How do you think EV will affect the aftermarket

Conor

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Well, the last time I started a thread talking about EVs, it turned into a rather heated debate.. maybe this will be another but I think it's an interesting discussion.

Chatting to a friend recently who is of the opinion (which many seem to have) that the aftermarket world will die out when EVs come in main stream, meaning there will be no independent garages and parts will all be made in house, you won't be able to to do anything to the car yourself and...they have already cut out the dealerships.

They reckon that there will be nothing left to service in a car because there will be no engine, transmission, plugs, filters etc..

What do you think?
 
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* Is it only Tesla that has cut out the dealer so far? Is that going to be a common pattern? I wonder why that hasn't happened already as vertical integration has proven rather successful in other areas, but i'm no expert.

* There may be no engine, plugs etc.. but I bet that down the line the OEMs will find a way to charge you the same come your annual service...and I am sure there will be plenty of faults to be fixed along the way too.

* I highly doubt that they would get away with locking everything up so that the aftermarket can't offer service outside the purview of the OEM. The right to repair movement is getting legs in the US and the same should happen here too, in time. Repair is good for the environment too, let's not forget.

Who knows.. :alien:
 

alexanderfoti

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18,000 miles or 1 year service intervals.

I dont feel that independs will be cut out. The work they do will change dramatically, but we will still need to exist to replace that one cell that the OEM says needs the whole battery pack replaced to fix for example.
 

LostKiwi

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As long as someone makes something someone else will find a way to fix it cheaper when it breaks.
That only stops when items become so cheap that they become consumables.

That said what I do see happening is dealers and consumers moving away from purchase and individual car ownership to leasing schemes where you subscribe to a certain level of vehicle. This is something already being investigated by car manufacturers such as JLR. In order to work it requires autonomous vehicles but that isn't too far away. Effectively cars would exist in pools and when a subscriber requires one they call one to their location. \they then go to their destination where the car will drop them off and go to the nearest pool location until required again. The pools can self manage on the basis of demand and projected usage. Vehicles will self charge when at the pool location. Think of it as an extended dedicated taxi scheme.

If this happens the logical conclusion is manufacturers will service their own vehicle fleet and since private ownership will cease to exist there will be no more non-dealer service centres.
 

Taffy7hfa

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Yeah sure were all going to rent-a-car when we need one in future, NOT.
I'm still eagerly awaiting the paperless office that William Woolard said we would all be working in by the 1990's ...
 

LostKiwi

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Yeah sure were all going to rent-a-car when we need one in future, NOT.
I'm still eagerly awaiting the paperless office that William Woolard said we would all be working in by the 1990's ...
Millions do it already. Its called PCP......
 
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Rappey69

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Heated? lol.
Interesting question though.
Watched bbc "rip off Britain" where they discussed a common problem with electric cars, serious lack of available and working charging points.. Many drivers would find that the charge point was not working after driving to it, or not compatible with their car, or a ice car blocking it.. Every charge point seemed to be run by different people so needed a crazy amount of "accounts" to use them all. More than enough to put many off and some ev drivers actually returned their ev,s for a refund due to serious lack of charging points and bought another ice car.
Read more articles about the german auto industry that suggests germany is on the verge of make or break due to continuing to do what they do best, make ever bigger ice cars, while others put more effort into technology for ev cars. The article blamed the eu as a whole for sticking with what they know and not embracing new technology, thus falling behind the rest of the world.
The whole ev landscape could change as we know it with many ev,s been made by companies we don't yet know so who really knows what the future holds.
Can certainly see a huge reduction in garages needed going by how little work was needed on a tesla to get to 200,000 miles.
Ev,s on the whole are expensive so where are the Dacis priced ev,s? im sure they will eventually arrive and being a lot less complex should be even more reliable.
China managed to produce an ev that cost $1200 ! (was a pile of carp though)
China is supposedly approaching 25% ev,s and they needed charging points so government set it in motion and in 1 month they added 75,000 charge points.
In my town I only know of one place, asda, that has charge points but the parking spaces are always filled with ice cars as its right by the stores entrance doors.
The catch then seems to be - you cant really go electric if you need public charging points as they are few and far between, so ev sales will still not take off, so ice cars will still be in demand, so the germans will continue to do what they do best.
 
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As long as someone makes something someone else will find a way to fix it cheaper when it breaks.
That only stops when items become so cheap that they become consumables.

That said what I do see happening is dealers and consumers moving away from purchase and individual car ownership to leasing schemes where you subscribe to a certain level of vehicle. This is something already being investigated by car manufacturers such as JLR. In order to work it requires autonomous vehicles but that isn't too far away. Effectively cars would exist in pools and when a subscriber requires one they call one to their location. \they then go to their destination where the car will drop them off and go to the nearest pool location until required again. The pools can self manage on the basis of demand and projected usage. Vehicles will self charge when at the pool location. Think of it as an extended dedicated taxi scheme.

If this happens the logical conclusion is manufacturers will service their own vehicle fleet and since private ownership will cease to exist there will be no more non-dealer service centres.

Yes, perhaps that will be the case.. its somewhat in effect in large cities at the moment, but a critical point is the "level of car" you mention. I would possibly look into joining something like Zipcar etc if I knew I wasn't always going to end up in a mid range car with the smallest possible engine.

Set a subscription level that offers racy machines and I could be all in.. until then, i'll keep my two "bangers" and keep them on the road.

Yeah sure were all going to rent-a-car when we need one in future, NOT.
I'm still eagerly awaiting the paperless office that William Woolard said we would all be working in by the 1990's ...

I agree with both points.. What works and is sustainable and sensible in a population centre won't work out the road where there is more grass than people..

@alexanderfoti I agree with you also.. I guess we may ultimately end up where LK is talking in some regard. But as long as there is personal car ownership, indies will thankfully have their place.
 
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Heated? lol.
Interesting question though.
Watched bbc "rip off Britain" where they discussed a common problem with electric cars, serious lack of available and working charging points.. Many drivers would find that the charge point was not working after driving to it, or not compatible with their car, or a ice car blocking it.. Every charge point seemed to be run by different people so needed a crazy amount of "accounts" to use them all. More than enough to put many off and some ev drivers actually returned their ev,s for a refund due to serious lack of charging points and bought another ice car.
Read more articles about the german auto industry that suggests germany is on the verge of make or break due to continuing to do what they do best, make ever bigger ice cars, while others put more effort into technology for ev cars. The article blamed the eu as a whole for sticking with what they know and not embracing new technology, thus falling behind the rest of the world.
The whole ev landscape could change as we know it with many ev,s been made by companies we don't yet know so who really knows what the future holds.
Can certainly see a huge reduction in garages needed going by how little work was needed on a tesla to get to 200,000 miles.
Ev,s on the whole are expensive so where are the Dacis priced ev,s? im sure they will eventually arrive and being a lot less complex should be even more reliable.
China managed to produce an ev that cost $1200 ! (was a pile of carp though)
China is supposedly approaching 25% ev,s and they needed charging points so government set it in motion and in 1 month they added 75,000 charge points.
In my town I only know of one place, asda, that has charge points but the parking spaces are always filled with ice cars as its right by the stores entrance doors.
The catch then seems to be - you cant really go electric if you need public charging points as they are few and far between, so ev sales will still not take off, so ice cars will still be in demand, so the germans will continue to do what they do best.

Fair enough points, but applicable to this "transition period" only. My initial commentary was kind of assuming a time where we have full infrastructure support and the majority of population are driving around in plug in electrics.
 

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As long as someone makes something someone else will find a way to fix it cheaper when it breaks.
That only stops when items become so cheap that they become consumables.

That said what I do see happening is dealers and consumers moving away from purchase and individual car ownership to leasing schemes where you subscribe to a certain level of vehicle. This is something already being investigated by car manufacturers such as JLR. In order to work it requires autonomous vehicles but that isn't too far away. Effectively cars would exist in pools and when a subscriber requires one they call one to their location. \they then go to their destination where the car will drop them off and go to the nearest pool location until required again. The pools can self manage on the basis of demand and projected usage. Vehicles will self charge when at the pool location. Think of it as an extended dedicated taxi scheme.

If this happens the logical conclusion is manufacturers will service their own vehicle fleet and since private ownership will cease to exist there will be no more non-dealer service centres.

If JLR are doing that it doesn't seem to make sense to me - sure, the mass market/not very profitable brands will become "mobility companies" (as Ford is trying to do now) but once you don't "own" the vehicle and just own the rights to a vehicle to pick you up then that's game over for the premium marques?

As the difference between actual quality in premium vs mass market cras has dropped to be almost insignificant in some cases (Merc A class v Golf v Kia Ceed for example), premium car sales have gone up because of the fact that the right badge is sitting on teh drive and can be talked about as owned, washed, etc. Surely if you are just buying the right to summon a car when you want it and it's shared with the public 99.9% of people would have absolutely no interest in what it was as long as it had a comfy seat and so the premium market would die pretty quickly?

I'm also sceptical the manufacturers will be rolling out the autonomous tech soon anyway, at the moment they can use it as a marketing boost but if pushed through to it's logical conclusion then we would end up with between 5 and 10% of the cars we have today...
 

LostKiwi

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If JLR are doing that it doesn't seem to make sense to me - sure, the mass market/not very profitable brands will become "mobility companies" (as Ford is trying to do now) but once you don't "own" the vehicle and just own the rights to a vehicle to pick you up then that's game over for the premium marques?
Why would it? Premium brands will still attract those who want to be seen in a better class of vehicle than others (and let's face it that's what premium brands are all about - the perception of something being better than average.
Once you remove the driving aspect there isn't much left apart from perceived image. As Stella always said - Reassuringly Expensive.
 

d215yq

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Why would it? Premium brands will still attract those who want to be seen in a better class of vehicle than others (and let's face it that's what premium brands are all about - the perception of something being better than average.
Once you remove the driving aspect there isn't much left apart from perceived image. As Stella always said - Reassuringly Expensive.

You maybe right...but I know people who are "brand conscious" and would always buy a golf or Audi or premium as they think they are worth it. The same people (most of which who can't afford/justify a car anyway) will not care in the slightest if the taxi or airport run car is a bottom of the range Sandero (which is probably why 60% of the taxis here are that model). I just think removing ownership will further reduce the people who care about the brand bit by a significant factor.

I'd see it becoming price/software dominated - Ryanair - by any business metric or flight passenger number metric is the most successful airline in Europe (I think the world?). People like to be snobby but a lot of their customers are middle class/upper middle class. I think when you just provide a travel service most people will want it to be efficient, reliable and cheap. They really won't care much about the vehicle in the same way they don't care that Ryaniar fly Boeing and cram more people on than others - it's just a means to an end.

It's still a thing to be asked what car you own in some circles when getting to know people, I've never ever been aksed or seen anyone ask what vehicle their taxi/airport chuaffer/friend drove them in.
 
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Conor

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You maybe right...but I know people who are "brand conscious" and would always buy a golf or Audi or premium as they think they are worth it. The same people (most of which who can't afford/justify a car anyway) will not care in the slightest if the taxi or airport run car is a bottom of the range Sandero (which is probably why 60% of the taxis here are that model). I just think removing ownership will further reduce the people who care about the brand bit by a significant factor.

I'd see it becoming price/software dominated - Ryanair - by any business metric or flight passenger number metric is the most successful airline in Europe (I think the world?). People like to be snobby but a lot of their customers are middle class/upper middle class. I think when you just provide a travel service most people will want it to be efficient, reliable and cheap. They really won't care much about the vehicle in the same way they don't care that Ryaniar fly Boeing and cram more people on than others - it's just a means to an end.

It's still a thing to be asked what car you own in some circles when getting to know people, I've never ever been aksed or seen anyone ask what vehicle their taxi/airport chuaffer/friend drove them in.

I've never ever been aksed or seen anyone ask what vehicle their taxi/airport chuaffer/friend drove them in.

Here's a first for you.... I was getting an Uber to the Airport the other day. And the first two cars that popped up on screen were regular Priuses, I cancelled, hoping to get a premium mark such a 5 Series/E Class/A6 etc.. Third strike was one of the Toyota people carriers imported from Japan. I decided to take it as I figured it would be nice. I was greeted with a solid ride, leather single seats, arms on both sides and reclining function in the mid row. - I was happy.

For me it's now about perception at all.. If it's a longish trip and i'm tired I want something decent and not a clapped out Prius, which is extremely common in London.

Doesn't Uber Lux / Exec exist for this reason too?

Also, would perception not come right back into the fold, one there are more than one mobility subscription tier. i.e. Regular and Premium. But I thin you are right, people might care less, because there is less of a perception of perceived personal resources.. but I still would want something comfy. Another time I was in Italy I had a trip in a Citroen and it was quite a rough ride, puke.
 

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I would expect my self driving electric car to report its condition to me well in advance of any failure.

As restrictions on cars extend the novelty of controlling my car at twenty miles per hour through the towns which is already waning would vanish, roll on me sat in the back whilst my travel unit did its stuff seems ever more appealing.

I might like a bed in the back.
 


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