Garages Encouraged to Upskill Ahead of Electric Automotive Manufacture Surge : An increasing number of automotive manufacturers are committing to the future development of electric vehicles. As more manufacturers plan for an electric future, independent garages are being encouraged to upskill their technicians in order to maintain their business when this change occurs. It is thought that if the smaller, independent garages fail to gain trained professionals, or train themselves for widespread electric vehicles, then they could risk losing a significant amount of business to main dealers.

The encouragement has come from ZF Aftermarket, who have recently announced that their upcoming training courses covering electric and hybrid vehicle safety have sold out just days after being made available. Electric and hybrid vehicles are expected to be a dominant feature of independent garage businesses futures. Because of this it is thought that there could be changes made to licensing that will alter electric vehicle servicing. The training demand for hybrid and electrical vehicles is high at the moment, although there are still a large number of independent garages shying away from this area of work, referring work requests on to main dealers instead. However, as more and more manufacturers plan to go electric, there is a real chance that there will be a new licensing system brought in for electrical vehicle servicing in the future. Because of this it is vital that independent garages upskill their technicians in order to cope with this new type of work.

Training needs to be undertaken so that technicians are able to confidently carry out a range of different tasks. These tasks include how to power down a high voltage vehicle in order to make it safe to work on. In electric vehicles and hybrids, there are a number of capacitors that retain charge when a vehicle is switched off, therefore it is vital that these are powered down correctly and in the right order to make the vehicle safe for everyone in the workshop.

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