The presence of advanced driver assistance equipment on vehicles is driving up the collision repair bill.
According to Ryan Mandell, Claims Performance Director at damage estimation software development firm Mitchell, the ADAS systems found on recent model cars have driven up the cost of insurance repairs quite significantly since the end of the pandemic.
As a matter of fact, the average price of repairs under claim jumped between the second half of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 by 8%. And for 2024, Mandell estimates that this figure will rise by a further 15%, from $4,700 to $5,500. That’s quite a significant increase in a very short space of time. But what could explain this phenomenon?
ADAS technologies: complex and costly
According to Mandell, inflation is having a significant impact on this surge in prices, but the increase in the number of technologies on new vehicles is contributing just as much. In particular, ADAS systems have many components that are not the most reliable, but above all, are often irreparable, resulting in additional costs to replace faulty parts.
What’s more, ADAS systems also require calibration, which is a fairly costly professional operation. In fact, almost 17% of the vehicles that come into workshops with ADAS-related problems in the United States need to be calibrated. This figure is expected to rise to 40% in 2024, then to 60% in 2025.
As a matter of fact, the first vehicles equipped with ADAS systems appeared on the roads in 2015. The older the vehicles, the more frequent the calibrations will become.
According to Mandell, consumers have to pay around $500 on average for such a service. The maintenance of ADAS systems puts additional pressure on repair workshops, which are already struggling to keep up with the labour shortage that is still in full swing in the industry.
Finally, although ADAS systems are expensive to maintain, they have proved their effectiveness. According to a Forbes article, vehicles fitted with ADAS systems reduce the risk of damage to vehicles by 19% and the risk of injury in the event of an accident by 27%. So they are worth exploiting, but the car industry will have to adapt to reduce the monetary impact they have on consumers’ wallets.
