Setting the Standard
Setting the Standard
15/02/2022
Electric vehicle (EV) owners could face long waits to have their cars serviced due to a predicted shortage of qualified mechanics, with new modelling by the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce (VACC) showing Australia will need about 6000 EV technicians by 2030 to maintain the growing fleet.
VACC estimates there are currently only 500 qualified EV technicians in Australia servicing approximately 25,000 EVs nationally. The number of EVs is expected to boom, climbing to 1.7 million by the end of the decade according to the Federal Government.
EV technicians require specialist skills, that are closer to that of an IT professional than that of a traditional mechanic. These skills include coding and reprogramming vehicle software and repairing high voltage rechargeable energy storage systems.
Currently, most EVs are serviced by the dealerships that sell them, but it is predicted that owners will increasingly want to take their vehicles to independent workshops and local repairers as sales ramp up and the cars are resold on the second-hand market
As EV sales continue to grow, the VACC is calling upon the government to provide funding for education providers to focus on upskilling the existing ageing workforce of mechanics and training people for jobs that don’t quite exist yet, but will have a shortfall in the future.