Photo: Rich Benoit
EVs are often praised for being maintenance-free vehicles, which is not exactly correct. Rich Benoit – from the Rich Rebuilds YouTube channel – learned that while rebuilding a Tesla Model S. That even pushed him to open a shop dedicated to electric cars called Electrified Garage. In a recent tweet, he demonstrated how crucial that is when it comes to keeping these cars running – as well as reducing insurance prices.
Benoit reported how a 2,000-mile Tesla Model 3 ran into some debris on the road and broke a battery pack coolant tube. At a Tesla Service Center, the owner received a quote for $16,000: he would have to replace the entire battery pack. His insurance company would write the car off. Check his tweet below.
What Benoit and his repair shop proposed to do was to get the car back to the road “safely and cost-effectively.” We have contacted Benoit to learn more about the solution, but that will probably be in a video really soon. We believe the Electrified Garage will either repair the broken coolant tube or replace it for a much lower cost than the $16,000 Tesla would demand from the owner.
Hitting debris on the road is quite a common thing. The first concern that episode brings to mind is how protected these coolant tubes are. Although we have never heard of a similar case, this is enough to bring awareness to the issue.
The second point of discussion here is why a broken coolant tube requires a company to replace an entire battery pack. If this part is subject to breaking, it should be easily replaceable. If the idea is never needing to replace it, it should be better protected.
Depending on how Tesla evaluates this repair, it may decide to block access to Supercharging to this car, as it has with other vehicles considered as write-offs. Jason Hughes had this issue with his Model S after it had “a dented front fender and fascia,” even if the car was perfectly safe: the insurance company deemed the repair costs too high.
Hughes accused Tesla of doing so not out of safety concerns but just to force people to buy new EVs. Presenting a $16,000 quote for a car that may cost around $40,000 is asking for insurance companies to write it off. Offering Tesla Insurance will not help to solve that. Owners and insurance companies may only want to fix their cars “safely and cost-effectively.” Wouldn’t it be nice?
What Benoit and his repair shop proposed to do was to get the car back to the road “safely and cost-effectively.” We have contacted Benoit to learn more about the solution, but that will probably be in a video really soon. We believe the Electrified Garage will either repair the broken coolant tube or replace it for a much lower cost than the $16,000 Tesla would demand from the owner.
Hitting debris on the road is quite a common thing. The first concern that episode brings to mind is how protected these coolant tubes are. Although we have never heard of a similar case, this is enough to bring awareness to the issue.
The second point of discussion here is why a broken coolant tube requires a company to replace an entire battery pack. If this part is subject to breaking, it should be easily replaceable. If the idea is never needing to replace it, it should be better protected.
Depending on how Tesla evaluates this repair, it may decide to block access to Supercharging to this car, as it has with other vehicles considered as write-offs. Jason Hughes had this issue with his Model S after it had “a dented front fender and fascia,” even if the car was perfectly safe: the insurance company deemed the repair costs too high.
Hughes accused Tesla of doing so not out of safety concerns but just to force people to buy new EVs. Presenting a $16,000 quote for a car that may cost around $40,000 is asking for insurance companies to write it off. Offering Tesla Insurance will not help to solve that. Owners and insurance companies may only want to fix their cars “safely and cost-effectively.” Wouldn’t it be nice?
Tesla Model 3 with 2k miles came into @ServiceMyEV ran over some debris on road and broke a battery coolant tube. Tesla quoted 16k for the replacement of the entire battery, insurance wants to write the car off. We’re going to get them back on the road safely and cost effectively pic.twitter.com/1u4FhcxeiO
— Rich Rebuilds (@RebuildsRich) June 29, 2021
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