It is hot and bright beneath the high intensity lights in a cavernous crash and safety testing laboratory, hidden away in a business park outside Newbury. A siren blares and a disembodied voice counts down: “Three, two, one.” A small white car trundles into view, rolls across the floor, and bumps into a barrier set against the wall. At just 6mph, the crash replicates the kind of annoying prang you might get in a car park. But raise the bonnet, and the damage is significant. This is an electric Dacia Spring, and as senior test engineer Sean Hoad points out, the high-voltage charging port mounted at the front is badly broken, along with the components it is attached to. “This is all one big unit, meaning we can’t just replace the front charge port. We have to replace the charger itself, the inverter, and some of the cabling,” he explains. Repairing that would cost about £4,000, and with other damage to consider, “it’s more than likely this car would be written off,” Hoad adds.
Thatcham Research, which works on behalf of the insurance industry, is carrying out tests like this to understand why EVs typically attract higher premiums. On average, it says, EVs cost 30% more to repair than petrol or diesel models, and it takes 14% longer to fix them. This feeds through to insurance prices, which can be 10-25% higher for an EV, depending on the make and model. According to the latest data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), EV sales made up almost one in every three new cars sold in the UK in June. Ian Plummer, chief customer officer of Autotrader, says rising EV demand is “driven by intensifying competition and rising consumer interest in plug-in cars”, but warns “the wider context remains fragile, with ongoing uncertainty around policy, incentives, and wider external pressures.” Insurance cost is one of those niggling concerns that could put off would-be buyers. “It’s absolutely crucial electric vehicles become cheaper to insure,” insists Steve Fowler, co-founder of Carblah. “They are expensive – though not as expensive as some people might think – but by making them easier to repair and cheaper to insure, more people will buy them.”
“Crash tests show EV repairs cost 30% more, insurers may write off cars from minor prangs.”