As EVs continue to grow their market share in vehicle sales, they are showing up more frequently in collision repair shops -- EVs represented 2.4% of repairable claims in the first half of 2024, up from 1.6% in 2023, according to CCC’s latest Crash Course Report.
Baily Soto and Mavrick Knoles from Legacy EV appeared on The Collision Vision podcast, driven by Autobody News and hosted by Cole Strandberg, to discuss best practices for protecting technicians working on EVs and share insights into how Legacy EV is helping shops create safer environments for EV repairs.
Knoles, president and co-founder of Legacy EV, said the company was founded in 2019 with a focus on enabling the workforce transformation for the introduction of EV technology into the transportation sector.
Soto, a curriculum specialist with Legacy EV, was invited by Knoles to help build out the career and technical education offered to K-12 and secondary school students and to working technicians.
Unique EV Safety Challenges in Collision Repair
Knoles said while there are dangers associated with working on EVs, it’s a misconception that they catch fire frequently -- in fact, they catch fire at much lower rate than their ICE counterparts.
“It's like 25 fires per 100,000 vehicles for EVs, whereas gas-powered vehicles are 1,500-plus for every 100,000,” Knoles said.
However, technicians do still need to take that danger seriously and follow safety protocols. “You can't smell electricity like you can gasoline,” he said.
EV fires are also hard to extinguish because there is so much stored potential energy, Knoles said.
“We're seeing fire departments around the world try and figure out how to put these fires out,” Knoles said. “What ends up happening is they smother them until they can get them to somewhere safe. And then they let them burn over time. Sometimes these EV fires will burn for weeks or more.
“You just have to be able to smother it, get it moved to somewhere safe, and then let it burn as the energy dissipates from the system,” he added.
Specialized EV PPE, Tools
Soto said shop cleanliness is paramount, especially in areas like Arizona, where dust is full of metal particulates that can generate excess heat. She recommended keeping tools clean and separating those that will be used on high-voltage batteries from those that might get covered in grease.
Current from high-voltage batteries can pass through a technician’s body, so the key is to increase a body’s resistance through tools and PPE.
“They have specialized tools that are rated to be able to work around up to 1,500 volts of DC, so that you don't have to worry about dangerous current passing through your body as you use that tool,” Soto said.
“It only takes five milliamps of current to be dangerous, so we're always looking to increase resistance,” Soto added. “And your tools can do that for you.”
Knoles said instruments can verify an electrical system is not live.
Soto said in addition to the high-voltage battery, energy can be stored in the motor due to regenerative braking, which many technicians do not consider when they verify a battery has zero voltage.
“You also have to make sure that all of that energy has discharged on the motor side as well before you service something,” Soto said.
Class 0 gloves with leather over-protectors keep the wearer safe to up to 1,500 volts DC, Soto said, but technicians still have to be cognizant of other possible conductors that might be on their clothing, like metal rivets and zippers, as well as glasses and jewelry.
Cotton coveralls are preferable for technicians working on EVs, Soto said, as cotton will burn instead of melt, like polyester. However, all coveralls still have metal zippers or buttons.
“I think there's a whole business opportunity…making non-conductive coveralls for the workplace,” she said.
Training Techs for EV Repair
EV technology is “ripping out the carpet from underneath the technology platform, and starting with this brand new, nascent technology,” Knoles said.
The first key is to ensure everyone in a collision shop is trained on EV safety, Knoles said.
Level One training is for anyone -- from people answering phones at the front desk to people handling material in the warehouse -- who works in a building where high voltage is present. They should know how to identify where high voltage is or could be, how to avoid it, and how to be safe around people working with it.
Level Two training is for those employees servicing vehicles with high-voltage batteries. They should know how to pull out a battery pack that's been locked out, tagged out and zero-voltage verified.
The second key is to develop a business plan to address having high voltage in the building; it should establish where EV service work should be performed, and standards like limited approach boundaries.
Legacy EV designs curriculum, trains instructors and provides hardware for schools’ EV repair programs. It also offers upskill and reskill training for working technicians at its facility in Gilbert, AZ.
“There's a lot of nuance and new things that technicians need to understand,” Knoles said.
Soto said Legacy EV trains anyone who needs to service EVs, from tow truck drivers to people who want to perform restomods.
The basics can be taught in one day, she said, but Legacy EV also offers a five-day “boot camp” course for people who need a deeper dive into the components and wiring of an EV system.
“We have three different offerings to meet the needs of the industry right now, trying to be that one-stop shop,” Soto said. “No matter what skill level, we've got a training that's going to help you feel safe in your high voltage workplace.”
Legacy EV is also involved in parts distribution, and works with manufacturers to fully understand every component.
“I would say it's the part side of the business that helps us stay bleeding edge,” Knoles said. “As a subject matter expert, we're working with manufacturers on technologies that are going into OE vehicles, not next year or the year after, but the year after that, where we've already been able to see it and do integration projects with it, which is really fun and exciting for us.”
Education and parts distribution, along with the third piece of Legacy EV’s business -- systems integration and design -- “work together to create this flywheel effect,” Knoles said.
“We've got businesses that are cracking into the EV industry and they want help integrating their product. And then as we integrate their product, they want help getting it out in the hands of the knowledgeable technicians, which we've helped build, because we've created a network of trained and certified technicians that we can now sell their product out into,” he said. “So it really helps us to be this like hub-and-spoke model for the EV industry as a subject matter expert and thought leader.”
The physics behind EV safety will never change, Soto said, meaning as the technology advances, “energy is already standardized. You're just learning it on a new system.” However, there isn’t any standardized training or regulations yet.
Knoles said establishing standards for EV repair education is the first step in building a talent pipeline to support the industry.
“That's getting EAS (Electrotechnical Assessment Specification) to agree to the same standard on what it means to be a knowledgeable and master EV technician,” Knoles said.
That standard can be applied to build out an international workforce, but it can also be worked back to apply to earlier grades in school.
Knoles said Legacy EV recently launched a pilot project with Maricopa County School District in Arizona, signing up 30 schools to teach their students to work together to build an electric go kart.
“It is so fun to see the kids get so engaged in building those programs and see this ignition of the automotive programs across schools around the globe,” Knoles said. “It's really exciting.”
Future of Electrification in Car Culture
Soto said the car community isn’t going to change their minds about EV powertrains because of regulations mandating EV sales.
“They have to fall in love with the technology. And it's been really cool to see that happening,” Soto said. “I have a due diligence to the next generation of gearheads to make sure that they're figuring out what goes faster, which I think is really fun to see that cultural shift now, more than anything.”
“It's the performance that's grabbing people's attention now,” Knoles agreed. “It truly is a very high-performance platform.”
Knoles said automakers are building EVs for the global market, but there are “more headwinds in the U.S. than in other countries” in regards to adopting the technology, because they “have become uniquely politicized in the U.S.”
“EV adoption is still soaring globally, and all the OEs that want their cars to be sold in global markets are going to continue to push electrification,” Knoles said. “It might just look a little bit different in the U.S.”
Advice for Collision Shop Owners
Soto said Legacy EV worked with a small shop that produced about one full restoration every six months, but it chose to train its 10 technicians to work with EVs. That grew the shop’s market.
“Now they can take on gas restomods and EV restomods. It's really grown the opportunity for them, and made them feel safe,” Soto said. “It also allowed them to springboard into the future. It's not surviving any mobility. It's going to be thriving.
Knoles said he was an “early adopter” who owned a 2014 Ford Focus Electric that only got 72 miles to a charge. The high-voltage battery went out while he owned it. He didn’t know what was wrong with it, so he took it to his local mechanic.
“When I brought that vehicle in, they were like deer in the headlights,” Knoles said. The mechanic didn’t know how to diagnose the problem or where to get parts.
Knoles took it to the dealership, “bracing for impact on what the price was going to be for that repair,” but it was under warranty. He learned most EVs come with a long battery warranty.
When he started Legacy EV in 2019, there were about 20,000 EVs out of their battery warranty. Today, there are nearly 1 million, and that number is going to keep growing.
“The need for qualified third-party service and repair for OEM vehicles is going to grow drastically over the next five years,” he said. “I would echo Baily's advice: get somebody trained, start learning how to work with this technology and get prepared, because there's going to be a lot of car owners like me that want to bring their car to you to get fixed, and they need to have options.
“You need to have trained technicians to be able to service it, and we're happy to help along that journey,” he said.
Abby Andrews