A study by carVertical shows that electric vehicles are prone to various scams, including mileage modification. Specifically, every seventh used car has a falsified mileage.
Unfortunately, any electric vehicle can be subject to mileage fraud because they use the same digital odometers as any other vehicle. In fact, those digital meters are much easier to modify compared to the mechanical ones found in older vehicles.
15.6% of vehicles in Europe have a falsified mileage
Thus, 15.6% of vehicles in Europe have their mileage returned. The share of electric vehicles in the same situation is similar – 13.4% of the European electric car fleet had modified odometers.
This suggests that those buying pre-owned electric and fossil fuel vehicles face almost the same risk of falling prey to mileage fraud.
The share of timed electric vehicles is similar – 13.4% of all electric cars had their odometers modified. This suggests that buyers of used electric and fossil fuel vehicles face almost the same risk of mileage fraud as with old cars.
Manipulated odometers hide the real state of the batteries
Reading the odometer is a necessary operation to assess the condition of a car. Most electric vehicle manufacturers offer a battery warranty of at least 100,000 km. However, they can usually last more than 320,000 km.
A vehicle’s mileage can help determine the condition of the batteries and estimate how much life they have left. The problem is that you can’t just rely on the mileage reading as it can be faked and the battery life display can be reset.
Scammers can change values in minutes, which means you need to take extra precautions to make sure a car is worth the asking price.
“Depending on the capacity, replacing the battery can cost tens of thousands of euros or even half the value of a car. This is the most expensive part of an electric car, although EVs are generally cheaper to maintain compared to vehicles with internal combustion engines,” said carVertical’s director of communications.
Used car sellers can get more money on their cars by altering their mileage, which means odometer fraud isn’t going away anytime soon. Rogue car junkies are adapting to the new technologies of modern cars, and current trends show that even switching fleets to electric motors will not solve the problem of mileage returns, informs mikebrewermotoring.com.
2023-06-27 20:56:26
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