Toronto, Ontario — The latest Crash Course report from CCC reveals that repairable electric vehicles (EVs) are, on average, more than half the age of their non-EV counterparts, with 78.7% of repairable EVs being three years old or newer.
According to the new report, the average age of a repairable EV is 2.4 years; the average repairable non-EV is 7.09 years old. According to CCC data, 78.7 percent of repairable EV estimates are for vehicles aged three years old or newer.
EVs continue to see improved cycle times, according to the 2024 Crash Course report. In 2022, EVs saw an average of 35.7 days between last estimate and vehicle in for repairs. This was compounded by an average repair time of 20.4 days.
In the first half of 2024, the days between an EV’s final estimate and the day it went in for repairs had improved by more than 13 days, while repair times are down 4.5 days, said CCC.
The company also made an attempt to answer a hotly debated topic: are EVs written off more frequently than non-EVs? According to CCC, EVs are currently flagged as total losses less than one percent more than non-EVs, if they are current year or “newer” vehicles; two percent less often for vehicles between one and three years old and two percent less for vehicles aged between four and six years.
In the first half of 2024, insurers also flagged ten percent of EV estimates and 22 percent of non-EV estimates as total losses—both of which are increased relative to the year prior.
In terms of overall repair costs on EVs and non-EVs, CCC indicates the average total cost of repair (TCOR) is US$4,642, a 3.7 percent increase compared to the first half of 2023.
“This increase may indicate that TCORs are beginning to fall back in line with inflationary trends,” reads the report.
Total repair costs jumped double digits in 2021 and 2022. When indexed against 2020, parts contributed to more than 50 percent of increased repair costs, notes CCC. The company also notes factors like increased labour costs and the prevalence of diagnostics in vehicle repair, “which often shows up in miscellaneous (sublet) estimate line items.”
Meanwhile, the average price per part increased a modest 0.2 percent in 2023. In Q1 2024, the average price per part was down 0.7 percent compared to Q4 2023. The average price per part then increased by 2.4 percent in Q2 2024, the largest quarterly increase since Q2 2022.
The rate of change for the average number of parts per appraisal appears to be slowing, said CCC, after consecutive years of large increases. The average went from 11.2 parts per appraisal in 2020 to 12.2 in 2022. In 2023, the average stood at 13.7 parts per repair and H1 2024 averaged 13.6 parts.
CCC further notes that Q1 2024 data currently reveals significant quarter-over-quarter drops in average time for vehicles to enter repairs following estimate completion, reflecting continued improvements in shop backlogs.
“Productivity should remain a focal point for the collision repair industry. As compared to pre-pandemic productivity levels, cycle times for labour require an average of four additional days for drivable vehicles and eight days for non-drivable vehicles,” reads the report.
