The Industry · 05
The Electric Transition.
What is changing in the vehicle, how slowly it reaches the claims book, and why the two are often confused.
The Sales Trajectory Is Not A Straight Line
Electric vehicle adoption is usually described as a curve heading in one direction. The published registration data does not support that description, and the divergence between markets is larger than the trend within any of them.
In the European Union, battery-electric vehicles reached 17.4% of new car registrations in 2025, up from 13.6% in 2024, with 1,880,370 units registered. Petrol and diesel combined fell to 35.5% from 45.2%, while hybrids took 34.5%. (European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, 27 January 2026.) Through August 2026 the European year-to-date share was 21.7%, against 15.8% for the same period of 2025. (European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, September 2026.)
The United States moved the other way. Electric vehicles peaked at 10.5% of new light-vehicle sales in the third quarter of 2025 and fell to 5.8% in the fourth, a level roughly equal to the first half of 2022, on volume of 234,000 units, down 46% quarter on quarter. The $7,500 federal tax credit expired on 30 September 2025 and was not replaced. Full-year 2025 share was 7.8%, below 2024's 8.1%. (Cox Automotive and Kelley Blue Book, 13 January 2026.) By the second quarter of 2026 share had recovered to 7.9%, the first sequential gain since the third quarter of 2025, but still 1.6 percentage points below the prior year, with first-half volume down 26.8%. (Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Get Connected Q2 2026, 23 September 2026.)
Germany and New Zealand are the clearest natural experiments in incentive withdrawal. The German Umweltbonus ended in December 2023; battery-electric registrations fell approximately 27% in 2024 and share dropped from 18.4% to 13.5%. (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt registration data, 2025 release.) German battery-electric registrations then rose 43.2% in 2025 once the wider European CO2 framework tightened. (European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, 27 January 2026.) New Zealand's Clean Car Discount ended on 31 December 2023; new electric vehicle sales fell from approximately 31,400 in 2023 to 10,632 in 2024. (New Zealand Transport Agency and Motor Industry Association registration data, as reported by RNZ, 2024.)
The United Kingdom shows a third pattern, in which policy targets and actual share diverge. Battery-electric vehicles took 23.4% of new car registrations in 2025 against a zero emission vehicle mandate target of 28%, a gap of 4.6 percentage points, wider than 2024's gap of 2.4 points. Manufacturers discounted heavily to get there, at more than £5 billion across the year, or roughly £11,000 per battery-electric vehicle registered. (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 6 January 2026, the discount estimate from SMMT analysis of AutoTrader, SMMT fleet and JATO data. Pounds sterling.)
Reading a single month is how this subject goes wrong. August 2026 produced a 29.8% United Kingdom battery-electric share, which the publisher of that figure attributed to a recurring seasonal spike seen every August since 2023 and amplified by low overall volumes. The year-to-date figure was 25.6%. (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 4 September 2026.)
Sales Share And Parc Share Are Different Numbers
The share of vehicles being sold is a statement about next year's showroom. The share of vehicles on the road is a statement about this year's claims. They are separated by the working life of a car, and the gap is wide enough to change what any of this means operationally.
| Market | Share of new registrations | Share of vehicles on the road | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| European Union | 17.4% | 2.3% | ACEA, registrations FY2025 (Jan 2026); Vehicles on European Roads 2026, 2024 parc of 256 million cars (15 Jan 2026) |
| United Kingdom | 27.3% | 5.8% | Department for Transport, Q2 2026 registrations and licensed road-using cars at 30 June 2026 (23 Sept 2026) |
| United States | 7.9% | 2.63% | Alliance for Automotive Innovation using S&P Global Mobility registration data, Q2 2026 (23 Sept 2026) |
| Norway | 95.9% | 32.2% | Opplysningsrådet for Veitrafikken, 2025 registrations; Statistics Norway, fleet at end-2025 |
The European position is the starkest. Battery-electric cars are the third most popular choice among new buyers and account for 2.3% of the 256 million passenger cars on European Union roads, because replacing an existing fleet with newer vehicles takes years or decades. (European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, Vehicles on European Roads 2026, 15 January 2026.) Electrically chargeable vans are 1.3% of 31.1 million, and trucks 0.3% of 6.2 million.
Norway is the instructive endpoint. After a year in which 95.9% of new cars sold were battery-electric, under a third of the national fleet was. (Opplysningsrådet for Veitrafikken and Statistics Norway, 2025 data.) A market can finish its sales transition and still be most of a decade away from finishing its parc transition, and claims follow the parc.
What Reaches The Claims Book
The claims exposure tracks the parc, not the showroom, and the published claims-mix figures confirm it. Battery-electric vehicles were 3.32% of United States repairable collision claims in the second quarter of 2026 and 5.42% in Canada. Mild hybrids overtook them in the United States at 5.83%, up 26% year on year. (Mitchell, Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q2 2026, 20 August 2026.)
Cutting the same data by vehicle age exposes what is coming. Electric vehicles are 3.7% of the overall United States claims mix but 9.7% among vehicles three years old or newer. In 2025, more than 93% of repairable electric vehicle claims involved a vehicle six years old or newer, against just under 52% for combustion vehicles; only 6.7% of electric claims involved a vehicle seven years or older, against 48.1% for combustion. (CCC Intelligent Solutions, From Surge to Stall, June 2026.)
An electric vehicle claim today is overwhelmingly a claim on a nearly new vehicle, still under warranty, with current-generation architecture and current-generation parts pricing. The ageing electric parc, out of warranty and out of production for its specific pack, has not arrived yet.
Repair Severity, And Why The Gap Is Narrowing
Average repairable claim severity has run consistently higher for battery-electric vehicles, and the gap has been closing.
| Period | Battery-electric | Combustion | Gap | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2024 | $5,560 | $4,741 | $819 | Mitchell, 13 Nov 2024 |
| Full year 2025 | $6,395 | $5,105 | $1,290 | Mitchell, 19 Feb 2026 |
| Q1 2026 | $6,042 | $4,902 | $1,140 | Mitchell, 14 May 2026 |
| Q2 2026 | $5,684 | $4,955 | $729 | Mitchell, 20 Aug 2026 |
The Canadian series runs wider throughout: CA$6,645 against CA$5,411 in the second quarter of 2026. (Mitchell, Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q2 2026, 20 August 2026. Canadian dollars.)
The narrowing has a statistical cause that has to be stated alongside it. These averages cover repairable claims only, so vehicles written off are excluded. The publisher attributes the convergence to a combination of higher total loss frequency and a maturing electric fleet. (Mitchell, Q2 2026.) A rising write-off rate removes the most expensive outcomes from the severity average. Part of the closing gap is genuine improvement in repair capability, and part of it is the worst cases leaving the sample.
Labour convergence is the genuine part. The labour-hours gap between electric and hybrid repairs fell from nearly eight additional hours per repair in 2020 and 2021 to fewer than two hours in 2025, and the total repair cost gap for vehicles three years old or newer fell from $1,809, or 43%, in 2020 to $445, or roughly 7%, in 2025. (CCC Intelligent Solutions, From Surge to Stall, June 2026. US dollars.)
One published figure cuts against the assumption that electric vehicles are simply costlier to hit. Combustion vehicles sustain a front-end point of impact in 31.59% of repairable claims against 25.88% for battery-electric vehicles, while battery-electric vehicles are rear-ended in 35.98% of claims against 27.57%. Front-end accidents are on average nearly 40% costlier, so the impact mix partially offsets electric severity; the attributed causes are newer average model year with better crash avoidance fitment, and single-pedal regenerative braking dynamics. (Mitchell, Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q3 2024, 13 November 2024.)
Cycle Time
Keys-to-keys cycle time for battery-electric vehicles averaged 19.5 days in the United States against 16.5 days for combustion vehicles, a difference of 18%, and 17.2 days against 14.3 days in Canada, a difference of 20%. (Mitchell, Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q3 2024, 13 November 2024, on 2024 year-to-date data.)
That figure is from 2024 and it circulates widely without its date. The publisher has not republished a cycle-time comparison in the public text of any subsequent quarterly edition through the second quarter of 2026, so there is no current equivalent. The United Kingdom analogue is a percentage rather than a day count: battery-electric incident claims were approximately 25.5% more expensive than combustion equivalents and could take approximately 14% longer to repair. (Thatcham Research, 5 July 2023. Republished by the Association of British Insurers on a page last updated 23 February 2024.) That figure is also three years old, and its publisher has since reported that electric vehicle repair costs have fallen 10.7% as repairers gained experience. (Thatcham Research, 3 March 2026.) What cycle time does to the rest of the claim is set out here.
The Battery Decides The Claim
Most of what is distinctive about an electric vehicle claim reduces to one component. The high-voltage battery can represent up to 40% of the vehicle's total value, which means that even minor collision damage can produce a total loss determination, particularly as the vehicle depreciates. (Thatcham Research, Electric Vehicle Blueprint, 3 March 2026.) Replacement pack costs have been published in a range of approximately £14,200 to £29,500, and on the depreciation curve the cost of a replacement pack exceeds the used value of the vehicle after roughly one year. (Thatcham Research and Innovate UK, Impact of BEV Adoption on the Repair and Insurance Sectors, 5 July 2023. Pounds sterling.)
Handling constraints compound it. Government guidance that damaged battery-electric vehicles awaiting repair be quarantined outdoors at a safe distance of 15 metres from other objects means that an outdoor area with capacity for 100 combustion vehicles allows the safe quarantine of two battery-electric vehicles, a potential 98% reduction in storage capacity; observing a 48-hour quarantine adds a minimum of £60 to every claim, before any additional transport, off-site storage or extended hire. (Thatcham Research and Innovate UK, 5 July 2023. United Kingdom guidance; pounds sterling.)
Transport of a damaged pack is governed as dangerous goods. Damaged or defective lithium-ion cells and batteries fall under ADR Special Provision 376, covering UN 3480 and UN 3481, with packing instructions P908 and LP904 for standard cases and the more demanding P911 and LP906 where a battery is liable to disassemble rapidly, react dangerously, produce a flame or evolve dangerous heat or gases; transport documents must carry the statement requiring carriage in accordance with Special Provision 376. (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, ADR. The United States equivalent authority is the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration under 49 CFR.)
Assessment is the binding constraint. Battery-related issues are the primary concern for 44.6% of insurers and 41.7% of repair professionals surveyed. (Thatcham Research with the Centre for Economics and Business Research, 3 March 2026.) The published diagnosis is that methodologies for assessing battery damage after an accident are not available to all parties, including independent repairers and insurers, and that mandated procedures frequently require replacing a whole pack for damage to a casing or bracket, producing a write-off on a vehicle that is otherwise repairable. (Thatcham Research, Electric Vehicle Blueprint, 3 March 2026, which sets out eight recommendations including resettable emergency safety loops, accessible high-voltage diagnostics, casing and bracket repair strategies, and modular pack construction using removable fasteners rather than permanent adhesives.)
State of health after years of use is better than the write-off rate implies. Testing of more than 8,000 electric cars and light commercial vehicles found a median retained capacity of 85% at eight to nine years, and a median state of health of 93.53% at four to five years. (Generational, cited by Thatcham Research, 3 March 2026.) The gap between what the pack is worth and what the process is able to establish about it is where the cost sits.
Total Loss And Salvage
Published total loss rates do not show electric vehicles being written off at dramatically higher rates than comparable combustion vehicles, and the two main sources differ in level while agreeing in direction.
Total loss frequency for battery-electric vehicles ran at 9.9% in the United States and 10.11% in Canada, against 9.98% and 11.74% for combustion vehicles of model year 2021 or newer, described as nearly identical. (Mitchell, Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q3 2024, 13 November 2024.) Separately, 12.7% of electric vehicle claims were total losses in 2025, up nearly 2 percentage points on 2024, against an industry-wide total loss rate of 23.1%. (Electric vehicle rate: CCC Intelligent Solutions, From Surge to Stall, June 2026. Industry rate: CCC Intelligent Solutions, Crash Course 2026, 31 March 2026.) On both accounts the electric write-off rate is at or below the all-vehicle rate, which is the opposite of the common characterisation. The comparison to make is with vehicles of similar age, because the electric parc is young.
What is moving is value. Battery-electric vehicle values fell 6.44% year on year in the United States in 2025 and 12.62% in Canada, against 2.55% and 6.12% for combustion vehicles, while hybrid values rose 4.18% in the United States. (Mitchell, 19 February 2026.) Average adjusted vehicle values for electric vehicles declined 46% since October 2022 against 17% across the broader industry, and five-year depreciation runs at 57.2% for electric vehicles against a market average of 41.8% and 35.4% for hybrids. (CCC Intelligent Solutions, From Surge to Stall, June 2026.)
Falling values with flat repair costs move vehicles across the write-off threshold without anything changing in the workshop. The published reading is that this level of depreciation may increase the share of total losses in the electric segment, influence salvage values, and widen the gap between vehicle value and outstanding loan balance. (CCC Intelligent Solutions, June 2026.)
Beyond that point the public record stops. No published, quantified dataset was found on how the salvage market prices damaged electric vehicles: no aggregate recovery rates, no electric-specific salvage category splits, no salvage index. Salvage operators run electric listings and publish no aggregate statistics. The qualitative position from that side of the market is that more data from manufacturers is needed to process these vehicles safely and economically. (Michael Hill, Operations Director, SYNETIQ, in Thatcham Research and Innovate UK, 5 July 2023.)
Capacity To Do The Work
In the United Kingdom, 74,734 technicians, or 35% of the technician workforce, hold an electric vehicle qualification. In the fourth quarter of 2025, 2,792 technicians gained one, 6% more than the previous quarter but 17% fewer than the same quarter of 2024. (Institute of the Motor Industry, EV TechSafe Technician Forecast Q4 2025, published 11 June 2026.) The same body forecasts approximately 137,000 qualified technicians by 2032 and 193,000 by 2035, with demand rising faster, shortages beginning in 2033, and a projected shortfall exceeding 43,000 technicians by 2035. (Institute of the Motor Industry, June 2026. Forecast, not outturn.)
The figures from this source are frequently quoted out of date. The widely repeated claim that one in four United Kingdom technicians is qualified is the third-quarter 2025 position, superseded by the 35% figure above; a projected shortfall of 35,700 by 2030 comes from a 2021 publication and has been superseded by the 2035 forecast.
The broader technician pipeline is the constraint underneath it. Against 241,842 annual openings the United States training system produces 101,743 graduates, meeting approximately 42% of demand. (TechForce Foundation, Technician Supply, Demand and Opportunity Report, 2026. All technicians, not electric-specific.) The labour supply position is set out here.
No count of electric-capable or electric-certified collision facilities could be traced to a primary publisher in any of these markets. The nearest quantified proxy remains the quarantine capacity figure above.
Policy Is Moving While The Fleet Turns Over
The regulatory framework driving the sales mix is itself under revision in several markets, which is a further reason not to extrapolate.
- United Kingdom. A review of the zero emission vehicle mandate for 2027 to 2035 opened for consultation in August 2026, with responses closing on 23 October 2026, including four alternatives to the current 70% zero-emission van target for 2030. (Department for Transport with the devolved administrations, ZEV Mandate Review consultation, August 2026.) The 2026 headline target is 33%, which built-in flexibilities effectively lower to 24.6%. (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 4 September 2026.)
- Canada. The federal iZEV incentive was paused in January 2025 and closed on 31 March 2025; the 2026 zero-emission vehicle mandate target was paused in September 2025. A replacement Electric Vehicle Affordability Program applies to battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles under CA$50,000, with domestically produced models exempt from the price cap. (Transport Canada, programme documentation, as reported by Mitchell, Q1 2026.) Canadian battery-electric sales rose 20.8% in the first four months of 2026 against the same period of 2025, attributed to fuel prices and the restoration of incentives. (Mitchell, Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights Q2 2026, 20 August 2026.)
- United States. With the federal credit expired, the published read is that there is less regulatory pressure on fuel economy and emissions, leaving growth to manufacturers and consumers. (Cox Automotive, 13 January 2026.) State dispersion is wide: California at 21.2% of registrations in the second quarter of 2026, with only Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado and the District of Columbia also above 10%. (Alliance for Automotive Innovation, 23 September 2026.)
- Insurer-side response. The most substantive intervention from the insurance side is an eight-point framework addressed to vehicle manufacturers, battery manufacturers, repairers, insurers and training providers, aimed at reducing total loss rates and improving salvage and residual values. (Thatcham Research, Electric Vehicle Blueprint, 3 March 2026. Thatcham Research is funded by United Kingdom motor insurers.)
What This Does To Duration
Every distinctive feature of an electric vehicle claim lengthens it. More calibrations per estimate. Quarantine before the vehicle can be worked on. Diagnostics that many parties cannot perform. Dangerous goods rules on moving a damaged pack. Fewer qualified technicians and no published count of capable facilities. A total loss decision that often waits on a battery assessment that cannot be made quickly.
The share of the parc this applies to is still small and is rising slowly. The share of recent-model claims it applies to is already close to one in ten. The transition reaches the claims book through the parc, on a lag measured in years, and the cost it brings is measured in days.
Kempron's response to this problem is shared with prospective counterparties under a mutual non-disclosure agreement. Kempron's position at a category level is here.