Myth: Insurance for EVs is more expensive because they are not as safe or reliable as gas cars.

Myth: Insur­ance for EVs is more expen­sive because they are not as safe or reli­able as gas cars. 

Myth Bust­ed: EVs are no less safe or less reli­able than gas cars. EV insur­ance increas­es slight­ly due to the devel­op­ing technology. 

When you pur­chase insur­ance for your new elec­tric vehi­cle, you may notice that your pre­mi­um increas­es. We’ve had a few ques­tions in recent weeks from Col­oradans con­sid­er­ing EVs about why that is.

Let me state it now: your car insur­ance does not increase when you own an EV because your car is in any way less safe or less reli­able com­pared to your old­er gas mod­el car.

Rather, the insur­ance costs increase because EVs are still a fledg­ing indus­try and are more expen­sive to man­u­fac­ture com­pared to inter­nal com­bus­tion engines. This means that the cost to repair your elec­tric vehi­cle after a col­li­sion or oth­er acci­dent is com­pa­ra­bly more. EVs house expen­sive bat­tery sys­tems, which can require rare mate­ri­als or equip­ment design to fix. Deal­er­ships and car repair shops may not have the cor­rect parts or equip­ment on hand to quick­ly fix your EV, so they may need to spe­cial order parts, which increas­es the cost and increas­es the wait time for repairs. Addi­tion­al­ly, you may be pay­ing more to cov­er the cost of the spe­cial­ized main­te­nance or repair tech­ni­cian who has train­ing with elec­tric cars. Also, remem­ber that even though your insur­ance pre­mi­um may be high­er, you will be sav­ing on main­te­nance and fuel costs over the life­time of the vehi­cle. Want to learn more about insur­ing elec­tric vehi­cles? Check out this Bankrate arti­cle here.

As well, remem­ber that elec­tric vehi­cles are less com­plex machines, mean­ing there is less that can go wrong in a col­li­sion. Like­wise, EVs are con­sis­tent­ly rat­ed as some of the top cars for safe­ty in the Unit­ed States. EVs have heav­ier chas­sis which can help pre­vent rollovers and have improved crum­ple zones due the lack of an engine in the hood of the car. If you are look­ing for a deep dive into EVs and safe­ty, the EV Safe­ty Advan­tage Report by Clean­Tech­ni­ca is a great resource. If you’d like to look up the par­tic­u­lar safe­ty rat­ings for a mod­el you are inter­est­ed in, check out the Nation­al High­way Traf­fic Safe­ty Administration’s Rating’s data­base here.

While safe­ty recalls do occur (most notably the recall of all Chevy Bolt EVs in 2021), these are rare. Yes, elec­tric vehi­cles can catch fire, but they are much less like­ly to com­pared to your inter­nal com­bus­tion engine. It’s impor­tant to remem­ber that because EVs are an emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy, acci­dents, fires, and oth­er inci­dents receive far more media scruti­ny com­pared to the mun­dane gas car incidents.

Source 1: Han­ley, Steve. More Than 150 Gas Car Fires Per Day — Can We Please Get Seri­ous About Elec­tric Car Bat­tery Fires? Clean­Tech­ni­ca. 03 June 2019. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/03/500-gas-car-fires-per-day-can-we-please-get-serious-about-electric-car-battery-fires/.

Source 2: Posey, Mari­ah. Every­thing you need to know about insur­ance an elec­tric vehi­cle. Bankrate. 05 August 2021. https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/electric-car-insurance/.

Source 3: KBB Edi­tors. Does it Cost More for Elec­tric Car Insur­ance? 12 Feb­ru­ary 2021. Kel­ley Blue Book.  https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/is-there-any-difference-in-electric-car-insurance/.

Source 4: Sha­han, Zachary. The EV Safe­ty Advan­tage. Clean­Tech­ni­ca. July 2018. https://cleantechnica.com/files/2018/07/CleanTechnica-EV-Safety-Advantage-Report.pdf.