Why Don't Garages Want To Fix EVs?

Well, once again, we're driving whilst doing driving.

Oh, it's like we've planned this.

We haven't.

No, because well, that's why I ended up getting that

so worthless you didn't want to keep it so for the podcast.

Well, yeah.

That we've used, well, I don't think we've used it for about five months.

No, it's just it's there waiting to be used, isn't it?

But we've discovered that it's easier to say, right, we're doing a trip.

Let's just do it now.

Let's do a podcast.

And with the magic.

Oh, parking anyway.

Exactly.

With the magic of AI audio filtering.

If you're listening to this rather than watching on YouTube,

you won't even know what it is.

It takes out all the background audio switchcraft.

It is.

So it just opens it up to us to be able to do what we're doing now.

This should be the fifth concurrent week of podcasting by five weeks.

Now, this will also be the first one of the new year.

In fact, it might be going out in New Year's Day.

Wow.

Is that a Thursday this year?

What a gift.

I know.

So do we do something for New Year's?

Or do we do...

Happy New Year's.

I'm happy New Year's.

Yeah, I'm happy New Year's, but we'll say that.

I hope you had a good Christmas.

Yeah, which seems a bit odd as Christmas hasn't happened yet.

Yeah, to us.

Well, as to you, but not to us.

Hope you enjoyed the driving home for Christmas podcast.

Do you know what? I really enjoyed making that.

It was a good trip down memory.

I went home and like ordered Coke and other things that we talked about.

There has to be a tin of quality streets.

Yes, tins, please.

But no, on this one, what is topical for us right now?

And by the time this podcast goes out, you probably already know this.

The boomerang car.

Well, yeah, it's about a car, but it's more specifically about

binding someone to fix EVs.

Yes.

And the problem is, as I did in a previous video about that Zoe that we're on,

the faulty Zoe, I've rang up 10 places on the headroom app, not just on Google.

In terms of geographically closer to me and just got further afield.

And nine of 10 of them said they weren't even willing to look.

The thing is, when you look at the headroom app, you go, oh, brilliant.

I've got loads of support for my electric vehicle if anything goes wrong.

Yep.

And then you haven't in the hour.

Servicing, fine.

Repairing, clearly there's a problem there.

And headroom are really good.

The person who's fixed our, your Zoe relies on headroom.

It's a really good organisation.

It's, it's worth every penny.

The trouble is the map alone is the, again, it's misleading, isn't it?

It's very misleading, isn't it?

And the problem with that is that, like I said, you might go and buy a used EV

thinking, oh, it's tons in my area.

And, and only if I, as we did.

So nine of 10 garages on the, on the EV map, let alone in general.

And the closest one to us is an hour and about an hour, hour and 10 minutes drive.

And yeah.

So it's, it's what about?

35 miles, what?

It's about 40 from my animals.

Yeah.

It's, it's not, it's not, it's not impossible, is it?

But it's not like it's just dropping a car in your local garage, is it?

I can't message on that to a video saying a cat find anyone who repaired my EV

from someone who says, I live in Canada.

Four hours away is local to me.

Well, yeah, this is all relative.

It is, isn't it?

But there's lots of garages and the vast majority, it seems nine out of 10,

90% of them do not want to even think about repairing an EV.

And again, that's, that's the ones that are on the EV map, not just general garages.

And I've been speaking to the garages that is fixing it, as well as asking those that don't.

Why on earth do you want to touch an EV?

As well as the comments that you get as well from mechanics.

It's like, I will, it's too expensive for the.

The nutritional training, the training, you know, all this, it's just not worth our while.

Now, I feel ahead of the curve though, well, this is a thing.

And there's a few theories banding around.

Some have come from EV garages, the one we're going to today.

Is he said, oh, when I started out, it was all carburetors and old school.

Yeah, yeah.

And he says now, sorry, when he started, when the ECUs and injectors and all that.

So, yeah, when computers basically.

Yeah, yeah.

We wouldn't need a mechanic, would you?

No, and the guy that owned the garage, I'm guessing, is like.

I'm 55, I can't be bothered.

There's no point because I'll have enough to fix to get to see me out.

So I think that's one thing, isn't it?

If you think there's no point in me, I'm busy enough with combustion engine,

I will be for the next decade.

Why bother with all that hassle?

It's such a different, I guess it's in terms of lots of things are similar

around there, but then there's lots are very different as well.

I've got another garage ringing me up now.

Oh, well, shall we take a pause?

Yes.

Oh, shall we just leave it?

We'll leave it in.

Hello.

Aye aye.

Yeah.

Have you taken it for a drive?

And you can hear it knocking.

Any idea where it's from?

Offside.

If you had luck there.

Yeah.

Right.

Get a bit worse.

Okay, I'll see how he goes then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

You will.

Yeah, I might not be able to make it in time.

If I don't, just leave the card with his outfit there or is he away?

Or just put it somewhere safe and I can use my phone to open it and drive it off.

All right.

Yeah.

In it and I'll lock it then.

We'll do.

All right, mate.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Bye.

I don't know.

It's always fun the cat find out what the knocking noise is.

No, I think it's getting worse.

Well, you've just had a call from a garage that's fixing just suspension components.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's not easy really.

But would they do what do you reckon?

Or just do the basics, brakes, suspension parts, that sort of stuff.

Anything else?

No.

But that's the problem.

Oh, quite a few that I've spoken to in the past anyway have said,

what car is it?

Yeah, I'm just not about brakes for example.

Yeah.

What car?

All right, so Renault's all we are with.

Oh, no, no, we don't do EVs.

It's like, no, no, I just want you to do the brakes.

Yeah.

No, we don't.

No, no, we don't touch them.

What do you mean he does?

He says, it's just brakes.

Are the brakes different on this than the iron?

Nope.

Not exactly the same, are they?

It's the friction brakes.

Exactly.

Now there may be certain health and safety requirements.

And again, the garage we're going to, he said, yeah, you've got gloves,

you've got like the deaf stick or whatever he called it.

The guy stood behind you with a back stick this year.

The rubber mat.

Yeah.

He said basically, you've got less than a grand's worth of safety equipment,

which is no more or less than stuff that you need for combustion engine stuff either.

You've all got health and safety.

Or you'll learn all that sort of stuff.

So basically, there's no real excuse to do that, not to do the basics.

And yet, garages simply just don't touch them.

Yeah.

And it's annoying me now because part of it will be, I'm busy enough, why do I bother?

Yeah.

But part of it is thinking, don't learn to me in 10, 15 years time, 20, whatever.

She's still around that you aren't going to work because you don't know what you're doing

when it comes to the use stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just like ECU's coming in.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you remember getting the, was it auto express magazines and all that sort of stuff?

We're going to put local garages out of business.

Going to put local garages out of business because of ECU's and injectors and all.

Or a BD2.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, there will be at least 50 grand's worth of equipment.

And now look.

Yeah.

It's not a problem.

It never really was.

It's just, it's like an industry that doesn't like change.

And that's not unusual.

Yeah, I don't think anyone likes change, do they?

And if you've been working with combustion engines all your life, and that's what you know,

moving to something else where it's different.

I wouldn't say it's any more complex, probably.

Probably simpler.

The fault with is always the motor bearing needed replacing.

And essentially he said, it's not really that different from a gearbox.

Yeah.

The only thing you have to do that was even vaguely EV specific was isolate the batch first.

Yeah.

And you're talking probably a couple of the NVQ's for that.

It's not a lot of hassle, is it?

But, you know, a lot of them say it's not worth it.

It'd be too expensive.

It's like, but that's up to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you want to charge me five grand to fix something.

That's what I say, yeah.

Why, you're throwing money away for me.

And, you know, it's like other trades where you ring up and you can never get hold of them.

Oh, I'm too busy.

So you just ignore my messages.

And then when, yeah, the industry is on its ass.

Oh, no, no one's, I don't know if it's a joiner or a plumber, no one's spending any money on their houses.

Well, yeah, but if you actually got back to me when you were busy, then I might have rung you back when you learn.

And it's, I don't know.

Maybe is it because of the industry that we've both spent decades at IT?

We are constantly having to evolve.

Well, you can't stand still, can you?

Not for one minute.

There's always a day it changes.

There's new stuff.

There's new risks.

And if you get a pro, if someone comes to you with, oh, I've got this issue or what's happening.

And you think, like, well.

Never know if you're far.

You don't go.

Too expensive.

It's not, there's not worth it.

You have to find a research, haven't you?

You've got to look up new Google ready.

And that's the thing.

I think there's a lot of overestimate, overestimating by these garages on ad equipment needed and be

how much, how different they are between the combustion in.

And I'm not talking about high voltage battery diagnostics.

Now I'm just on about working on an EV, anything other than the high voltage metric.

I'm not expecting local garages to refuel.

That's probably something you're going to send your battery away for, isn't it, in the future?

How many, how many garages will go and reconditioned?

A DSG box.

Yeah, a gearbox.

Even engines as well, though.

Yeah.

You buy a reconditioned box or a reconditioned engine.

They'll take you out and put a new one in.

Yeah.

Or they'll take it out, send it off for refurbish.

And essentially, as far as you're concerned, it's all taken care of by your app.

It's all done in one place, isn't it?

But again, with an EV, oh, I'm not touching that.

And I'm like, but why?

And do you think we're going to see a time, you know, the next five years where

that changes, where people have, oh, do you know what?

Is it a thing of even people having to do that or people with some interest in it

are going, oh, I'll do that?

Well, you know what it is.

It'll be the same old.

There'll be those that just want to do the servicing, which I know is a big thing.

Dealers do this all the time, don't they?

Yeah.

Just want to service stuff.

That will eat it out.

Yeah, no diagnostics.

And I know a lot of garages will do that.

It's like, well, this is our bread and butter.

We make money by servicing.

We know how long it's going to take us.

We know what's going to happen and how much it's going to cost.

So no, yeah, the only thing is.

And you just take it over.

We don't want to spend anywhere from four to 12 hours on a problem.

And then have the customer go, well, do you mean you can charge with 12 hours?

I get that.

Well, the thing is, it's a lot like that in IT, isn't it?

If you charge the customer for what you actually did in the hours you used a lot

of the time, it wouldn't be economical, would it?

For some research.

Yeah, some of it is research and you bettering yourself or getting to know,

oh, that's that problem.

If it comes up again, I know what it is.

That's just how it is sometimes, isn't it?

Well, I think the garages that want to be an EV specialist

or are starting to really do this, proper repairs,

they're going to have the reputation for when this is more common than combustion engine.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then I won't say everyone's going to be left behind,

but they're going to have to catch up quickly.

Yeah, only at one.

And that's the difference, I think, for me.

Because I'd get it if you're like, well, I'm full now.

Why should I look at other new stuff?

But don't forget, we're only walked four years away from every new car.

How so?

Being a plug-in hybrid.

Yeah.

So therefore, it's an EV, essentially, isn't it?

You have to work at high-voltage.

What's going to happen with plug-in hybrids, then?

It's someone going to go, oh, well, I work on the

more than the petrol motor.

But I won't touch that.

But I would presume that there's obviously a high-volt battery there.

No, you're going to have to have the same equipment

as if they're working on the battery of the EV.

So every 10 years, we're going to have a huge percentage of ice cars

not being serviced.

Because for every EV or feather that comes out and replaces it,

it replaces it.

Yeah, yeah, it must be an engine.

So that's less to look after yet.

So when a few years off, yeah, I'm not saying like,

if you don't do it now, you're going to lose out.

You're not.

But ultimately, if you say it's going to cost you thousands.

If I say, yes, why do you care?

Yeah, I've got to say, isn't it?

That's my decision.

It's going to cost you a lot of money, isn't it?

How about really really going another day?

It's a refusal to not even look at it.

Yeah.

And again, when you start talking about brakes,

that just tells me that you have no idea of what an EV actually is.

Oh, no, no, no, the different brakes.

I remember ATX.

The different brakes.

They wouldn't change a tyre with ATX because it was an EV.

I think I heard a similar sort of story as well

from another well-known service, service and tyre provider.

And they were saying, oh, we won't touch EVs.

We're not allowed to.

They've got to cord them off around.

Yeah, yeah, it's healthy safety.

Yeah, because the thing is they're just bursting the flames.

Well, there is that, yeah, fire extinguisher is not enough.

It is not.

And I find it amazing that it's like that.

That's a worry that they're going to have a fire.

You fix clues in the name.

Combustion engines, yeah.

There's oil all over your floor.

There's fuel probably leaking in bits.

So you're having a sick.

But yeah, you worry about fire and an EV,

which is completely as we know.

Oh, yeah, incorrect in terms of percentage of chances anyway.

But yeah, I know you have to have training.

And my brother's kid, he just finished in a five year

apprenticeship soon on buses.

And he's had to do his or his chores until I'm not sure,

like EV things.

So we can work on EV buses.

Well, because that's in his health and safety.

So the EV buses now are the service,

chiefly in district travel.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

I bet if any of these garages, if they have a child at that age

and they went, oh, I want to be a mechanic,

do you think I should do the EV side of things, dad?

Oh, no, no.

You know what we're doing now?

That's not going to be a thing in the future.

But realistically, they're going to say, of course you.

Why would you not?

You that's, you're going to have to do that.

So I guess it depends on the age of the person who owns the garage.

If, like you say, if you're 10 years off your time,

it's like, I can't be bothered.

No point.

It's not going to benefit me unless I'm handing the garage over.

No, but something else, yeah.

So I'm not saying everyone should do it.

Deadly lose more and more customers

because you won't be able to meet their needs.

Yeah.

It's not going to be like a drop off the edge of a cliff, is it?

But you're going to see that slow down.

Do you think there will be insurance implications?

Like, you know, we'll pull it away and say,

oh, well, if you don't, if your employees don't have the training

for what the insurance company might say, all cars now,

like health and safety for basic EV, whatever it is,

they're going to go, well, you know, you're like minimum standards.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, just in case because you're going to work on a car at some point

that is either a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, or an EV.

Even if it's just brakes.

You would think that most garages by now would have worked on a hybrid,

whether that's a plug-in hybrid or not, EV.

Look at how long the Prius has been about.

Prius, yeah, of course.

So what's happening with all these cars?

Are the companies that are just going,

flash it, are the companies that are going,

well, you know, like some thought, we'll just do the petrol motor,

but not the other part.

It's a bit, I mean, is that a thing?

I don't know, I've not driven obviously hybrids,

but I've not owned one and taken one to protect it.

Also, it's battery, isn't it?

Yeah.

When you get into a proper hybrid.

So therefore, like I say, it doesn't...

It's an expensive photograph, isn't it?

Well, yeah, it's the police fan.

What?

Now, we'll just diverge a second from the topic.

I know you're not meant to, and the police say they may prosecute you,

but I like it when people flash.

I flash to warn people that there is a speed camera.

Is that a good or a bad thing?

Because I know what some people in the comments

will be saying right now.

You shouldn't be speeding.

So why should you warn someone of it?

And do you know what?

If it was the built-up area outside the school, I won't flash.

This is literally...

Well, there's nothing here.

There's nothing here, is there?

Oh, there is the tip.

We're coming up to the tip soon.

Well, it's a 50.

Yeah, you could do a lot more than that on air safely

if you wanted to, not that I'd advise that.

I think in context,

outside the school, is it?

Yeah, in the school area, the 30 area,

you should be in 30 mile an hour or 20 mile an hour

for obvious reasons.

On this road, where there's nothing here.

Yeah.

Well, I guess that nice the segues into the...

Wonder if the police, because they fix their old stuff, don't they?

Yeah.

I wonder if they've had to retrain their, you know,

fleet technicians and...

Oh, yeah.

...parallely, because they're getting quite a lot of EVs

in the police traffic sort of area.

They've been up the traffic cars, but they're not getting...

They are getting them, aren't they?

Yeah, they'll stay in ambulances with them as well.

They most have to though.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

I know a lot of people who have gone on to set up their own

like, mobile EVs sort of,

and there's a few people doing this now.

And a lot of them said, oh, I worked for Tesla.

Well, yeah, for a few years.

So, I'm familiar with Tesla,

and obviously I've got the qualifications

that I assume they put you through.

You can, yeah, use them yourself afterwards.

So, it's like, well, there you go.

You're instantly an advantage.

It's like, do you remember cloud computing was what?

Five years ago became a big thing, aren't you?

Well, just a lockdown happened.

Well, yes, actually, I guess.

I mean, it was around, but in terms of it really...

Being a nice ify, yeah.

So, anybody who was like a cloud expert...

I just got whipped up in the air.

Boo, and all of a sudden, you know, you were shot up, yeah.

Because you were a head of the curve.

Then that's the thing that...

I mean, you can see what's happening now, can't you?

People are buying EVs.

And used one feds, lots of them.

Yeah, all going to the second hand.

Second hand, they've become affordable.

Until recently, they weren't really affordable, were they?

No, I mean, you've got eight year warranty on the batteries,

so it doesn't really track.

Yeah.

That for eight years, you're not going to get much to repair, are you?

But now?

Now.

Yeah, as we found out.

Become affordable?

Yeah, I mean, the guy we're going to is fixed Tesla batteries before.

Yeah, and other stuff.

I'm sure that we don't know about, you know, he's basically done the high voltage.

So he had the...

It's not that difficult.

High-free there, didn't it, which the battery's dead on that?

No, actually.

I thought the engine extend was dead on that, isn't it?

Ironically, it was a petrol problem.

Because of all the bike engines, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but because it's an EV, I bet no garage would touch it,

even though the fault is a combustion engine fault.

Which doesn't bother me, yeah.

I wonder if it's something of, you know, with feds.

Um, are they more worried about breaking something else

that could be incredibly expensive?

It's not the only, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's like, it's just not worth us doing it.

I mean, I don't mind a garrison.

We don't know, so therefore we're not going to attempt it.

Yeah, it's not our thing.

It's the refusal.

Oh, no, no, it's not worth it.

There's a lot of comments on that video, one of them.

I'm a mechanic, and all the garages in our area are cobbling together

to basically refuse any EV.

Because they're not going to, it's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

What are you talking about?

So what you will do is find out where they are

and start an EV specialist.

I mean, the thing is, they account for a lot of new car sales

and a lot of second hand car sales.

Yeah, right, yeah, he's going up.

Second hand market for EVs is pretty healthy at the moment.

Rooming in relative to the car market.

Yeah, it's not, it's dropped a bit last year.

Cars in general, isn't it?

There's a percentage of cars sold that's still growing, new and new.

Well, you look at the, I always go back to this, the electric mini.

They're not under 10 grand.

I could have bought an electric mini two or three years ago at 10 grand.

And it's still worth 10 grand.

Yeah, they just hit that barrier for a bit, aren't they?

But the main dealers, let's switch to them.

Because I feel like we've battered an industry,

and I feel them rightly so in some respects.

I can understand why you're doing what you're doing.

It's just that, it's just the ignorance of some of the responses I've got

just shocked me that you don't want to take my money.

Yeah, yeah, which is bizarre, doesn't it?

But let's switch to somewhere slightly different.

As the previous owner of this, as we found out,

the main dealers don't really want to do it either.

Well, the main dealers don't want to repair me.

They don't want to repair me.

They want to replace the parts.

So rather than open the part up and go, oh, we can fix that,

it's just go, oh, it's a battery problem.

You need to replace the entire battery.

Or your motor bearings have failed.

You need to replace the entire motor.

It's like saying, oh, your cam belt's gone,

so you're going to need a 7,000 pound engine.

Yeah, they don't repair, do they?

They just replace.

The best thing to go up to do is they get the parts

cannon out and just fire it at the car until it's thick.

Keep replacing stuff until it worked.

And what that does is you get articles and things saying,

oh, it's 15 grand to replace a battery on an EV.

Well, no, that's to get a brand new one that's replaced by the dealer.

Who gets a 10-year-old Golf GTI and asks the main dealer?

Bring you more.

Yeah, for a brand new engine and they then have fitted.

You're going to get in touch with a scrapper, that, you can go,

have you got a running engine?

Yeah, exactly.

I'll have one of them.

And then your local garage will swap it out.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of misinformation, but dealers don't help themselves.

So this guy had the, there's, oh, it didn't he, for nearly a year.

He did, yeah.

Sorry.

No.

The garage had it for nearly a year.

The main dealer.

It's come up to two years without an MOT, hasn't it, almost?

Yeah, yeah.

I think it was two years.

Yep.

So it was nearly due to its MOT when it stopped working.

And then the garage had it for, I think, nine, 10 months.

It waits for a new motor to arrive.

Because he'd agreed to go ahead with the...

He was paying four or five grand.

Yep.

But then they were still waiting after nine, 10 months for a new motor

which you'd think if they're still building these cars,

there would be motors available.

Well, that, that model, certainly, the 40 kilo hour was sold up to 2019.

How they cannot get out of a...

A new motor.

Right all the way.

That, that doesn't make sense.

And I've heard this from other manufacturers as well.

Right on Drivewood.

I've heard it from other manufacturers as well, where they're saying,

oh, it's in for warranty repair.

So it's not going to cost me all, but they're waiting for parts.

I've heard, yeah, yeah.

I said, we'd be far with a friend who'd got an MG.

It was the heat pump.

Yep.

And it took weeks, didn't it?

Yeah, months.

Months and months.

I feel like we should apologise because it's during the day,

but it's so dull in December.

It's crazy.

It's become one of those days in December where it hasn't really got light.

No, and you can still see us, but if you are watching this,

it is a podcast.

The audio is the important bit.

Oh, look.

Bit of light.

But it's not much.

Yeah, so hopefully you can listen to this and the visual.

We don't want to see us anyway.

We're not just talking.

But yeah, I feel like it's just transitional.

I just want more local garages to see the light and say,

this is a growing proportion of untapped customers now

that you're ignoring for your own growth.

Unless you are retiring in a few years.

Why are you not doing this?

Yeah, exactly.

This garage we're going to, I think there's three of them.

He owns it to employees.

It's not like a big place, is it?

No, no, no.

It's a traditional what you'd call local garage.

And they've been around for some about 15, 20 years.

Couple of units having this, something like that.

Yeah.

So ultimately, if they can do it, and logically anybody can do it,

it's just...

I think it's having that interest and having that drive.

Oh, he says I've got the drive.

He says I've got at least 25 years left in this before I think of retiring.

So, of course, he's going to have to...

And he's wanting to, it's that drive to want to learn more.

Yes.

Interesting.

And the younger, his employees, I guess.

They're loving it because imagine in a few years time,

if they become a proper specialist in the repairing batteries

and motors and EVs, in four or five years time,

they could just go on their own.

Yeah, and do their own thing.

And all of a sudden, you've got all that knowledge

and instantly charge a good weight compared to just average apprentice.

Yeah, if you were.

So, I feel like there's a slight thing there on the people you employ.

You know, it takes them more.

And the cost, again, for what he's telling me,

is just in the same sort of cost in terms of equipment

that you would have for combustion engine.

I think the thing is you just need more of it, of course.

So, there is a...

Is it small?

Yes.

I think there's a cost, isn't there, to it?

There is.

And also, I think it's something, as we've experienced,

is sometimes things take a little bit longer because it's new.

Yeah.

It's new to them, it's new to Evera.

So, you just load and then second, third, fourth time you do it.

You know, it's much quicker.

Yeah.

And you can bang it out.

And I'm sure it was the same when you started fixing combustion engine car.

Oh, it was, yeah.

It was slower and then it's quicker.

You know, you couldn't do the ECUs with the machine you got

and then you got a better machine and blah, blah, blah.

I think the thing is, as well, is when a particular model of car comes out

to do certain jobs and it'll go, oh, you need to take the engine out or something like that.

Well, like, I felt on my TT.

Yeah.

Until you get to where you go, well, actually, no, we don't need to do that.

We just need to drop the gearbox here as we can get around it.

Yeah.

And it's that thing that has a lot of the jobs on EVs.

If you follow the service book, you're probably going,

that's a pretty big job until you find the shortcuts.

And I think there's also a perception that an electric car is a computer,

even though there's less, as I understand it, there's less like sensors and monitors

on an EV due to the drivetrain being just a motor.

Then there is on a combustion engine car.

There's more to go wrong.

Oh, look how the parts are having to come stinging.

And non-mechanical parts as well.

Yeah.

How many times do you have an ECU fault, a sensor fault, or a wiring fault on a combustion engine car?

There's so little to go wrong on an EV, it's not.

People think, oh, if it's electric, it must be a computer.

What?

And it's French.

God, that's a bad combination.

Some people call it an electrical car.

Electrical car?

Not a laptop, just because it's got a drivetrain that's powered by a battery.

It's the car.

Yeah.

I've not heard electrical car before.

Yeah, I've about.

That sounds somewhat like my grandma would have said.

My mum still says when she sends me a message.

Oh, I said you were teletext.

Yeah, teletext.

Are you in that electrical car over death traps?

So I suppose there is a bit of there's not enough EVs to repair now.

Will that be fair?

I don't know.

There must be.

I see maintenance is probably a lot.

I remember the Zoe forum on Facebook.

And you do get a lot.

Everyone, there's not everything right.

Everyone goes, oh, I've got a really good experience.

So people with problems, isn't it?

You go on any groups about cars.

There's always people with problems.

So there's a lot of problems out there from what I'm seeing.

Yep.

Yeah.

And once you've done it once, once you're familiar with the car, that's it.

Yeah.

I guess it's like you get a bag specialist, isn't it?

Well, yeah.

And again, that's what I see people doing.

You'll have Tesla specialists and bag EV specialists.

It's just that EVs, whether you like it or agree with it or not,

are eventually going to replace the combustion engine for everything

other than toys and exotic cars.

Yeah.

The combustion engine and going anywhere for decades.

But we'll be around for a while.

But the majority of stuff.

The daily drivers are going to be electric or...

We're almost seeing a tipping balance now, aren't we?

That's the thing.

Yeah.

We're not far off it.

Look at Norway.

How do they survive when something like 70, 80% of all cars sold in Norway,

new cars, are full electric now?

And that's now.

Well, that's, yeah.

So they must have some sort of network to handle these things.

They all charge at once.

How come they're not in perpetual darkness?

Exactly.

And this is the thing in it.

All these doom and gloom stories.

Well, the power grid woke up.

That just, it'll lead to an upgrade.

But they just upgrade it.

Like they do every time something new happens.

I had read something funny online.

It was from a Farage's party saying do not buy Chinese cars

because you're investing in a communist country sent on my iPhone.

And it's, yeah, and to be politically agnostic for a second,

that could be any party.

Yeah.

Well, you could think about it.

Exactly.

Or just some of this personal opinion.

But they'll know what you're making.

They'll say Chinese cars are going to turn it off.

Or I hit.

They'll say Chinese phones are going to turn it off.

There was a guy that tweeted me.

He says, oh, you know, people who buy EVs are just sheep.

Do what the herd are doing.

Like, hang on a minute.

No one's buying EVs.

I'm going to say.

98% of the cars on the road are petrol.

Isn't that the other way around?

And again, it said, sent with iPhone.

Yeah, yeah.

Sheep?

Yeah.

You know what, it's just.

You're just slighting me.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's one of those where you think it shouldn't be this difficult.

But I guess you need a lot of EVs crying out for repair,

which I think we're now at.

I think.

But if it's someone to look up and go, all right now,

it's not just niche, is it?

This is getting every town.

Yeah.

I mean, it used to be a case for years, wasn't it?

Oh, you've got an electric car.

Yeah, well, now it's just a car.

Yeah.

Has anyone said to you and, you know,

oh, you've got an electric car.

It's just, oh, you've got a new car.

Well, the thing is, you drive, you know,

I've driven Model 3.

If someone was to say, oh, that's a nice car,

I'd be like, you're kidding?

Yeah.

It's like a Mondeo.

So it's been nearly as you could get from the car.

It's one of the world's most popular cars, almost.

Yeah, it's just, it doesn't really happen, does it?

It's just the car, isn't it?

And look on your street.

If I look on my street now, compared to just two years ago,

they're everywhere.

I think half of the street now is EVs.

Yeah.

There's quite a lot of people on my street

that have gotten no.

You know, you might have before I had one EV and a petrol,

and now it's just two EVs.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

That not going to affect five years,

certainly 10 years down the line.

That's massive.

They're going to want even basic repairs.

They're not on about iVolta stuff now.

Oh, yeah.

Something they need doing to that.

Why not take advantage of that market?

Well, if you look now, you know, that you said 10 years,

10 years ago from now, where we were.

Well, yeah, well, well, 2015, 16.

Yeah.

There wasn't much about, was it?

What was going on there 2015, 16?

Did that come out by then?

Just.

So you've got the Model S.

Yeah, it did just, yeah.

You've got the Zoe.

You've got the leaf, and then the Ions and whatnot.

I3.

Did that come out by 2014?

You've got the I3 as well.

Essentially, that's pretty much.

Well, probably missed some, but that's pretty much what you had.

10 years on.

Look what we've got now.

Well, 10 years in the future.

I did a video about all new cars,

like ones that I thought were good value,

as in shopping around price.

Yeah.

And I've managed to fit 32 on the whiteboard.

And there was only one or maybe two of some manufacturers.

Yeah.

So I reckon you've got 150 to 200 full electric cars

out there now to buy.

Because I could have easily done three pages of that

without knowing it.

I put one BMW on there and one Audi.

Oh, because every, yeah.

How many have they got each?

Eight, nine, 10?

Dude, I couldn't even, at one point I could have gone,

you've got a BMW 135 and 70 series.

Now, can you even?

Yeah, I don't know.

How many have they got now?

Who knows?

Yeah.

And that's for people.

Who without you as well?

Do you even Audi know how many different vehicles they sell?

We'll look at the van group in general.

You've got the ID3, the ID4, the ID2 is coming out soon.

The five, which is a five, of course.

The seven.

Seven, yeah.

I'm sure there'll be another suit.

And then you've got all the Scuder variants of that.

Then you've got the Cooper variants.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

With the each ones, of course.

Again, in the space of just five years, I reckon there's

nine times more cars available to the public to buy new

than there was just a few years ago.

It's really true.

And that then is going to come into play in the used,

you know, fix-it market in Galleys.

It's in about what?

Eight, nine years from the time?

It is, yeah.

And again, I'm not on about catastrophic fatal failures.

Just, oh, my infotainment system's gone screwing.

My heating.

My heating's gone wrong.

Yeah.

In fact, I wouldn't know.

It should be simple stuff.

You did with the Zoe?

The Zoe, yeah.

Yeah, we sent back.

Yeah, not just that, but the very first Zoe I bought.

Oh, the one with the vane came in.

Yeah, I rung up a few heavy garages.

This is two years ago.

I said, theoretically, if I had a...

Because I was thinking about buying.

And then, like you say, I sent it back.

Theoretically, if I brought you a Renault Zoe

and it's got a full-to-heater, could you fix it?

And I won't even look at it in there.

Yeah.

And that, again, I rung about four or five heavy garages

and not one of them would even look at a heater.

It's a heater.

It's not EV-specific.

It's almost like you're insulting them.

Yeah.

I'm not going to look at that.

And I said, well, can I...

How come you're on this list?

Yeah, can I ask why?

I mean, it's not worth it.

All the equipment would need to do it.

But I said, it's not an EV problem.

It's an Eater.

Yeah, yes.

I'm not saying you won't have to maybe isolate a battery

if you need to rip some out, but...

I don't get it.

Take my money.

No.

Not interesting.

Noob.

Not worth our time.

Noob.

So there we have it.

I anticipate we're going to end up with people

like the obvious one in terms of EV repairers

who are going to get a name in their area,

in the Yorkshire and that sort of thing.

For all their EV specialists.

Like this guy we're going to see now.

I don't know he exists.

Now I do.

I'm going to go there for...

Are you going to be here for everything?

Exactly.

I'm going to service this car there.

It'd be nice if it was in my town, but we're not there yet.

There you go.

And all the local garages have just lost my business.

Yeah, exactly.

Because some of us stuck in the past and some have just...

They've not looked into it.

Get off your arse and move.

There's a lot of it in short sightedness, isn't it?

A little bit, yeah.

And or just look into it.

Is it as expensive as you think?

That's the first question.

You might be going...

Actually, I thought I'd be buying loads of diagnostics,

but I does need that.

As far as you understand...

Can I use the existing stuff?

For plug-in, yeah.

It's the same stuff as you understand it,

but I'm not on about again.

You don't have to fix a battery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't look at it in that depth.

Yeah, to be an EV specialist, yeah.

In the same way that you don't have to be a DSG specialist,

as we said.

What you want is you want effectively the local garages

to be the GP.

And then when it is something like you've got a brain tumour,

you go and see the specialist.

Yep, just like it's happened many times.

Remember when I had about 306 GTR6 before you?

And the Peugeot dealer said,

you need a new ECU, because it was misplaced.

Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

He turned out it was an ejector after all.

The reason why I took it to Peugeot in the first place

is because my local garage said,

we can't figure out what it's doing.

You're going to have to get it scanned

by the Peugeot, because we don't have that.

Can't do it.

So I took it to Peugeot.

So again, that was easily fixed,

but they wouldn't want to fit.

They just did the...

From the end, didn't some guy come to your house

with a laptop and...

An ECU specialist.

So I thought I needed a new ECU.

So I contacted an ECU specialist,

as I caught up talking about,

and told him the story anyway.

That doesn't sound right.

Why would an ECU make that cylinder?

Yeah, it's on the ejectors.

I said, well, the top and they have.

So he came up, moved it here on an evening,

with his laptop here.

I've got my laptop just in case,

but I said, let's try the injectors first.

Which is misfiring?

It's this one.

So he just swapped the injectors over,

and funnily enough,

it followed.

There you go.

So I went back to Peugeot after...

Get a money bag.

Well, I didn't buy the new ECU, thank.

Fab, did you get any money for diagnostic, or?

No.

Because obviously I paid them to diagnose things.

Right.

They give me the wrong diagnosis,

you start off to pay for the diagnostic.

So I paid a couple hundred quid, say.

It's not worth anything, then, is it, that?

Yeah, so I said,

I find out where it is.

It is injector.

So can I buy an injector off you, please?

Guess how much it was.

God, 45 quid.

Wow.

They wanted over a thousand pounds for the ECU.

And do you know what they said to me,

when I asked, well, what if,

what if it's not the ECU?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we'll look favourably on any future work.

What?

Well, that's a joke, isn't it?

But I just think you're pardoned.

You look favourably.

So because they said,

we couldn't take it back because it would be programmed to your car.

So they couldn't go, oh, it's not that.

Okay.

So it's like, you want me to spend a thousand pounds

and hope it fixes it.

Wow.

And again, that's, I mean, that's terrible, isn't it?

But the only reason I went to the Peugeot thing

is because the garage didn't want to.

And it's a factory.

Peugeot.

You go to the place where you, you know,

they didn't buy it from there,

but the place where they could have sold it to you.

The specialist.

But again, the specialist fixed it,

forgetting the dealers now.

So that's what, again, we need

for the EV side of things.

Forget the high voltage battery.

I'm not expecting you to.

To have your commissioner battery on the air.

Yeah.

But you should know another thing.

It takes the damn thing out and send it.

Oh, yeah.

And, and that's what I see as the locals doing,

just like they do now with a gearbox.

Yeah.

Oh, well, no one fixes ECUs, they send it off.

Yeah.

They do, yeah.

So I've been interested to hear from anybody

who actually works in the garage.

Well, I wonder how many people are only listening to this.

Only two garage.

Yeah.

There's only two people who listen to it in total.

Hopefully one of them owns a garage.

Oh, what are your experiences like?

Have you got a local garage

who you did take, you know, your petrol or diesel car to,

that'll happily look at any problem?

Yeah.

Or do they go, well, I mind it, certainly.

I'll look at what I can,

but I'm not going to do anything that I don't know.

I'm going to just crackle my microphone there.

But no, no, yeah, that's the thing.

I mean, I've been turned away by a local garage who said,

we can't really fix it.

You're probably better with this person.

Yeah.

I don't mind being, you know, someone not doing so.

But just literally pulling the shutters down.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, well, it's been nice knowing you.

Thank you very much.

See you later, Mike.

Yeah.

So it's just a bit of an annoyance of mine

because you shouldn't have to wring up all these places.

Oh, they should have a better system on Everett

where you have tearage.

Yeah.

I've tried to contact Everett and they never replied.

Well, they're really good.

And the garage has relied on them to fix this.

I have nothing bad to say about Everett.

It's just nice looking where slightly mislead.

Well, not slightly.

It is misleading to say that.

Because I, we bought that zone.

Yeah, the original zone.

Not this one.

Because you've got, well, there's four in my town.

So, yeah, you must be able to do that.

And then only to find out that, thankfully,

the fold didn't occur.

But the fault I thought it might have had,

turns out it was just a 12 volt battery in here.

I wouldn't have been able to get it fixed

without taking it down to the one down sat in there,

Leicester, is it?

Or whatever, you know,

which would probably have to be a low load or something.

Now, I can get away with that with content.

It's interesting to tell that story.

But not because of that.

Not categorizing to maintenance and repair.

Yeah.

So I'm not going to give up this, you know,

let go of this leash.

I want that.

It's a bit clearer, don't it?

Because a few garages openly admitted,

they're only on that Hebron map.

So they can do MOT.

For marketing.

Oh, why not?

Yeah.

To be on another list.

Yeah.

They're like, okay.

But what good is that list when you ring up,

they go, oh, no.

Yeah, exactly.

I'd rather have a comprehensive small list

than a one they have to fund per room.

Exactly.

That's a lot.

Make a lot more sense with it.

Anyone from Hebron's listening to this,

please do get in touch.

I have tried in the past.

I've just not had any success.

So I'm not banning it.

I'm not saying banning.

Lovely go.

Just think it could be a bit clearer.

Be back.

Yeah.

Call me Peter.

How long have we been going?

Can you tell?

Let's have a look.

We have been going for 41 minutes.

Right.

Is there anything else you can think of

on the garage type of front or tires

or anything car related in terms of

what we'd be talking today?

And, you know, like getting it fixed.

Hmm.

It was quite frankly,

I have this similar problem

as with combustion engine vehicles.

Yeah.

It was like, I think the trouble is,

even if you've got a combustion engine vehicle,

it's trying to find a specialist

who knows the product, isn't it?

Well, you're mean it.

You had a specialist.

Yeah.

Anyone?

He said choose to do the job.

He didn't want to do it

because he was a pain in the butt.

It's too long.

Even though you will appear, pay him.

Yeah, yeah.

It would take him,

I think it was him and somebody else

over a week to do.

It's like not interested.

No.

Now look at all these clearly unregistered

illegal bike reinings.

Um, when that basically meant

you had to get rid of that car.

I did, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was just going to be too expensive

to repair at that point.

And that was, that was...

But it wasn't a big bench, was it?

It was wiring.

No, it was fine.

The people I could find to do it,

so obviously BMW Mini would do it.

Would they?

Wow.

They would do, yeah,

but it was like a grand.

What?

And the car wasn't.

I mean, did the specialist say,

well, I would have charged roughly this.

I just don't want to do it.

Did they give you an idea?

Oh, you give me a price?

Yeah.

I think it was between three and five.

Really?

Well, it's a link.

Everything else.

I thought it was about a grand, didn't it?

No, no, no.

I think it was grand that I had it fixed.

And this was a combustion engine car

that garages, can't fix, or dealers.

The whole wiring loom need replacing.

So effectively, the whole EV thing,

where people say it scrapes, there's a big fault.

It's always been around for every car.

It's a bit of a problem.

If you are unlucky, you know,

you have a cam belt or chain slip or something like that,

you need a new engine.

You know, if you get a, like I had a wiring loom issue,

then it's a new wiring loom.

The wiring loom, ironically, is the first part

that goes into the shell.

So to get to it, it's everything else.

So it's by design?

Yeah.

Well, funnily enough, Mini changed their design from 2019 onwards.

Because they realised that they were getting the water

into the wiring late and the wiring loom was expanding.

So again, EVs get a bad rep for being apparently unrepairable,

but this ain't nothing new, is it?

No, there's been problems with cars since cars existed.

I think cars now are probably the most reliable

they've ever been, EV or not.

When you think of the complexity of an engine,

it's quite fascinating that it does thousands, tens of thousands,

hundreds of thousands of miles,

and with that tightly wound complex and all the moving parts,

moving so fast, I still don't know how it does it today.

No, it's fascinating when you work out how much the cams go around.

Every day, and how it still runs within such a minute tolerance, like he said.

It is fantastic engineering.

It's been perfected over decades, I guess.

But then the EV side, I think, it's just an electric motor,

which again has been around longer than the petrol engine has.

It's just perfecting it over years, isn't it?

Well, it's been perfected.

It's now, it's just taking the fuel with you that's been the problem.

Sure, yeah.

That's why all trains are the most efficient and cheapest to run ones

and the ones that you want.

And electric?

Yep.

The diesel ones just degenerate.

Does that?

Yeah, the diesel are still electric.

Yeah, the diesel generates.

It's purely generate.

Electric for electric motors.

So if, you know, that tells you everything, doesn't it?

Electric motors are the best way of propulsion.

Yeah, in terms of, you know, a car and whatnot,

or a train or any, just the fuel.

It's just getting it on board, isn't it?

And thanks to laptops and phones, I guess,

battery technologies moved on to that point.

And it will move on even further.

Exactly.

And become lighter.

Yep, and they are doing.

Just, again, 10 years ago, you got the leaf and the Zoe.

Let's look at them.

You're getting, what, 70 to 80 miles out of both.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And now 10 years later, the minimum you'll get is 150 in the real world,

isn't it?

Realistically, 200 to 250 is quite all.

It is achievable, isn't it, with most cars?

With ease?

With ease and the bottom money.

And you're getting now ones that do over 300.

Yeah, really?

And they're not, like, tribbling more expensive.

Look at the instant.

It's nearly half the price of the list price of the original leaf.

Yeah, it's doing well over double the range.

There's much nearly three times the range, yeah.

So, and that's an entry-level car.

It's just time in here, I guess.

Yeah, entry-level car.

What a car.

So, right, there we go.

Set us peace.

I've had my rant.

Because it hasn't done.

Well, this has been a good thing for YouTube,

but if this was one of our cars that we were trying to find to get fixed.

What, I'm not like the previous owner.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, Zoe.

He sold it.

For less than $1,500.

And it worth $5.50 if it was working.

Well, it took him for so long,

he had to buy his wife another car.

I'm sure they bought another car.

Here, here's another car.

Yeah.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

It shouldn't be like that.

It's not a customer-focused industry.

And not many industries are.

I'm not having to go to the garages now.

It doesn't see what people want and then go,

well, I'll try and get it for you.

Or I'll find someone that can find fixed for you.

I would just don't do that, bye.

Maybe they'll get to a point, like you said,

where people who've worked on the cars in the carriages,

if you worked on Zoe's for Renault,

if you think, oh, I'm just going to set my own specialist company up here

and look after them.

Yeah, there's a Tesla specialist, I think,

in and around the west side of the country.

He travels, obviously.

And he spends half his time in here,

or a good portion in the UK and a good portion in Hong Kong.

Really?

Yeah.

He's a Tesla specialist, I think, from Hong Kong.

He's come over here and spotted a significant hole in the market.

It's because nobody's doing it.

He's been doing it a few years.

Yeah.

And he's like, hang on a minute.

If someone from Hong Kong can come over and fill this gap,

this money begging to be taken,

yeah, you're wasting your own money, quite frankly, in my mind.

For me, it's just taking somebody with a bit of money or some backing

to set up, you know, hubs, specialist hubs in major cities,

your Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, that sort of stuff,

so that you have got somewhere where you can take.

I bet there will be one at some point, will there?

There's bound to be someone going,

let's franchise this.

But you think there will be, Mr Dirk?

Quick fit.

Are they doing EVs?

Yeah, I'm guessing not.

I mean, they do tires, obviously, but...

I mean, quick fit would probably be ideal for you.

What if they're suddenly turned into any basic EV specialist?

Even if it is just taking your battery out?

I think so, they was having the clout, wasn't they?

And they, you know...

I bet all their buyers have to repair that.

The EV courses, for safety reasons.

I mean, there'll be someone looking in this,

well, they're quick fit, they have people that go,

right, well, we're going to do this just not...

Yeah, look at where, yeah.

There's not enough to support us yet,

I guess, as a nationwide franchise.

But again, like it's saying, that tipping point.

I think we're not, yeah, I reckon another couple of years.

By then, we're getting 15-year-old EVs.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And they were only sold in small numbers.

So, when you start getting 2019-2020 cars,

when they're really flooded...

That's going to be it, isn't it?

When they get...

So, when we get to 2030, certainly,

we're going to get a sort of balloon.

Easy, with the curving.

Yeah, definitely.

So, you've got a few years to get ready.

Percent.

Start now.

Yeah.

Fair.

It's not going to happen overnight, is it?

But there we go.

Right, shall we end it there?

Let's end it there.

So, thank you for watching, guys.

Driving on.

Five on the...

Five on the trot, I tell you.

We're going to start doing this weekly, aren't we?

Oh, and well, yeah, we've just basically

created a rob for us on back at you.

We have, yeah.

We're going to have to go out every week

to maybe do a car review, because we've got a press car.

And then somehow do...

All of a sudden, that's like three or four hours?

Yeah, we'll manage.

All for a podcast, the four people listen.

It's not difficult when it's dark.

Yeah, it's winter anyway.

Wait, it's summer.

And it's light till nine o'clock.

A lot easier.

So, right, well, thanks for watching, guys.

And we'll end with Harry's last words, which are...

Yertshire.

You have to explain that one.

I have no idea.

What's this thing called?

Yert.

Yertshire.

Which looks like you can stay in a yurt.

Ah, in Yorkshire.

In Yorkshire, here.

There we go.

Yertshire.

Why Don't Garages Want To Fix EVs?

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carburetors

ECUs

fuel injectors

DSG box

plug-in hybrid

high-voltage battery

internal combustion engine (ICE)

EV

Toyota Prius

EVs

warranty on the batteries

Mini Electric

battery problem

motor bearings

cam belt

Volkswagen Golf GTI

MG

Audi TT

gearbox

electric vehicle (EV)

Tesla Model 3

Ford Mondeo

petrol

Tesla Model S

Nissan Leaf

BMW i3

Peugeot Ions

Volkswagen Id4

Renault Zoe

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