Module-level repairs, not full pack swaps, are the aftermarket's best shot at keeping older EVs viable.
Rupert Hoellbacher said it plainly. The Bosch Mobility Aftermarket chief told Automobilwoche that if battery repair costs stay prohibitive, vehicle life expectancy will fall. Not a prediction. A warning. Older EVs will hit a moment where the battery bill exceeds the car's worth — and the scrapyard wins.
The concern isn't theoretical. Battery packs remain the single most expensive component in an electric car, and most are still inside their first-generation warranty cycles. According to Bosch's aftermarket division statements, published September 2025, many fault conditions affect individual modules, not the full pack — yet shop-level diagnostics and parts access rarely reflect that. Compare that to the combustion aftermarket, where engine rebuilds and transmission overhauls have supported vehicle longevity well past 200,000 km for decades.
Hoellbacher's Direct Warning
Bosch's Rupert Hoellbacher, head of Bosch Mobility Aftermarket, left little room for interpretation in his remarks to Automobilwoche. 'If we fail to make battery repair or replacement more financially attractive, the answer is quite clearly: Yes. The life expectancy of cars will decline,' he said. He continued: 'This would not only represent a loss of aftermarket potential but also a significant step backward for sustainable business practices, because many vehicle components are designed for a significantly longer service life. Recycling and repair are therefore central tasks for the entire industry.' The statement is notable for its directness. Bosch does not frame this as a risk to be monitored — it frames it as an outcome already in motion if the aftermarket fails to adapt. That framing puts pressure not just on independent workshops but on OEMs whose parts pricing and diagnostic tool licensing policies determine what those workshops can actually do. This article is part of our ongoing coverage of industry restructuring in 2026.
When the Repair Bill Kills the Car
The economics are unforgiving at a certain age threshold. Consider a five-year-old battery-electric vehicle with a residual market value of €12,000. A full pack replacement from an OEM-authorised workshop in Germany currently runs between €8,000 and €15,000 depending on chemistry and capacity, according to workshop pricing data cited by the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association in its aftermarket cost survey, Q2 2025. At the lower end — €8,000 — the repair consumes 67% of the car's remaining value (€8,000 ÷ €12,000 = 0.667). At the upper end — €15,000 — it exceeds the car's worth by €3,000, a 25% overshoot. Module-level intervention changes that calculus. If a single degraded module accounts for 15–20% of pack capacity loss and costs €900–€1,400 to replace, the same vehicle becomes economically repairable. The gap between those two outcomes — full pack versus module repair — is the gap Bosch is asking the aftermarket to close. Bosch did not publish specific module pricing in its September 2025 statement.
ICE Aftermarket Set the Bar High
The combustion-engine aftermarket spent roughly 60 years building the infrastructure that keeps old cars alive. Remanufactured alternators, third-party gearbox rebuilds, pattern parts for body panels — that ecosystem did not appear automatically. It was built because OEM parts became expensive and demand existed. EVs are on a shorter timeline with a harder component. A petrol engine can be rebuilt piecemeal: head gasket today, crankshaft bearings later. A battery pack, by contrast, is often treated as a single line item. Kia UK's ZEV mandate concerns reflect a related tension: pushing EV volume fast while long-term ownership costs remain unresolved. The contrast with the combustion world is not flattering to the EV sector. In 2024, the average age of a passenger car in the European Union reached 12.4 years, according to ACEA's Vehicle in Use report, February 2025. An EV sold in 2019 is now five years old. The oldest examples are approaching the warranty cliff. The combustion aftermarket had six decades to mature. The EV aftermarket has perhaps six years before the volume problem arrives.
The Parts Access Gap Nobody Has Answered
Here is what Bosch's statement does not resolve: who supplies the modules? Bosch manufactures battery systems and is a Tier 1 supplier to multiple OEMs, but module-level aftermarket availability depends on OEM willingness to release disaggregated parts. As of September 2025, no major passenger-car OEM had publicly confirmed a module-only replacement programme for out-of-warranty vehicles at independently audited prices. That gap is not addressed in Hoellbacher's remarks. He calls for module repair to be viable. He does not say Bosch will supply the modules at prices that make it viable. The question of diagnostic tool access is similarly open. Independent workshops in the EU gained some rights to vehicle data under the Block Exemption Regulation, but real-time battery state-of-health data — the information needed to isolate a faulty module — remains tightly controlled by most OEMs. Changan's resistance to shared European production shows a parallel reluctance among newer EV entrants to cede control over manufacturing and, by extension, parts chains. Bosch's call for change lands in a market where the structural conditions for that change have not been confirmed.
What This Means for the Used EV Market
The named actor most immediately affected is the second- and third-owner used EV buyer. A vehicle purchased new in 2020 at €38,000 might trade today at €14,000–€18,000 — a residual position already under pressure from rapid new-model depreciation. If that buyer faces a battery repair bill that exceeds the car's value within two to three years of purchase, the used EV market loses credibility as a route to affordable electric mobility. That outcome would disproportionately affect lower-income households who cannot access new-car finance. It would also hollow out one of the stated social justifications for the EV transition: that battery costs fall over time and the technology trickles down. The regulatory response, if any comes, is not yet clear. The European Commission's right-to-repair directive, which entered force in 2024, covers categories including washing machines and televisions but does not explicitly address high-voltage automotive battery modules. Whether that scope extends in revision is, as of this writing, unconfirmed by the Commission. The EU Industrial Accelerator Act addresses manufacturing access but stops short of aftermarket repair obligations.
Bosch operates more than 40,000 authorised service workshops across Europe — a network that would be the primary delivery channel for any module-repair rollout. That figure comes from Bosch's own service network data, updated January 2025. The company has not announced a module parts catalogue for passenger EVs. The complete Bosch model history and specifications are catalogued in the Global Auto Index manufacturer database.
