The reincarnation of totaled Teslas—in Ukraine

Cars deemed unfixable in North America are resurrected in Eastern Europe.

See full article...

 

[dacushman]

Honestly knowing many Ukrainian people and their resourcefulness I am entirely unsurprised by this.

These are definitely folks used to seeing a pile of lemons and saying let's open a lemonade stand.

Reading TFA I am a bit dismayed about how dang Internet connected newer cars are but I guess we are calling that "progress" now.

I still wish they would be able to focus on cars not built by a company run by someone cool with them getting killed by their neighbors but I guess that's "progress" too.

 

[numerobis]

This explains why the first war photo I saw of a destroyed car in Ukraine was that of a Nissan Leaf.

I would imagine models with V2H are most prized since last winter.

 

[silverfire]

The ones that can't be resurrected provide a LOT of donor lithium cells to harvest from the battery pack that go into FPV drones

 

[Yaky]

As an owner of a first-gen Chevy Volt, several years ago I found out that they were incredibly popular in Ukraine, especially around Odesa, if I recall correctly.

On the other hand, the throwaway approach the manufacturers and insurance takes is rather disappointing, especially considering that being better for the environment is one of main points of EVs. I don’t know what the solution to this is, since (at least in the US), it is cheaper to manufacture something new than to repair it, and arguments for less automation in manufacturing or cheaper labor prices for repair are both terrible.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

As an owner of a first-gen Chevy Volt, several years ago I found out that they were incredibly popular in Ukraine, especially around Odesa, if I recall correctly.

On the other hand, the throwaway approach the manufacturers and insurance takes is rather disappointing, especially considering that being better for the environment is one of main points of EVs. I don’t know what the solution to this is, since (at least in the US), it is cheaper to manufacture something new than to repair it, and arguments for less automation in manufacturing or cheaper labor prices for repair are both terrible.

Well liability is a hard nut to crack, and I can't blame them for being risk adverse.

 

[ColdWetDog]

As an owner of a first-gen Chevy Volt, several years ago I found out that they were incredibly popular in Ukraine, especially around Odesa, if I recall correctly.

On the other hand, the throwaway approach the manufacturers and insurance takes is rather disappointing, especially considering that being better for the environment is one of main points of EVs. I don’t know what the solution to this is, since (at least in the US), it is cheaper to manufacture something new than to repair it, and arguments for less automation in manufacturing or cheaper labor prices for repair are both terrible.

In a sense this is exactly how the market is 'supposed' to work. The costs for various aspects of the vehicle (manufacturing, use, recycling / wrecking) is just arbitraged over the entire planet instead of just staying in, for example, the US. While it would be a more just and perfect world to keep the EV's environmental impacts within one country, the differences in wages, costs and regulations make looking for outside answers more successful.

We just need to send them a few wrecked Cybertrucks for the cause. I imagine that will happen in fairly short order, assuming Tesla actually bothers to ship them.

 

[MMarsh]

I think there is a huge market for a line of EVs that are designed from the ground up to be simple, modular, and easy to repair.

No super-complex structures. A battery that just consists of a stack of LFP prismatics in a temperature-controlled box. No Internet connection. Simple gauges and switches. A motor controller whose diagnostic interface is entirely built-in and can be accessed from any computer through a USB or Ethernet port. An infotainment system that is just a standalone self-contained DIN unit. Outer body panels that are bolted on to the unitized structure, and are individually replaceable. Choice of FWD or AWD and the ability to convert from one to the other just by adding the rear motor & CV axle module from a parts rack or a scrapped car. Suspension and running gear that is straight out of the NAPA, Monroe, etc. catalogs and is widely available.

Maybe offer a few body variants with near 100% commonality of functional parts and front sheet metal: a C-segment sedan, a C-segment crossover, pickups and chassis-cab trucks in short-cab / 8' bed and double-cab / 5' bed form factors, and a minivan, all with <2000 kg curb weight and ~500 kg payload capacity.

It wouldn't attract the richest 10% of Americans, for whom the fancy bells and whistles apparently help to justify high purchase prices. But think of what such a car would mean to the rest of the world.

 

[astack]

Interesting article, if nothing else, I learned that insurers tend to total EVs even more easily than ICEs.

I love seeing a closed product cycle on anything though— so many resources go into building a car, it’s truly awesome to see them being refurbished like this. I always felt the “core” charge on automobile parts, especially lead acid batteries, was one of the unsung environmental success stories. E.g., in the U.S., our lead usage is 95% recycled material— because of those core charges we basically have an entirely closed product cycle for lead with almost no new material being used. I guess lithium ion batteries do not recycle as well as lead acid ones do.

I hope the refurbishers don’t get too many battery fires while doing this though!

 

[numerobis]

As an owner of a first-gen Chevy Volt, several years ago I found out that they were incredibly popular in Ukraine, especially around Odesa, if I recall correctly.

On the other hand, the throwaway approach the manufacturers and insurance takes is rather disappointing, especially considering that being better for the environment is one of main points of EVs. I don’t know what the solution to this is, since (at least in the US), it is cheaper to manufacture something new than to repair it, and arguments for less automation in manufacturing or cheaper labor prices for repair are both terrible.

It's not so much the manufacturers as the repair shops.

 

[Deranged]

I think there is a huge market for a line of EVs that are designed from the ground up to be simple, modular, and easy to repair.

No super-complex structures. A battery that just consists of a stack of LFP prismatics in a temperature-controlled box. No Internet connection. Simple gauges and switches. A motor controller whose diagnostic interface is entirely built-in and can be accessed from any computer through a USB or Ethernet port. An infotainment system that is just a standalone self-contained DIN unit. Outer body panels that are bolted on to the unitized structure, and are individually replaceable. Choice of FWD or AWD and the ability to convert from one to the other just by adding the rear motor & CV axle module from a parts rack or a scrapped car. Suspension and running gear that is straight out of the NAPA, Monroe, etc. catalogs and is widely available.

Maybe offer a few body variants with near 100% commonality of functional parts and front sheet metal: a C-segment sedan, a C-segment crossover, pickups and chassis-cab trucks in short-cab / 8' bed and double-cab / 5' bed form factors, and a minivan, all with <2000 kg curb weight and ~500 kg payload capacity.

It wouldn't attract the richest 10% of Americans, for whom the fancy bells and whistles apparently help to justify high purchase prices. But think of what such a car would mean to the rest of the world.

Personally, I absolutely agree with you that vehicles could be made a lot more serviceable than what they typically are today. Unfortunately, I don't think that many people ever think about this at all and if the average car buyer would put important factors in a list, i think that a modular platform for easier repairs is so far down the order it barely registers. Again, it's a shame for many reasons that cars are the way they are repairability wise, but people keep buying them so they obviously don't care much about it.

 

[Sulla]

I wonder how much of the reason North American repair shops won't touch these cars is the dearth of technicians, and how much is liability aversion.

 

[dacushman]

I wonder how much of the reason North American repair shops won't touch these cars is the dearth of technicians, and how much is liability aversion.

In my (limited) experience working at a Dealership some years back was that the general opinion on the mechanical repair side was that for whatever reason there are many fewer billable hours in EVs.
Nobody there was against them per se in fact all the management at least recognized it as a future trend.

So since there may be less demand for the repairs that keep the bigger shops and better techs in the money that can be a disincentive for people to pursue the manufacturer specific training and certifications.

Overall I think this is something that will self correct and the right to repair movement should actually help these shops too by giving them more nuts and bolts to wrench.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

The ones that can't be resurrected provide a LOT of donor lithium cells to harvest from the battery pack that go into FPV drones

Yep. Politico went into a bit more detail into how Ukraine is kitbashing their own drones to get around shortages and supply issues:
https://www.politico.eu/article/future-warfare-400-army-strike-drone-unit-2m-tank/

A typical FPV weighs up to one kilogram, has four small engines, a battery, a frame and a camera connected wirelessly to goggles worn by a pilot operating it remotely. It can carry up to 2.5 kilograms of explosives and strike a target at a speed of up to 150 kilometers per hour, explains Pavlo Tsybenko, acting director of the Dronarium military academy outside Kyiv.


“This drone costs up to $400 and can be made anywhere. We made ours using microchips imported from China and details we bought on AliExpress. We made the carbon frame ourselves. And, yeah, the batteries are from Tesla. One car has like 1,100 batteries that can be used to power these little guys,” Tsybenko told POLITICO on a recent visit, showing the custom-made FPV drones used by the academy to train future drone pilots.


“It is almost impossible to shoot it down," he said. "Only a net can help. And I predict that soon we will have to put up such nets above our cities, or at least government buildings, all over Europe.”

The downside is that Russia is doing the same thing, even with sanctions in place:

However, neither Ukraine nor Russia are able to produce drones for warfare by themselves. They still source crucial parts from China — the leading maker of commercial drones. Earlier this year the Chinese Ministry of Commerce imposed restrictions on drone exports to both Ukraine and Russia out of “fear it would be used for military purposes.”


Still, it's possible to obtain components and drones via third countries. “Yes, China can either stop or stall the export of parts if it sees ‘Ukraine’ in export data. But it can’t control what we buy in Europe. Russia has fewer problems and a common border with China, and that makes drone imports way easier."


With Russia allied to China, the preference of Ukraine’s military for Chinese technology raises concerns among Kyiv’s Western partners. They fear that Beijing might pass sensitive military data to Moscow.


“Every lock has its key. Indeed, the commercial drones we buy in stores are synchronizing their data with a server. But we learned how to create user logins that are completely anonymized. Even the drone might think it is flying somewhere in Canada — and not in Donbas,” Tsybenko said.


“When we talked to Europeans, they were amazed at how easy it is to hack and anonymize Chinese drones. It is safe to use them, we tried to persuade our partners,” Tsybenko said, adding that Ukraine did not have the luxury of time to independently develop and certify its own drones.


"If we waited, the war would be over when they finally arrived.”

 

[ColdWetDog]

I think there is a huge market for a line of EVs that are designed from the ground up to be simple, modular, and easy to repair.

No super-complex structures. A battery that just consists of a stack of LFP prismatics in a temperature-controlled box. No Internet connection. Simple gauges and switches. A motor controller whose diagnostic interface is entirely built-in and can be accessed from any computer through a USB or Ethernet port. An infotainment system that is just a standalone self-contained DIN unit. Outer body panels that are bolted on to the unitized structure, and are individually replaceable. Choice of FWD or AWD and the ability to convert from one to the other just by adding the rear motor & CV axle module from a parts rack or a scrapped car. Suspension and running gear that is straight out of the NAPA, Monroe, etc. catalogs and is widely available.

Maybe offer a few body variants with near 100% commonality of functional parts and front sheet metal: a C-segment sedan, a C-segment crossover, pickups and chassis-cab trucks in short-cab / 8' bed and double-cab / 5' bed form factors, and a minivan, all with <2000 kg curb weight and ~500 kg payload capacity.

It wouldn't attract the richest 10% of Americans, for whom the fancy bells and whistles apparently help to justify high purchase prices. But think of what such a car would mean to the rest of the world.

Which means that it won't cost much. Which means that manufacturers won't make much money on them. Which means that manufacturers have no incentive to produce them despite the 'market' (we'll make it up in volume).

Note that every time a car manufacturer tries to create a simple, inexpensive vehicle, it flops after a year or two (US market, others may well vary). Most car buyers will go for a used up market car rather than a new econobox.

But hey - the possibilities are there. Third party EV chassis are a thing. Get some funding and start it up. It would be a good thing. IMHO just not a marketable one.

 

[DarthSlack]

We just need to send them a few wrecked Cybertrucks for the cause. I imagine that will happen in fairly short order, assuming Tesla actually bothers to ship them.

Can we send them to the Russians instead? Seems like that would be a more meaningful contribution to the Ukrainian war effort.

 

[ColdWetDog]

I wonder how much of the reason North American repair shops won't touch these cars is the dearth of technicians, and how much is liability aversion.

And parts. Your local mechanic can source ICE parts from a number of vendors, including wrecking yards. If your Rivian goes south and needs a part, good luck getting Rivian to sell it to you. They might but then might need access to the vehicles computer to get it integrated.

This will eventually get solved but dropping your EV off at your local mechanic is probably a decade away.

 

[ColdWetDog]

Can we send them to the Russians instead? Seems like that would be a more meaningful contribution to the Ukrainian war effort.

I dunno about that. A tactical Cybertruck could be pretty useful. Quiet, 4WD. Radar reflecting (sharp angles are good for something). Paint the thing camo, put a 30 mm autocannon on the top along with a couple of manpads. If the going gets tough, stuff it full of C4, turn on autopilot, jump out and send it into the line.

So what if the body panels are misaligned and the thing craps out after 5000 miles. That's forever in a war zone.

 

[Shazster]

Hmmm....
Lithium battery fire. In a shipping container. Buried mid-deck in the center mass of a cargo ship's container load.

Ouch.

Yeah. We should really be fixing these things here before we start shipping them around willy-nilly. We know damn well these things need special transport considerations. We also damn well know there's a buck to be made in their re-classification as something completely different to avoid the costs of those considerations.

It would be an interesting deep dive to have a look at the shipping docs to see what dockworkers thought they were loading onto the ship.

Edit: I'd like to thank the Pro-Cargo Ship On Fire contingent for the downvotes. By all means, have at it. Maybe your new gaming cards are in the next sea container, but hey...you do you.

 

[TheFooledGhost]

And parts. Your local mechanic can source ICE parts from a number of vendors, including wrecking yards. If your Rivian goes south and needs a part, good luck getting Rivian to sell it to you. They might but then might need access to the vehicles computer to get it integrated.

This will eventually get solved but dropping your EV off at your local mechanic is probably a decade away.

And god help you if you want to do it yourself. Without much more than a couple of jacks and power tools, you can replace much of an ICE car yourself.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Personally, I absolutely agree with you that vehicles could be made a lot more serviceable than what they typically are today. Unfortunately, I don't think that many people ever think about this at all and if the average car buyer would put important factors in a list, i think that a modular platform for easier repairs is so far down the order it barely registers. Again, it's a shame for many reasons that cars are the way they are repairability wise, but people keep buying them so they obviously don't care much about it.

Problem is one is asking something of the EV market that's not reflected in the ICE market. Basically everyone wants to be unique for...reasons.

 

[autostop]

I think there is a huge market for a line of EVs that are designed from the ground up to be simple, modular, and easy to repair.

No super-complex structures. A battery that just consists of a stack of LFP prismatics in a temperature-controlled box. No Internet connection. Simple gauges and switches. A motor controller whose diagnostic interface is entirely built-in and can be accessed from any computer through a USB or Ethernet port. An infotainment system that is just a standalone self-contained DIN unit. Outer body panels that are bolted on to the unitized structure, and are individually replaceable. Choice of FWD or AWD and the ability to convert from one to the other just by adding the rear motor & CV axle module from a parts rack or a scrapped car. Suspension and running gear that is straight out of the NAPA, Monroe, etc. catalogs and is widely available.

Maybe offer a few body variants with near 100% commonality of functional parts and front sheet metal: a C-segment sedan, a C-segment crossover, pickups and chassis-cab trucks in short-cab / 8' bed and double-cab / 5' bed form factors, and a minivan, all with <2000 kg curb weight and ~500 kg payload capacity.

It wouldn't attract the richest 10% of Americans, for whom the fancy bells and whistles apparently help to justify high purchase prices. But think of what such a car would mean to the rest of the world.

Vehicle architecture is already highly modular on the production side. Your typical crossover SUV uses much of the same chassis and powertrain engineering as your typical sedan, which uses much of the same engineering as your typical low-end "luxury" model. The styling and body panels are different, but the platform is very similar and they're built on the same assembly line in the same production run. Which means that, when, say, Toyota wants to add AWD to the Camry, they can just swap in components from the Highlander.

But those highly optimized economies of scale in manufacturing don't necessarily translate to service or repair scenarios. Ford buys millions of wheel bearings a year; if they can get a supplier to make one specifically attuned to their requirements, makes sense to do so.

 

[Deleted member 811040]

Weirdly, my takeaway from the article is this sentence,

in recent years, relatively new EVs with low mileage have been written off at a higher rate than their gas-powered equivalents, according to data from insurers

 

[DarthSlack]

I dunno about that. A tactical Cybertruck could be pretty useful. Quiet, 4WD. Radar reflecting (sharp angles are good for something). Paint the thing camo, put a 30 mm autocannon on the top along with a couple of manpads. If the going gets tough, stuff it full of C4, turn on autopilot, jump out and send it into the line.

So what if the body panels are misaligned and the thing craps out after 5000 miles. That's forever in a war zone.

I was thinking that the Russians have proven remarkably adept at mass self-destruction using only basic tobacco products. Just think of the damage they could do to themselves with advanced lithium technology!

 

[Arstotzka]

I’m very surprised that a damaged EV battery was shipped around the world. They’ve got a reputation for flammability, and it’s harder to drain a battery than a tank of gasoline.

Then again, the shipping industry is catching up to this whole thing. Maybe they’ll figure it out soon

 

[numerobis]

And god help you if you want to do it yourself. Without much more than a couple of jacks and power tools, you can replace much of an ICE car yourself.

The things you can replace in an ICE, you can replace in a BEV. When it comes to the drivetrain, an ICE drivetrain today is not easy to deal with.

 

[MDCCCLV]

Well liability is a hard nut to crack, and I can't blame them for being risk adverse.

It gets into the political aspect as well with many mechanics being reflexively anti electric and unwilling to learn how to deal with them.

 

[aleph_nought]

And parts. Your local mechanic can source ICE parts from a number of vendors, including wrecking yards. If your Rivian goes south and needs a part, good luck getting Rivian to sell it to you. They might but then might need access to the vehicles computer to get it integrated.

This will eventually get solved but dropping your EV off at your local mechanic is probably a decade away.

Tesla having a huge presence in China could mean official parts landing on the gray market. It might not be cheaper than third party stuff but at least it's made by the original suppliers. I don't know how locked-down Tesla vehicles can get and if individual components have to be registered somehow to get them to work with the rest of the car.

 

[dacushman]

And parts. Your local mechanic can source ICE parts from a number of vendors, including wrecking yards. If your Rivian goes south and needs a part, good luck getting Rivian to sell it to you. They might but then might need access to the vehicles computer to get it integrated.

This will eventually get solved but dropping your EV off at your local mechanic is probably a decade away.

This is also something made worse by the direct sales model of Tesla (not sure about Rivian).

I definitely understand the dislike for Dealerships but Parts and Service Departments are a major money maker for them so they either have or can get parts and as long as they can make a profit are generally happy for anyone to buy from them including local shops who are often on the route of the parts van

 

[torp]

What's new? "Totaled" rich world cars have been repaired and used for years more in lower labor cost countries since there were cars...

 

[dacushman]

What's new? "Totaled" rich world cars have been repaired and used for years more in lower labor cost countries since there were cars...

The only "new" thing is the EV aspect, especially in regards to the batteries.

I also found it slightly creepy that the former owner was able to track the vehicle halfway around the world but that's just me getting a little new information that I probably could have figured out and is only tangentially related.

Edited to add that I worked for a car dealership and a lot of the big deal recall vehicles were pretty much shipped right out to other countries where a small profit might have been possible and they could get some use.

It was kinda sad when they just crushed them here in the US

 

[piotrek54321]

The only problem with this I have is the lying: selling a totalled car as "suffering a slight blow in Canada".

 

[windnwar]

I wonder if my old Nissan Leaf that got totaled ended up over there. Had a 2013 that got side swapped by an idiot that cut my wife off to make a turn, damaged the control arm but since it snapped a mount off the motor they totaled it, ICE car it would have been a fairly simple fix but no one wanted to touch it and the repair bill was listed at over $9k for a car worth about $6k. Was a great little around town car.

Looking to get a Volvo EX30 in the next year or two.

 

[gnasher729]

Capitalism at its best.

 

[whiteknave]

One of the biggest issues facing repairing some Tesla models is the gigacast frame. With a traditionally-built car, if there is some frame damage, you remove (or cut out) the damaged pieces and bolt in (or weld in) the replacement bits. I am curious as to how these Ukrainian super-mechanics (no sarcasm) repair the gigacast frame?

 

[clackerd]

I'm heartened/surprised that these 'unauthorized' repairs actually work on EVs. I just had a feeling any drivetrain/battery-related parts would be DRMed or something

 

[ekufi]

Considering that the charging infrastructure differs in North America and Europe, how do they work around that? Is it enough that you change the inner charger and charging port to accept 230V and CCS plugs?

 

[C64 raids Bungling Bay]

Tesla having a huge presence in China could mean official parts landing on the gray market. It might not be cheaper than third party stuff but at least it's made by the original suppliers. I don't know how locked-down Tesla vehicles can get and if individual components have to be registered somehow to get them to work with the rest of the car.

Many modern vehicle components are locked. Some even by VIN code. Most repairs would be easy, except for locked components and unavailable parts.

 

[einnocent]

Elon to remotely shut down all Ukrainian Teslas over “safety concerns” in 3… 2… 1…