00:00Driving through the countryside in a hybrid car, that's how Marvin Rathmann gets around in Brandenburg.
00:07The drone pilot travels 30,000 kilometers a year in this vehicle, which is powered by both gasoline and electricity.
00:15But Rathmann has been stuck three times already when his car ran out of power.
00:20Finding a mechanic who knew their way around his car wasn't easy.
00:23When the car broke down, I had to call roadside assistance, but they couldn't figure out the issue.
00:28The mechanics didn't want to repair it and couldn't do it because they hadn't had any special training.
00:34I had to go to another garage to get another quote, which was in a high four-digit range.
00:42There are around 1.7 million EVs and 3.6 million hybrid cars on German roads.
00:49Many garages turn away electric vehicles.
00:52The car mechanics often lack the expertise to handle high-voltage components.
00:56Those are the parts that are marked in orange.
01:02This mechanic is also authorized to perform routine service work on EVs, but he'll need to get special training to be able to carry out repairs on high-voltage components.
01:13Euromaster has garages across the European Union.
01:16Most employees can only repair combustion engines.
01:20But the management is planning to gradually train more mechanics to work on electric vehicles.
01:27The costs involved are not insignificant.
01:32We are investing a high five-figure sum to prepare our network for EVs.
01:37That will continue to rise, also because the training costs for high-voltage are significant.
01:44Electric vehicle servicing is developing into a lucrative niche business, especially when the car manufacturer warranty has expired.
01:54High-voltage experts are turning that into a business.
01:59Otto Behrendt has many customers whose vehicles would land in the scrapyard if he didn't repair them.
02:04That's because replacing a defective EV battery can cost up to a third of the price for a new vehicle.
02:12That's because repairs aren't being carried out.
02:15Parts or entire systems are replaced.
02:18This can lead to total economic loss, and hence customers looking for alternatives often find their way to us.
02:26This battery block doesn't work, but only a few cells are defective.
02:35The workers at this special garage know how to find the fault.
02:38And instead of replacing the whole battery block, they will only replace the defective cells.
02:43That saves a lot of money.
02:45To localize the defective battery cells, the team here had to develop its own tools and diagnosing devices,
02:51because there are none on the market.
02:54This is the device that is used to locate faults in a battery.
02:59They have to develop individual repair manuals for each model.
03:03Every new vehicle we take is completely new territory for us.
03:07The initial disassembly surely takes two to three times as long as repairs after that.
03:12We can't make a profit the first time, but we hope to make money with any follow-up repairs,
03:17which have a similar issue when we know exactly what to do.
03:21Electric vehicles are fairly new to the roads.
03:26The challenge remains figuring out how to repair them cheaply.
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