region . The insurance company avoids the liability - can be sued by future owner if the Tesla catches fire. A shop also carries liability. In all likelihood , the Tesla is theoretically repairable, but the process is not timely and involves considerable emotional stress because after money is spent the "salvage" status could still persist and even if the title was updated to "repaired" status with the repair history would depreciate like a falling rock. This is where illegal "title washing" may enter, but that's difficult for a criminal to successfully do - don't underestimate criminals.

YES. Because not many shops will/can work on them as such those shops which do take unfair advantage and charge extra. CURRENTLY, dealership shop rates are SO high, insurance cos are REAL likely to total a minor damaged vehicle in fear of or after receiving the labor estimates. Thats how a lot a lot a lot a lot of talented DIYs are making big $$ buying minor wrecks & fixing the damage & reselling it for a handsome profit. !

the channel should be called transport devolved. "the ev's are great until they aren't"

I would disagree a little on the risk aversion of insurance companies. Yes, they're adverse to anything that might rebound on them (like facing a lawsuit from a post-repair battery fire). But for general repairs, *they* aren't the shy ones - duck tape and wire, sure! But *we* are not accepting of that. Do *you* want that kind of repair? You know, they used to do exactly this sorry of thing; but laws have changed and flights over what's "good enough" are too common. One of the things that worked me most about Tesla was their "gigacasting" and similar manufacturing cost cutting innovations. Good for them, and good to get that price down, but how do you repair that sort of part? While i had my Volt, the stories of write-offs with minor damage were common on the forums. Usually because the expensive electronic pieces were right in that crinkle zone and it was *those* pieces that made the repair cost exceed the vehicle value. I'm sure parts are shrinking, so, hopefully they can get better protection going forward. But, yeah, there is that battery - the radioactive bit, the Kryptonite. Those remain bespoke, not easily repairable, and carry the bring of the car's cost. So any damage there at all ... 🤷‍♂️

C'mon Nikki, that Lightning damage would have buffed out... (/s)

What did your insurance for the Lightning cost per month? I just watched a video on a Tesla model 3 that cost 300 dollars a month in insurance and I thought that was insanely expensive. Maybe it is the norm...

Secondary insurers also play into these decisions.

So I'm hearing always pay extra for gap insurance into the future.

Thanks

But does writing off a car and paying tens of thousands is cheaper?? 🤦‍♂️

Metric system all over again Sure insurance is one thing but the availability of spare parts feels a lot like Americans (or people in general) not willing to just switch to a simpler or better thing even if it hits them in the face.

This counts as engagement right? Thanks algorithm. K Bye :)

My 2019 Bolt was written off for a 10mph bumper collision.

algorithmalgorithmalgorithmalgorithmalgorithmalgorithm

In my comments yesterday, i politely described why i unsubscribed. I am aware that the world will still keep turning. If the creators of this channel would like me to explain myself better, I'd be happy to. I do not feel that my views deserve highlighting, but it may help to reduce offense. All opposing viewpoints cause offence to some extent, this is unavoidable. BUT one thing i can unequivocally say is that i believe this channel puts out kosher facts on EV = The issues for my insignificant unsubscribing does not change the fact that EV stuff here is great.