Because electric cars have a higher chance of catching on fire. And since most people park them indoors, there’s a higher chance of destroying surrounding property.
This is not true and has been debunked many times.
Some day we will have an apples to apples numbers of cars that catch fire in a garage while turned off or charging. Some day.
ICE vehicles catching fire while unused was unheard of s decade ago, but worsening quality has made it s rare thing.
It is pricey to insure one, but the delta is still nothing compared to what I save in gas every month.
That depends entirely on what you’re driving and what state you’re in for insurance. Comparing a hybrid to an EV while living in a high insurance state? Hybrid wins in many situations especially adding the purchase price.
Definitely the case in BC. I got a quote on a Prius Prime and a Model 3, the Tesla was almost double the price annually
My EV6 GT caused my insurance premium to decrease compared to the VW Tiguan it replaced, but I think that’s because Progressive lumps all of the EV6 trims together. I’d imagine it depends on the provider.
It’s a numbers and statistics game. I dunno what the actual number of EV to ICE is, but it’s probably 1000:1 or more, but it’s the only time I’ve seen the minority be more expensive.
When I was in the military a shipmate was 21 and had a brand new Corvette. His insurance was cheaper than the kid the same age with a brand new Camaro, and a lot cheaper than the kid with a brand new Mustang. Why? Because there’s hardly any 21 yo driving a new Vette, let alone wrecking them like they are the Camaro and Mustang. So statistically he’s less of a risk.
My buddy’s full coverage Murcielago insurance is cheaper than my insurance for a fucking Macan. Low numbers, even if repairs are more expensive (his windshield replacement was $12k lmao) there’s just not enough data out there.
My own personal example is how my insurance for an MV Agusta Brutale is 1/8th what it is for my BMW S1000R despite having the same HP and being the same genre of motorcycle. All the squids are wrecking and getting tickets on S1000Rs, so it’s more expensive despite being nearly 1/2 the cost. There’s hardly anybody wrecking MVs so there’s no data…therefore it’s cheaper.
Tesla labor rates are double standard body work. $95/hr for body vs $51/hr for most other cars in the state I live in.
Tesla will not sell parts to shops that are not Tesla certified and have a very rigorous and expensive certification process. This is why shops can charge more for repairs and insurance companies will pay it.
Premiums cost more because repairs cost more.
But not to worry! Other car manufacturers are watching Tesla procedures with great interest and have started requiring certifications to sell parts (Audi, Land Rover, and Cadillac already have parts they won’t sell unless a shop completes a certification program). So soon everyone’s insurance will cost what Tesla insurance costs.
So are we going to see aftermarket parts for Teslas at some point?
Our BMW i3 was pricey but understandable… others were cheaper.
Our Tesla model X was about 5% more than the Audi wagon it replaced, which made no sense but we were not complaining.
But the most absurd is our Rivian which is cheaper than the minivan… 825hp and $95k vs 250 and $40k
I think that the insurance company has made some pretty clever calculations with a pretty clever simulation software created by pretty clever mathematicians and now nobody knows why a car comes out the way it comes out.
With the Rivian though I think the maths are as follows: It will be used for maybe 3000 miles per year and that might be even too much. It also will probably be driven mostly on open roads, because a Rivian does not make much sense in a dense urban area.
while a minivan is a typical car for family vacation, commuting and soccer mumming, so it will make 5 times as many miles and will spend a lot of this in urban areas with dense traffic.
Most accidents of course happen in dense, urban areas. More cars closely packed around you, more chances to hit one of them. So you drive more miles in a more critical environment.
They also might consider that many of the miles done in a Rivian are not even done on the road but maybe on a closed track, which might be completely excluded from your police of - if it is included - still is not as problematic, because there is less chance to hit another car.
Of course it is all speculation what in the end caused the Rivian to be cheaper than a minivan. But those are the lines, insurance companies think in. They want you as a customer, so they must be cheaper than the other insurance, yet still want to make money so they will have lots of variables to consider. Some of which are unclear to us or which we would judge completely different.
It’s repair costs. Some manufacturers have scant parts availability… manufacturing processes that work for them but impact the ability to repair. Just because you can design and build a vehicle doesn’t mean you understand anything beyond the initial purchase.
Just watch wham bam teslacam and look at the repair costs for smaller impacts. You could buy a new ICE car for some of them.
EVs are like modern cell phones, very expensive and difficult to repair. Gigantic one piece panels and frame elements. Lots of cameras and sensors on the periphery that get damaged in accidents. Most importantly the battery is a potential bomb waiting to go off if damaged and minor damage is near impossible to detect in a battery back after a minor accident, which may necessitate replacement of the entire battery, which is enormously expensive.
Throw in the strong acceleration and the unfamiliar control systems (e.g., yokes, lack of gear shift/turn signal stalk, regen braking settings, etc.) and its no wonder they are expensive to insure.
Most EVs are expensive, and EV fires don’t go out easy. That’s the entirety of why.
Here in Germany the insurance is based on accident probability.
The more kilometers you drive, the higher the chance and due to higher taxes on diesel engines combined with lower price for diesel itself diesel was always considered the choice for people doing much long distance, so everything else the same, car, HP, speed, the diesel engine will be more expensive to insure.
They also look at the model. When I was 18 and thinking about a first car, the VW Golf 2 was the standard „old“ car that kids bought, so it was really expensive to insure even though it had a low power, small displacement petrol engine. The Jetta 2 on the other hand, exactly the same car but a three box sedan instead of a hatchback, was really cheap, because that car - like most sedans to this very day in Germany - was considered a car for retiree. My first car turned out to be an Audi 80 B3, which was a small sedan and due to its conservative styling made for older people. That and its whooping 1.6l engine with 71 hp resulted in really nice insurance rates.
Despite costing more than twice as much and being faster, a Porsche 911 was considerably cheaper to insure than a Subaru Impreza, because the Porsche in Germany also is a car mostly bought by people above 50.
I am absolutely certain that it is like that all over the world. Insurance companies hire really good mathematicians who create really complex simulation models to determine the risk of a specific brand. You will never know why; most pobably even the mathematicians do not know why cars come out as they do.
Hmm - I am in the market for an EV right now. For comparison - I’m looking to get out of a 2016 Prius which should be one of the cheaper cars to insurance (in terms of risk profile). Ran a whole bunch of quotes and found that non-Tesla EVs would cost basically about the same to insure. A touch more due to higher value (new / almost-new EV vs a 7 year old Prius), but nothing unreasonable. For a Model 3, it’s a bit more than that though, but again, not by much.
Wait for the prices to hije die to all the EV’s batteries catching fire. Soon no insurance company will want to cover EV’s.
Everything I’ve read is they cost much more to repair and many are being totaled because the insurance companies don’t want the liability if the battery pack is damaged and catches fire later.
A lot of used EV’s in my area are Insurance Loss and Lemon Law vehicles lol. The battery is easily the most expensive component to repair. If the insurance costs have lowered them its likely because manufacturers are just eating some repair costs for them. The components haven’t gotten much cheaper.
There are so many variables with car insurance. If you’re considering an EV, just get a quote to see what insurance would cost.
I’ve owned 5 EVs and they’ve all been very similar in insurance cost to the gas cars they shared a garage with. Sometimes slightly more. Sometimes slightly less.
Edit: This includes BMW, Tesla, and Ford EVs.
Same. Ironically, my Model 3 cost less to insure than my Prius.
Need to take into account total cost of ownership. I’m paying more in insurance for my X than the ICE SUV it replaced, but it’s more than offset by the cost of electrons vs gas. I’m saving $200/mo when it’s all said and done.
I’d say it’s more to do with the average vehicle cost being higher for electric cars than ICE. Overall they’re slightly more expensive to manufacture, therefore everything from an insurance perspective is slightly more costly to repair.