As the government holds its first public hearings into the EV transition, Australia’s leading aftermarket association has flagged training and compliance as a matter of urgency for the collision repair industry.
The Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association is turning up the pressure on governments to ensure businesses get the support they need as the NVES takes affect and the Australian car parc transitions to
But the AAAA has argued government policy is inadequate when it came to considering the whole of life of EVs beyond the purchase, the area most acutely felt by repairers that they need to be ready for..
The Federal government’s parliamentary committee inquiry held its first day of public hearings in Sydney on Thursday and will continue today, before scheduled dates in Canberra ( July 28) and Melbourne (August 8).
AAAA CEO Stuart Charity has been a voice of warning that the best intentions of a push towards a zero-emission fleet could be undermined if the whole of the lifecycle experience is not considered including efficient and widespread charging infrastructure and the ability to meet the repair needs of the new vehicles.
“We need to ensure that there’s the expertise out there to work on these vehicles safely and efficiently, and that just isn’t being prioritised by governments, and it will mean that people have poor ownership experiences,” Charity says.
“It potentially increases the cost of insurance, and if cars are having to be written off because the industry doesn’t have the skill sets or the ability to repair them effectively, the public will lose confidence in the technology.”
“A holistic EV transition approach needs to be implemented to ensure that someone’s first EV purchase is not their last.”
Already the US market, that has a higher uptake of EVs, is encountering repair problems and leaving EV owners with a bad experience to the point where some are turning back to ICE vehicles, he says. To avoid these future issues of unwanted vehicles stockpiling and lowering targets, governments need to act now.
The AAAA has also highlighted the willingness of the repair industry to play its part in supporting a new low emissions car parc with one in ten shops ready for EVs and a further 24 per cent planning to do so within the next two years. This takes on a heightened urgency for the collision repair industry.
“For repair and maintenance, newer cars need less and traditionally they go to the dealers for a while under warranty. So, the general mechanical repair community has a bit more time to prepare but the collision repair industry doesn’t. These vehicles can potentially be involved in a collision, which can happen in week one of a car’s life.”
Driving forces
Charity says all levels of government need to have a more realistic and broader focus to ensure the transition to low emissions vehicles is a lasting success.
“They are still a small percentage of the overall car parc but we’ve seen a massive lift in the number of EVs sold, and we will continue to see a strong growth over the coming years, particularly with the new vehicle emission standard, along with FBT benefits if you lease a car, and states also have incentives. But they’re all designed to get cars into the pipeline and that’s only one side of the equation. Governments can’t then just wipe their hands of everything else that happens from that point on in the life of a vehicle.”
“The whole ownership experience is really important. We hear from the federal government that we need more electric cars on the road, but very little in terms of policy and focus around that whole infrastructure to support this rollout.”
Training
One of the key areas where governments can make a difference is ensuring there is an adequate workforce to meet the demand and ensure owning an EV doesn’t turn into a repair nightmare of delays and limited options.
Charity commends the changes the Federal Government made in May by widening the criteria of the New Energy Program for apprentices, a subsidy of $10,000 for working with EVs. This was a change the AAAA and the MTAA had lobbied hard for. Now Charity says governments need to look at upskilling the existing workforce.
“There literally is not enough registered training organisations and TAFEs and other training institutes that have the expertise or the capacity to train. The issue here is we’ve got an existing workforce of somewhere above 70,000 technicians that need upskilling and training in this area.”
Access and cost are developing as key barriers to adequate training, he says.
“One issue is the availability and the accessibility of training. Even if you want to do the training, it’s very difficult to access, and that gets magnified when you’re in rural and regional areas because the training infrastructure there is even less. It often means that technicians have to go into metropolitan centres to do that training.
“The other problem is the cost to train a technician fully, beyond the basic safety training. If you want full competency in EV repair, it’s a six-module training course that can cost up to $20,000 per technician.
“Then you’ve got time out of the workshop, to do the training. Workshops have to invest in insulated tools and other equipment to work on EVs and set up dedicated EV bays.
“It’s a big financial commitment and many of our businesses are family-owned operations, and there is not the business case at the moment to invest in this because they’re not seeing the government support. Without support, if you did it on commercial reasons now, based on the number of cars on the road, it doesn’t stack up.”
The AAAA would like to see governments, at both state and federal level, focus on increasing the capacity of the training organisations to be able to deliver this training and potentially subsidise it, to make it more affordable for all businesses. The AAAA is also looking for support, whether through tax incentives or other programs, to help businesses with the capital equipment purchases, to encourage workshops to invest in this capability.
“The government wants something like 80 per cent of all new cars sold by 2030 to be electrified, if we want to achieve that, we need to be investing in the infrastructure now to be able to support that.”
Strong interest
Charity says there have been positive steps so far in training, including grants for EV training undertaken by the MTA NSW and MTA SA and some private industry players. The Australian Automotive Service and Repair Authority has also seen strong interest, with around 700 industry participants signing up for the EV accreditation to access the OEM information AASRA can open up to technicians. But he stresses this is only a starting point.
Charity says compliance with the basic EV safety module will also have serious implications for the risk assessment of a business and occupational safety of workers across the industry, so governments have a responsibility to support these developments.
“As a bare minimum, particularly collision repair workshops if they’re taking in electric or even hybrid vehicles, they should have all their staff trained in that basic safety procedure to be able to depower and make a vehicle safe. We should have Australian standards around an EV bay set up and personal protection equipment etc.”
Charity also stresses that dedicated and supported training will also be crucial in shaping a future generation of workers.
“The challenge with the apprentice scheme is they’re going to take four years before they’re fully qualified,” he says.
“But that is a good start and will help attract talent into the industry. Electric vehicles and new vehicle technology will help attract the sort of calibre of young talent into the industry that we need to take us forward. That’s a positive.”
The next step in the journey will be the release of the parliamentary committee’s report into the transition. Whatever that reveals, it is certain the AAAA and other industry advocates will be keeping a close eye on its results and taking the arguments to the key players in government.
“We’re talking to all those ministers regularly about these issues, creating a bit of awareness about this and hopefully we can get focus from government on helping the industry to transition.”
More information on the public hearings available here