Source : the age
As more electric vehicles, and more electric vehicle brands, hit Australian roads, sectors of the service and repair industry are facing an uphill battle to keep up.
New owners of EVs, unaware of their consumer rights, could easily fall into the trap of believing their car is like an iPhone, and can be repaired only by the manufacturer. And with EV brands moving to control access to parts and information, independent repair shops are having to come to grips not only with training requirements, but also significant investments in equipment and tools.
Peter Jones, chief executive of peak body the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce, said the specific requirements for servicing and repairing EVs meant independent repairers might soon struggle to keep up with demand.
BYD is aggressively pushing into Australia.Credit: Joseph Plumb
“With government targets aiming for 50 per cent of new car sales to be electric by 2030, the demand for trained professionals is expected to increase significantly. To meet future needs, the industry will likely require two to three times the current number of qualified EV technicians,” he said.
“Greater support is needed from government to help the industry transition effectively to electric vehicles, to meet the targets set by the government. This includes funding for training and upskilling, as well as financial assistance to invest in the necessary tools and workshop infrastructure.”
A key example is EV charging capability, which can be a significant investment given the need for new chargers, dedicated cabling, compliance with safety regulations, plus often an upgrade to the site’s electrical system.
“In addition to infrastructure and equipment, ongoing support for apprenticeships is vital. Apprentices are the future workforce, and play a critical role in the ongoing maintenance and safety of Victoria’s vehicle fleet,” Jones said.
“As technology continues to evolve, it’s essential that apprentices are trained not just in traditional automotive systems, but also in the latest EV technologies.”
Stuart Charity, chief executive of the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association, agreed that the industry was likely to have difficulty ramping up as quickly as the government had suggested.
“You can’t just force people to buy EVs, ask car companies to sell EVs, which is what the government’s trying to do, without looking at the total infrastructure to support them on the road. When people buy a BYD or a Jaecoo or whatever, that needs to be serviced and maintained for its useful life anywhere in Australia,” he said.
“We need government support to help upskill the industry. Most of the repairers out there are small, independent family businesses, so they need to invest in that training and equipment.”
Charity said that EV manufacturers were also increasingly getting around the system designed to even the playing field for repairers when it came to accessing repair information, which put independent shops at a disadvantage.
The Motor Vehicle Information Scheme came into effect in 2022, and obliges manufacturers to share service and repair information with independent repairers at a fair price, but Charity said not all manufacturers were complying.
“We’ve got a whole influx of new manufacturers that are entering the market, mainly Chinese brands, and a number of them are selling cars into the market but are not providing care information or parts to support those vehicles,” he said.
“We’re hearing from insurers that they’re at times having to write off cars that may have been fixed because they can’t get parts, or the parts aren’t able to be supplied in a reasonable time.”
Charity is also a director of the Australian Automotive Service and Repair Authority, which oversees the Motor Vehicle Information Scheme and delivers information to properly credentialed mechanics. Issues of non-compliance with the scheme are referred to the consumer watchdog for enforcement.
Yet, even if all manufacturers were compliant, that’s 50 different car brands all with their own interpretations and practices. Some sell their data to aggregators who package it and sell it to repairers, while others don’t.
Many sell their data as part of expensive subscriptions, and some require repairers to use tools and equipment specific to the brand. This all means the investment for a repair shop accepting all makes and models can be quite high.
China’s BYD has a deal with MyCar in Australia to provide service and repair.Credit: Bloomberg
The Automotive Aftermarket Association is asking regulators to revise the scheme, mandating a universal diagnostic standard, forcing manufacturers to sell to data aggregators, and including an obligation to make real-time vehicle telemetry readable by repairers.
Charity said car-makers were also perpetuating the myth that EVs couldn’t be taken to independent shops, when Australian consumer law ensured owners could take their car to any shop, provided it used fit-for-purpose parts and followed manufacturer specifications.
“When you buy a car, the dealership is going to say you should get it serviced there. They’re extending warranties and offering capped price servicing and other programs to try and tie people into dealerships,” he said.
“But the fact is from day one, you can get that vehicle serviced anywhere you like. ”
The next-generation repair shop
At Allpoint Automotive in Tullamarine, a vision of what a fully EV-capable workshop looks like has been taking shape over the past year. The business has partnered with car parts business Repco to bring the EV-focused NexDrive program — which involves EV-specific technicians, equipments and processes — to Australia, after being rolled out in Europe and Canada by Repco’s parent, Global Parts.
Kris Degenhardt owns Allpoint Automotive, which is the pilot store for launching Repco’s EV-focused NexDrive program in Australia.Credit: Justin McManus
“This has been a process over the last 12 to 18 months in discovering how that’s going to look in the Australian market, and what’s required in all of your tools and equipment,” said owner Kris Degenhardt.
“And what we’ve set up here is basically what we’re presenting to the network of the Repco-authorised service centres as the pinnacle. This is where you need to aspire to if you want to be part of the NexDrive program.”
Degenhardt said the ability to service and repair EVs was acheivable for mid-size independent repairers, though was a significant investment.
“Your cost for schooling is relatively low. Your basic bare-bones personal protection equipment, and scan tools and so forth, you’re probably looking at around a $10,000 investment. And that could blow out to probably 15 or 20 depending on how elaborate you want to be,” he said, adding you also need the space of an exclusion zone around the car, which is a safety requirement.
“For ongoing costs, our scan tool, which is an EV-dedicated scan tool to talk to these vehicles, was in the vicinity of $10,000. Our ongoing subscription for that machine to be updated regularly is approximately $2500 a year. That’s one of the subscriptions that we pay to keep up to date with the information that’s coming through regularly for these vehicles.”
Degenhardt wasn’t worried that manufacturers could crack down on access to data and parts, citing the Motor Vehicle Information Scheme laws. But he said there were occasional difficulties.
“It is hard navigating your way through AASRA [the Australian Automotive Service and Repair Authority]. It has traditionally always been a hard task for us to gain that information,” he said. “In particular, one brand, which I won’t mention, it is exceptionally hard. The boss of that brand is the decision-maker in allowing anyone to get any of the information, let alone parts.”
Menka Michaelides, co-owner of Pro Repair Auto Centre, said Tesla could be a problematic brand to work with.
The Tesla Model Y Long Range. Credit: AP
“Even as a workshop, we can’t buy their parts. The actual person that owns that vehicle has to purchase the parts,” she said. “That may have changed. To be truthful, we don’t do many Teslas.”
Michaelides said Pro Repair also didn’t see many BYD vehicles because they had a servicing agreement with MyCar. The workshop conducts basic servicing of electric vehicles, including the Melbourne City Council’s fleet of cars, and sees primarily Hyundais and Toyotas.
Michaelides said that since most EVs were fairly new, the maintenance and servicing was generally routine, so she was confident in her experienced mechanics being able to handle most brands, even though her main shop in North Melbourne was not set up for full battery replacements because there was not enough space.
“For maintenance and servicing, we don’t even need to touch that at this stage. As long as we can obtain the information from AASRA, then we’d be fine with it. Don’t get me wrong, if every manufacturer put the battery in the same spot, it would be a godsend. We could just have a robot that removed it, and we would be good as gold,” she said.
“We work on all makes and models. Our guys are very well-equipped to work on all different vehicles. But for independent workshops, if a new car rolled out of some country today, and there’s no agreement with AASRA that we get that information, that may be difficult.”
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