Mitchell: Growing Parity in Loss Outcomes Between BEVs and ICEs

Claims from collisions involving battery electric and internal combustion engines rose compared with last year while claims frequencies also rose, according to a new report that also shows a growing parity in loss outcomes of collisions involving battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and automobiles with an internal combustion engine (ICE).

Mitchell, an Enlyte company for the property/casualty claims and collision repair industries, released its Q3 2024 report on point of impact and the differences between BEVs and ICEs.

The claims frequency for repairable collision-damaged BEVs rose to 3.01% in the U.S. and 3.97% in Canada last quarter, the report released on Wednesday shows.

The average claims severity was $5,560 for BEVs, $5,229 for plug-in hybrids, $4,426 for mild hybrids and $4,741 for ICE vehicles.

Price parity between ICE-powered vehicles and BEVs is creating similar loss outcomes, the report shows.

The average total loss market value for BEVs was $32,718 in the U.S. It was $31,070 for 2021 and newer ICEs, which are comparable to BEVs in their complexity and cost to repair.

Total loss frequency was nearly identical, with BEVs totaling at a rate of 9.9% in the U.S. and 10.11% in Canada versus 9.98% and 11.74% respectively for 2021 model year and newer ICE automobiles.

The report shows that collisions involving front-end impact are the most common and are 40% costlier on average than those involving rear-end impact.

Other findings in the report show that ICE vehicles have a higher frequency of front-end impact (31.59%) than BEVs (25.88%), which are more likely to sustain rear-end damage (35.98%) than ICE alternatives (27.57%).

The BEV models with the highest claims frequency in the U.S. are Tesla Model 3 (31.72%), Tesla Model Y (26.59%), Ford Mustang Mach-E (7.01%), Tesla Model S (6.35%) and Tesla Model X (4.60%).