Electric vehicles are not coming. they are here
Auto repair and aftermarket shops across Canada are seeing electric vehicles on the move. Whether it’s tires, A/C issues, or battery problems, consumers are looking to alternatives to the dealer when they need maintenance and repair needs.
The good news is that there isn’t an avalanche of service requests since the parking lot is small. there is time Not as much as you might think, but enough to prepare.
Electrified components are expected to account for about 4 percent of the aftermarket by 2030. Not much, acknowledged Paul McCarthy, president of MEMA Aftermarket Suppliers, a group formed by the unification of three groups focused on the spare parts market under the Motor. and Equipment Manufacturers Association.
“So most of what we’re selling in 2030 is what we’re selling [currently]”, he pointed out during the recent MEMA Global Summit.
Even looking to 2045, the majority of the aftermarket will be driven by segments that industry professionals know well and sell.
“So I think one of the takeaways is that we have this long, fat tail, and we think it’s profitable, for existing businesses,” he said.
But the growth of electrification is not something to highlight, he stressed. The market is growing and will continue to grow due to consumer demand, government mandates, and automaker production.
“This is a market we cannot ignore,” McCarthy said.
Although today’s aftermarket products will still be the dominant segment in 20 years, they will not grow. The growth areas for the future are all on the electric side of the spectrum.
“So if we as business leaders want to grow at the pace of the market, we have to be ready for it,” he said.
This means that the industry cannot put its collective head in the sand. “We need to innovate. And we’re seeing the enterprising aftermarket respond to this opportunity to say there’s a place for electric vehicles,” he observed.
So you see more sophisticated and more expensive suspensions on EVs as they also deal with the weight of that vehicle. So when something has to be replaced, it costs more.”
Less but more
In fact, there will be fewer electrical components that need service. But that doesn’t translate into a loss of revenue for the aftermarket.
“There will be a shift in some of the segments,” McCarthy said, highlighting drive belts, spark plugs and routine oil changes as areas that will see gradually reduced demand.
He pointed to tires, the “poster child” of a part of the electric vehicle that will need to be replaced much more frequently than in a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. Just the weight of an EV wears them out faster.
“One of the cool things about electric vehicles is that you get 100 percent of the torque… That’s fun to drive, but it also wears out the tires,” McCarthy said.
To improve range, low rolling resistance tires are typically fitted to electric vehicles. But they wear out faster and are more expensive than typical ones. Noise also becomes an issue with electric vehicles. Without the hum of the engine in the background, drivers hear more road noise. Thus, EV tires have a foam insert to reduce noise, increasing the cost of the tire.
“So we’re talking about the impact of electric vehicles on tires is a lot more money, a lot more replacements,” McCarthy explained.
He also pointed to the suspension, which takes an extra beating thanks to the extra weight of an EV. Lightness plays a role: reducing weight to increase range makes components more fragile.
“Without this white noise machine of the ICE engine, consumers feel more of the movement of the car. It’s an interesting dynamic: we have sensory deprivation without the engine [and] we feel it more,” McCarthy said. “So you see more sophisticated and more expensive suspensions on EVs as they also deal with the weight of that vehicle. So when something has to be replaced, it costs more.”
An electric vehicle’s HVAC system is also much more complicated than an ICE vehicle. He singled out the Ford Mach-E, which has 30 different hoses and 60 feet of hose under the hood.
And an EV’s HVAC system is paramount to an EV’s health: it needs to keep the battery cool.
“You have to make that battery work well because otherwise you’re going to ruin or take the life out of that $20,000 battery pack,” McCarthy said.
Perhaps the most important job of the HVAC system is to keep the driver and passengers safe. The cooling system is now also a safety system: it must work properly or the vehicle risks catching fire.
“We thought the market was going to shrink. In fact, it’s going to expand quite significantly,” McCarthy said of that segment.
[It] It’s so rare in the business world to say, “We kind of know what this future is going to look like.” We have to grow our businesses, be ready for it and take advantage of it.”
Attention to detail
Anyone even thinking about working on an electric vehicle needs to pay close attention to everything they do.
Ignoring the details or not respecting them could have serious consequences.
“We don’t need to panic, but we do need to be respectful,” said Ben Johnson, director of product management at Mitchell 1, during a past AAPEX session.
His quick tip: If it’s orange, don’t touch it. Get it wrong and you could have 800 volts running through your body. “You just have to have a little common sense,” he said.
Better yet, if you haven’t been trained or qualified to work on an EV, then stay away, advised Jake Rodenroth, manager of auto body repair program operations at Lucid Motors during last fall’s tech conference organized by MEMA Aftermarket Suppliers.
“The thing about electric vehicles is that as a repairer you can either hurt them or they can hurt you. So if you’re not qualified to work on them, you’ve never gone through the approved training and you don’t have the tools approved, it’s just not worth taking on something like that until you’ve done it,” Rodenroth explained. .
Electric vehicles cannot be worked on like an ICE vehicle – there is no “learning as you go”. A mistake can be fatal.
“You’re either going to get hurt or you’re going to damage a very expensive component in a high-tech vehicle,” Rodenroth said. “And I think we don’t want either of them. So I can’t stress enough the training and tools part of it.”
preparation
Chris Besemer, owner and president of CG Motorsports in Richmond, BC, explained the process of moving to electric service.
His store specializes in BMW, a brand that has had an electric model since 2014 when it introduced the i3. Last year, he took the step to make his store fully capable of serving electricity. This meant having a sectioned off area, getting ground stations, mats and the like.
In a conversation with then-president of the Canadian Automobile Industries Association, Jason Yurchak, during an episode of Chat on the edge, compared the work area to a hospital room. The area is barricaded with signs warning of high voltage. Access to the area is not allowed when working with an electric vehicle.
“It’s really just equipping the shop with safety zones and lights for high voltage — ‘work zone, stay away’ and things like that,” Besemer said.
He did not see the expense of the upgrade as a burden. There are unique items like battery charging stations that need to be installed, but it’s no different than in years past when shops had to invest in new tools and equipment as vehicles changed, like when OBD-II ports became the standard.
“It’s just the cost of doing business,” Besemer said. “Simply put, it’s nothing we’re not used to. Owning a store, sometimes you have to spend the money to keep up. And this, it’s new stuff we’re buying, but it’s not [an] an extra expense for anything beyond what we’re used to.”
Hard to beat this industry
The auto aftermarket has a bit of an edge when it comes to stability and future strength. The future is coming through electrification and it can be seen, but the traditional market is still here and will be a major source of business for years to come.
“What this means for us is that we have two challenges,” observed McCarthy. “The first is that the journey can be as important as the destination – you can’t run to the future and ignore the present. We have to manage our profitability in both.”
This is not an opportunity to waste, he stressed.
“[It] It’s so rare in the business world to say, “We kind of know what this future is going to look like.” We have to grow our businesses, be ready for it and take advantage of it,” McCarthy said.
