As dedicated petrol heads we don’t want to admit to the inevitable – Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) are an endangered species. The Climate Change Commission has proposed ending import of ICE engine cars from 2035 and ending use of ICE cars by 2050. On top of that manufacturers will have to meet some challenging fleet CO2 budgets which will affect the composition of vehicles they sell from next year. Whilst some these dates may shift, the intent won’t, so you will start to see a growth in EV variants including BEV (Battery EV), PHEV (Plug In Hybrid) and Hybrid vehicles.
New vehicle franchise dealers are already seeing the first waves of this with most planning training and equipment around it and looking at how they can add new income streams on the servicing side. With this in mind a key consideration for any new workshop equipment you buy now is how it will be able to adapt to the changing mix of vehicles you will be servicing going forward – and the types of work. For a new franchise workshop it is a given that they will install multiple EV charging points across service, showroom, delivery and public facing areas. For example the new Armstrong’s East Tamaki Nissan/Peugeot/Citroen dealership is installing seven Type 2 chargers from the get-go.
When specifying a hoist consider that you may need to perform battery removals and swaps on EV’s and consider how you could cordon off an EV repair bay for OSH compliance when considering workshop and equipment layout.
You should ensure that any new diagnostic and electrical test equipment is EV suitable – or could at least be upgraded once you start seeing more EV’s.
Aside from that EV’s need less servicing (No oil change and even brake wear is much less) so should you be looking at adding extra services. Maybe bringing in house some jobs you currently outsource by investing in the equipment or training to do these – Franchise dealers are bringing works such as tyre replacement, windscreen repairs and replacement and even minor panel repairs in house as part of this planning, this obviously requires the correct equipment to be purchased.
