Should you do EV or hybrid repairs?

If you’re debating whether or not you should make the changes needed to have your shop ready to service hybrids and electric vehicles, an expert in the area broke down what to take into consideration.

First of all, consider how many electric vehicles are out there that you can tap into at your shop, said Carolyn Coquillette, owner of Earthling Automotive in San Francisco and founder of Shop-Ware, emphasizing the importance of market evaluation before committing to new repair capabilities.

“How many of these cars are actually out there? How old are they to be able to come into my shop to the point that I want to start to prepare to work on them?” she listed as key questions during Worldpac STX in Nahsville. “But if there’s no market, there’s no reason to market to it,”

Coquillette drew comparisons to the already familiar territory of hybrid vehicles, specifically the Toyota Prius the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle.

“It’s also interesting to start to compare the hybrid numbers because we already have, anecdotally, a sense of how many Pruises a lot of you are already working on. My guess is you’ve made some money on Pruises; I certainly have. And so then the idea is, ‘Well, maybe I can also make money on electric cars,’” she said during the session, Positioning Your Shop to Service Electric Vehicles.

While EVs are gaining traction, Coquillette pointed out that hybrid vehicles will likely see greater growth in the near term.

“[The number of hybrids] is going to get greater. And it’s going to get greater, probably faster than [EVs] will long term in terms of gross volume,” she pointed out. “So there’s actually a lot to be done with hybrid cars because hybrid cars are basically becoming all cars.”

She noted that the transition to focusing on EVs should be timed appropriately, using herself as an example of her shop making the switch from primarily hybrids to primarily EV-focused.

“So the idea was, when is there enough movement inside of the EV market to say it’s finally time for really going to focus on the next thing?” she said.

Coquillette identified Tesla as the current leader in the EV market, making it a logical starting point for shops looking to specialize.

“The thing that was the next Prius is Tesla. We can finally see that Tesla is dominating in this space. And it gives us room to actually learn one specific platform, and then be able to drive a market around that,” she explained.

Jack Rosebro, who runs a training center for Earthling Automotive on EV and hybrid courses, pointed out that hybrids are a good gateway to EVs.

“Working on hybrids is kind of like the prep course for working on EVs,” he explained, though noting there are stark differences as well.

“And for the Tesla, they’re very, very, very different. But at least you start getting some experience with diagnosing more than battery packs and doing more than just maintenance — diagnosing an inverter, diagnosing a DC/DC converter.”

Whichever route you go, it can be a fruitful one, she pointed out. The hybrid market, as she mentioned, has been around for a whole and will be for some time longer. EVs have been growing rapidly in recent years.

“So there’s value in both of these markets,” she said.