Its CEO is only disappointed that the repair costs are so low. This is by design.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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TL:DR: Poor scale and awareness due to being a niche brand, overly large aluminum body panels requiring either massive replacements or complicated welding, small shops guessing that it must be even more exotic and expensive than the CEO claims, and insurers shrugging and moving on because the volumes aren't hitting their financials hard enough for them to care.
welding aluminum requires TIG. It's harder and more specialized.
welding mild steel body panels are simple with equipment any body shop will have.
welding aluminum requires TIG. It’s harder and more specialized.
You can weld aluminium with MIG just fine. It is indeed way more difficult than normal steel and not every car shop has skills nor equipment for it.
'can,' maybe, huge pain in the ass more likely. I'm far from an expert, but I've had much more success with AC. That oxide layer rebuilds itself pretty quick...
You need a suitable welder for that with pulse feed so that it kinda-sorta acts like square wave AC. With your average hobbyist garage welder it's going to be a real pain in the ass.
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I got into a fender bender with my Buick and they totalled it because the fender was worth half as much as the car. They're doing something very wrong in car design.
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The market is ripe for the equivalent of a wileys jeep ev. Cheap to buy, repair and capable with no frills.
Yeah, but all the manufacturers don't want to lower their profit margins.
That means room for new manufacturers.
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We used a one-piece body side, and so that means if you damage like the rear fender, the repair operation, depending on the level of the damage, you can either do body work or you have to cut out a portion of the panel, re-weld the new panel on,
So, a problem of design that didn't really think about repairability
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