There's More To Crash Repair Costs Than Gas Vs. EV (And That's Bad News For Tesla Drivers)

Car ownership can be far more expensive than you might expect. Growing up, you may well have dreamed of saving up, buying the vehicle of your dreams and road-tripping off into the sunset. This isn't to say that you can't do that, but it's likely not as cheap as it once was. Insurance and fuel must be factored in, of course, and if the worst should happen, so must maintenance.

Practicalities such as the higher price of the vehicle itself can be a prominent factor holding back EV sales. This increased cost, however, extends to a factor you might not have considered: repairs.

An EV battery is an expensive commodity. It stands to reason that replacement parts and repairs for such a vehicle may be more specialized, and therefore more expensive. Curiously, though, the disparity between repair costs for EVs and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles isn't generally as great as you might think in a lot of cases. Unfortunately for Tesla owners, though, the picture is a bit different. Let's take a look at the trends for repair costs between the two, and how Tesla is an exception to this trend.

Electric vehicles are steadily getting a foothold in the United States. According to IEA's "Global EV Outlook 2023 Executive Summary," 8% of vehicles sold in the country the previous year were electric, a jump of 55% year-on-year, while that figure stands at 14% on a global scale. While this is encouraging for the industry, it does mean that inevitable factors such as unfamiliarity with the architecture, the difficulty of procuring spare parts and availability of equipment can complicate the issue of repairs.

This is reflected in Mitchell's report "Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q3 2023." The report states that operations like safely powering down the system and potentially disengaging the battery fully add an awful lot of potential time and complexity to such an operation. "EV repairs trended heavier in terms of labor with 49.66% of the total repair cost devoted to labor compared to 41% for ICE vehicles. On average, this equates to more than six additional labor hours per repair," Mitchell notes. As is so often the case, then, a longer job can be a more expensive job.

Mitchell goes on to state that, for this period, the differential between EV and gas vehicle repairs in the US stood at $950. The curious thing is just how much Tesla vehicles influence this data.

Considering only non-Tesla EVs, Mitchell's "Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q3 2023" goes on, the difference in repair costs between such vehicles and those with conventional engines falls all the way to $269.

Of course, there's no specific amount that repairs for particular vehicles will cost, as the situation, the extent of the damage, insurance concerns, and so on, all factor into the financial damage a crash causes. However, two things seem clear from this average-cost data: EV repairs remain more pricey than the average equivalent for their ICE counterparts, though perhaps not as much so as consumers may fear. It's when Tesla vehicles in particular are included that the picture starts to look rather more unpleasant.

After a crash, it appears, the required work on a Tesla can cost $1,350 (or even more) above that of its ICE counterparts. There are several possible factors in play that may help to explain this.

The Tesla family has never positioned itself as a budget runaround family of vehicles. The cheapest model, the Model 3, stands at above $40,000, while the upcoming Roadster may top $250,000 for those with hopes of securing one of the very limited Founders Series models (approximately $200,000 for a standard, perhaps more realistic one).

Tesla manufactures some critical components of its vehicles, such as batteries, itself. As such, parts can be tricky and/or expensive to come by, as can personnel qualified to perform such work on their vehicles (fortunately, Tesla batteries cope with colder temperatures rather well). These factors may well contribute to Repair Pal's finding that the average yearly cost to repair and maintain a Tesla is $832.

If electric vehicles can continue to close the repair cost gap, another significant reason not to take the plunge on such a vehicle can be mitigated. For Tesla drivers, sadly, that gap remains quite a major one.