How battery and hybrid electric vehicle service is impacting independent repair shops

July 22, 2021

IMR Inc. released its latest report after interviewing 1,000 repair shops across the U.S.

IMR Inc., the industry’s leading full-service automotive market research firm, released its latest insights on how battery and hybrid electric vehicle service is impacting independent repair shops.

The firm conducted 1,000 interviews with U.S. independent repair shops between May 3 and June 30, 2021. The research also uncovered insight into the shop’s investment in tools/equipment and training for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), whether they market these service capabilities, and their view of when they believe BEVs and HEVs will impact their business amongst other insights.

The results:

67 percent of independent repair shops indicate a portion of their business is from servicing battery electric vehicles.
On average, 3.1 percent of vehicles serviced are BEVs while HEVs account for 6.2 percent of the vehicles serviced.
Shops located in the West (7.7 percent) have nearly double the percentage of business from HEVs over shops located in the Midwest (4.2 percent).
Of shops that service BEVs/HEVs, 69.9 percent don't specifically market or advertise that they service BEVs or HEVs.
89.4 percent have seen an increase in the number of BEVs coming in for service while 87.4 percent have seen an increase in HEVs.
Only 27.5 percent of shops have invested in tools and equipment to specifically service BEVs/HEVs while 30.5 percent of shops said they had invested in additional/specialized training for technicians, focused on electric or hybrid vehicles.
When it comes to keeping up to date on industry trends on BEVs and HEVs, 46.7% of shops say that their primary supplier keeps them up to date.
40 percent of shops believe the increasing number of EVs and HEVs on the road will impact their business over the next two years; 38.7 percent don't and 21.4 percent don’t know.
Of the 38.7 percent that don't believe the increasing number of BEVs and HEVs on the road will impact their business in the next two years, 55.1 percent believe it’ll take 10 years or longer to see an impact; 13.4 percent believe it will never impact their business.

To view the full report, click here.