Random EV thoughts.....

Then in a few years time the example person I mentioned about will be able to buy a used EV.

You've just answered your question to me of why 2030? Nothing to do with regs. In 5 years time there should be affordable EVs at all levels of the market.

That was me and I was referring to emissions which isn't exactly the same as WLTP

Get ready for a painful repair bill!

So Andy recently got himself an older Tesla Model S 75D with 186,000 miles, or just under 300,000km for us millennials and younger generations 😉

Basically, car needed some work (new charge port cover, new wiper assembly, fix front suspension, new tyres and wheels) which came to around £4,000 (possibly excluding VAT, wasn't quite sure if he added it in)

Considering that was a fair amount of work by a brand garage it doesn't seem that outrageous. The tyres were something like £700 anyway

It's still pretty steep, especially since he got the wheels for free and did all the bodywork cleanup himself which would normally add a few hundred

So what do we reckon, fleeced or reasonable? One thing which was shocking was they charged him for a test drive at the end. I realise it's mechanics time which costs money, but I would expect the labour of a repair to include testing

£165 per hour for labour is pretty shocking, I'm definitely in the wrong business if that's what a mechanic is paid. I'd love to know how much of that the garage takes, probably a significant portion, all those service managers need to be paid after all 🙄

One thing I found particularly interesting was that Andy said he couldn't find any garages near him which would take on EVs. I find this very strange and wonder if it's BS or anti Tesla attitude. With the exception of the charge port cover, everything done was the same components you'd have on any other car and so any mechanical should be able to fix them

Personally I've taken the ID.4 to two different independent garages, one to get the aircon fixed and another to get the tyres changed. Neither of them batted an eyelid when I said what model car it was and were happy to do the job

Yeah I've been a subscriber for years, he's very down to earth compared to some of the other EV channels (looking at you Fully Charged)

I wasn't really disputing the repair costs, it's a lot but the car needed a lot of work. I certainly don't think it's unique to Tesla, I was recently told I'd need to pay €900 in my ID.4 to replace the mobile connection unit after it bricked the car during a software update (well done VW 🙄)

The part I found strange was his claim he couldn't find a reputable independent garage that would take it on. He said he could find a few who would give it a try but had never worked on Tesla before, which probably wouldn't inspire confidence in me either

Is it a similar situation over here? As I said I haven't had issues finding independent garages for the ID.4 or Leaf, but I haven't had any extensive repairs done (yet)

I'll be looking around for a garage to replace the connection unit in the ID.4 which will be an interesting exercise. It isn't an EV specific part but you'd wonder if there's some programming that only VW can do

I suspect that's definitely part of it, I think he's somewhere between York and Newcastle and mentioned having to bring the car to Leeds which is casting the net fairly wide

The bit with the tyres at the start was a bit of a shocker. Pretty sure it was worn down to the cables, scary to imagine someone driving around on that

True, and I wouldn't a buy an Apple product as a result.

These companies have responsibilities, there're allegations against Hyundai/Kia for slavery in their supply chain too, BYD not alone here, but it's easy to do the pr shite when you've been rumbled. Just imagine what happens inside China.