High E.V. Costs Don't End Once You've Bought One

Astounding news out of the U.K., from the Daily Express:

Electric car owners may face shocking 1000 percent rise in insurance premiums

Electric car owners are facing close to 1000 percent rises in their insurance premiums during a cost of living crisis, reports show. Some owners have seen their premiums spike by over £4,000 compared to last year in a move which has baffled owners and left them out of pocket ahead of winter. Tesla owners have shared their stories in a Facebook group where they have told others about the horror premiums they now have to pay.

The insurance hike is bad enough, but many E.V. owners are actually having trouble getting insurance at all:

One owner said Aviva refused to insure him and his Tesla Model Y when his insurance came up for renewal and that other brands had turned him away.... Tesla driver David told the Guardian: “My insurer was Aviva from July 2022 to July 2023, but when it was coming up for renewal, I received a letter stating that they would not be covering the Tesla Model Y anymore.... What’s more, David isn’t the only electric car driver affected. Alex Gherlis drives a Smart EQ Forfour....

Before his mid-August renewal date, he was advised by John Lewis Finance that they would no longer insure his electric car because it was not insuring electric vehicles anymore. For owners like Alex and David, their rejections have come ahead of the hardest time of the year for people in the UK. As the mercury drops and energy prices rise, any rise in premiums will hit harder.

Why is this happening? Insurance companies aren't saying. In fact they're somewhat reluctant to acknowledge this phenomenon at all. But one spokesman did say the following -- “We price customers’ policies based on our view of risk and the rating factors we use, including the model of the car and inflation.” Which is to say, this is happening because as they get more experience with E.V.s, companies are increasingly realizing how much more expensive they are to insure.

The least of your troubles, kid.

As indeed they are. They're full of mechanical issues that petrol-and-diesel cars don't have, from the dramatic E.V. fires which we've covered here in the past to more prosaic issues, such as battery damage caused by bottoming out on a curb. The latter is, in fact, a frequent issue with E.V.s, with the auction platform Copart reporting that roughly half of the low-mileage electric vehicles it has salvaged have had some degree of battery damage.

Combine that with the fact that so few mechanics have experience fixing E.V.s, and you can see why the average repair costs are twenty-five percent higher than a traditional car. At that rate, it will frequently be cheaper to junk an E.V. than to fix it, a situation insurance companies are going to want no part of.

Don't say you weren't warned.