Even as the sale of new gasoline engine cars is phased out, there will be plenty of them on the road for mechanics to service.
-- Photograph ProvidedAs the auto industry steers its way toward an electric future, do-it-yourself EV repairs will become less needed and more potentially dangerous.
That cautionary word comes from leaders at the Nashville campus of Lincoln Tech, formerly known as Nashville Auto-Diesel College, who point out the substantial differences between working on gas- and battery-powered vehicles.
The auto repair industry is experiencing such a severe labor shortage that many people – even those without much mechanical inclination – are attempting to do light maintenance on their cars. Manufacturers plan to go all-electric by 2035, with many of those vehicles being made in Tennessee.
And while there will be plenty of internal combustion engine cars on the roads for decades to come, many repairs for EVs either won’t be necessary or will be beyond the scope of the average weekend tinkerer.
David Conant, who has taught at Lincoln Tech for 20 years and has been in the industry for four decades, uses the word “amateur” – not in a disparaging way – to describe those who might attempt EV home repairs instead of taking it to a qualified technician.
“I would call them amateurs because that’s what a non-trained person is that would attempt to work on something like that. An amateur working on EV could wind up getting himself killed. Too much voltage,” Conant says.
“Your maintenance on your EV is going to be a lot different. You won’t have oil changes and stuff unless it’s a hybrid. If it’s a full electric vehicle, some of your maintenance will go down. Some of it is still going to be needed – your AC work, brake work, you know, stuff like that is still going to be there,” Conant adds.
“Then if you do have a problem with the motor in that thing, it’s all electronic, so you’ve got to take it to a dealership where they can use a computer to work on it and diagnose it correctly.”
Lincoln Tech President Dave Whiteford says the repair industry is in a state of flux and that the next generation of traditional mechanics will instead be highly skilled computer technicians.
“This is going to be a transition,” Whiteford says. “I’ve seen articles out there that says 50% of the consumers will be in EVs by 2030. … Let’s put it this way – I’m in my late 50s and (Conant) is in his 60s – there’s going to be plenty of work for even the highly computerized gas engine-type cars for the next 30 years.
“I mean, there are people that are not going to switch over to EVs and there’s going to be plenty of work. So it’s not going to be in our lifetime. However, if you want to look beyond that, eventually there will be a full transition,” he adds.
“Eventually there might be some other source of moving cars forward other than EV that we don’t even know about. So the fact of the matter on the EV side, the transition is going to be a long one – 20-30 years, I would imagine – at least until the electric will outweigh the gas or the diesel.”
Lincoln Tech, located off Gallatin Pike in Madison, began operations in 1919 as Nashville Auto-Diesel College. The trade school Lincoln College of Technology, in its 75th year, absorbed NADC in 2013.
“As a graduate of a high school here in Tennessee that was interested in getting into this business, the first thing I did was go to dealerships and ask where I would need to go to get trained,” recalls Conant, an NADC graduate. “And every one of them said the same thing: ‘You need to go to Nashville Auto-Diesel College.”
These days, it’s not the only schooling option for those who want a career in the auto repair industry.
The Tennessee College of Applied Technology has operations in 26 cities across the state. Including Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis. The Nashville main campus is located on White Bridge Road; the Knoxville area has three sites as do Chattanooga and Memphis. There’s also Moore Tech Automotive in the Memphis area and several manufacturers run their own training facilities for prospective employees.
And a number of the state’s high schools offer automotive training, including four in Metro Nashville Public Schools (Antioch, Glencliff, Maplewood and McGavock). Whiteford says about 65% of Lincoln Tech’s students come from high schools in the 14 states where they have campuses.
“Not as many as there used to be, but there are still quite a few (high school) programs out there,” Whiteford says. “I live in the Hendersonville area, so Sumner County, where they’ve got 10 or 11 high schools. I think only one high school runs an automotive program. So it’s not as prevalent as it used to be.”