Way back in the mid-1980s, communist Yugoslavia exported the Yugo, a compact car that sold for around $4,000. It was so poorly made that bumping into a pole at 5 mph could total it.
Fast forward to today, and a new class of cars has a similar problem. A minor accident can cause a total loss, even if the car’s been driven only a few miles. The only difference is that these cars aren’t cheap imports from some godforsaken socialist state. These are state-of-art electric vehicles that come with an average sticker price of $55,000.
Why are insurance companies totaling low-mileage EVs that have been in a fender bender? For the same reason you could total a new Yugo when backing out of a parking spot. The cost of repair is exorbitant.
As Reuters reported recently, “For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents,” which means the only viable option is to replace the battery, which represents about half the cost of the car.
A replacement battery for a $44,000 Tesla Model 3 can cost up to $20,000.
One expert told Reuters that Tesla’s Model Y has “zero repairability” because its battery is built into the structure of the car.
As a result, drivers are finding that even a minor accident ends up with their shiny new EVs being hauled away to the junkyard.
Reuters’ search of EV salvage sales in the U.S. and Europe found a large number of low-mileage EVs made by Tesla, Nissan, Hyundai, and others being scrapped.
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