Feb 17, 2021
As technology advances, consumers expect fast, efficient, and quality service. So, it’s important for automotive technicians to understand what’s changing in the industry and what they need to know. Perhaps the most significant technological advance in the auto industry is the advent of electric vehicles.
Many assume that electric vehicles are the beginning of the end for auto mechanics. Still, we like to say that electric vehicles are ushering in a new generation of automotive technicians.
Repairing an electric car doesn’t require much “dirty work,” as the vehicle’s mechanics are more accessible distributed throughout the car’s body rather than being squeezed into the car’s hood. At the same time, cars are getting better at identifying vehicle problems without the involvement of a technician. Much of the “regular” maintenance required for an internal combustion engine vehicle does not exist for a pure electric vehicle.
An all-electric car has far fewer moving parts with around 20 moving parts, while ICE vehicles have around 2,000 moving parts. Of course, they will still need brake, suspension, tire, and wiper service. Compared to all the maintenance required to keep an ICE vehicle running smoothly, this is the bare minimum of regular maintenance. Most of the maintenance of electric vehicles will be carried out by software. Understanding code and how software relates to new cars will be an essential skill set for anyone working in the auto repair industry in the future. While there will still be many different tasks to do by hand, auto mechanics will have more tasks that resemble a software engineer.
In fact, most new cars contain a lot of code. Because most modern high-end cars have 100 million lines of code, auto mechanics need to be fluent in this language. That’s more than the F-35 or even the Boeing 787.
What is the outlook for the auto repair industry? With around 90,000 repair shops, the future of the auto repair industry is bound to be some of the most disruptive changes ever seen.
Ultimately, electric vehicles are still in their infancy, so long-term maintenance of these vehicles remains speculative for now. There is supposed to be less maintenance in the long run, but nothing is certain until it does in the long run.
So, we have a piece of advice for auto technicians, never stop learning!