Van Batenburg: Should You Continue with EV Service?

Does your tire and repair business need to offer electric vehicle (EV) service in order to survive? Of course not. What about your future? That is a long-term question. It has been about a year since the federal government made a 180-degree turn on regulating internal combustion tailpipe emissions.

 

I attended - and held a roundtable discussion - at a fleet conference last October near Boston, Mass. This one-day event has been held for over 20 years and focuses on environmental fleet issues. Three Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees were there and gave a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation about changes in enforcement, policy and priorities. The room of about 300 people were clearly worried about the near-term future of EV service after that lecture. The conversations at noon and during coffee breaks showed concern as most of the participants were in the electric vehicle camp, including my company.

 

What now? How does the new federal government’s viewpoint on emissions affect your business? Maybe with some relief, depending on your personal view of the EPA. Will it affect your bottom line? I assume it will not. Did it change what my company, Automotive Career Development Center (ACDC) does? Yes - more about that later. 

 

In the United States, about 22% of light-duty vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2025 were hybrid, battery electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, up from 18% in the first quarter of 2024. Among those categories, hybrid electric vehicles have continued to gain market share while battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles have remained relatively flat, according to estimates from Wards Intelligence. 

 

Cox Automotive suggests a slight decrease of 2.1% from the record sales of 2024. This slowdown follows a record-high third quarter driven by consumers rushing to purchase vehicles before a federal tax credit expired in September 2025, with 1,400,000 expected sales of plug-in hybrids (PHEV) and pure electric (BEV) in the U.S. for 2025. This was written the second week of 2026 and final numbers were not available.

 

ACDC may be unique in the training business. As a shop owner during the late 1970s, 80s, 90s and into the 2000s, I learned a lot. Training my technicians and myself required traveling. There was no internet back then. We bought some DVDs and VHS tapes to study with. There were many small training companies located around the country, mostly in states with emission testing. We went to many places.

 

In 2004, Van Batenburg’s Garage Inc., my independent Honda shop, was transformed into a full time xEV training center. Last year, sales were down - not by much, but the numbers don’t lie. The COVID-19 years of 2020 through 2021 were downright horrible. As a mature company that’s close to 50 years old, we have a solid financial base and significant savings. After 20-plus years, we reopened the repair shop as Worcester EVs, www.WorcesterEVs.com.    

 

I will admit, I was not looking forward to reopening the shop a year ago. I sat down with my employees, Aiden and John, and talked about retail repairs. But we had a shop attached to our training center and they liked the idea, so we were ready to go. I got excited about adding retail repairs, as it will improve everything we do. (I even bought a new suit, as I have renewed my membership with the local chamber of commerce!)

 

We will be fine, with Aiden and John running the shop, and I will do what I love, which is helping the industry find its way in the transition to electric mobility with xEV classes. The training will pick up again.

 

Change is inevitable. If you find your company with sales not growing as they should, do something. Do xEVs excite you? There are over 10 million xEVs in the U.S. Are you ready to stay up-to-date with technology? Can you find the people to help you? When government policies change again - and they will - will you be ready for more xEVs? I wish you well as we move into the future.