Digital hackers give Tesla a second life damage

Six months ago, Max Wolkow’s Tesla Y was in a state of depression. A white electric car had an accident in the USA. The left fender was ripped off and the windows were smashed. Total loss. But now the young man is behind the wheel and proudly drives the car through the garage in Dnipro. Tesla’s freshly washed, metallic green shines. Total loss? This is a situation in Ukraine that can be remedied.

Several thousand reborn Teslas are therefore driving on the roads of the country. There are 64,000 electric cars, double the number of 2021 and about 20,000 more than Poland, which has the same population. Ukraine was already three years ago the third largest importer of used cars from the USA. The increase has continued since then – because of the war and the art of improvisation inherited from Soviet times.

Westerners ‘fear of batteries

Before being resurrected in Ukraine, Tesla of Volkov had to complete an odyssey. After the accident, the American insurance company inspected the car. He wrote it because he found making it too difficult and dangerous. This was mainly due to the battery: if it is damaged, the mechanics will not touch it again. According to the portal “arstechnica” Even experts are afraid of electric shock and toxic fumes. In addition, no one can guarantee that the battery will work like new again later. In a lawsuit-friendly country, that’s reason enough to pay for a new car with insurance and dump the old one.

So Tesla took the cheapest route: it was shipped as electronic scrap. And this is where the Ukrainians came in. A friend of Max Wolkow, who worked as a middleman, bought a wrecked car. Because it was badly damaged but had no structural damage, he paid $17,400. He organized transport for another 10,000 people through the Lithuanian Baltic Sea port of Klaipeda to Dnipro. There the garage brought him into shape. Total cost: $33,000 – more than a third less than the new price.

Although that is a lot of money in Ukraine, there are enough customers in the middle class to sustain Olexander Obukhov’s business. His garage specializes in Teslas because the price-performance ratio is the best of all brands. Up to 100 refurbished vehicles leave the factory every month. There is a clear division of responsibilities between Obukhow and his business partner. “I’m the iron man, he’s hacking software.”

Without this, as he says, “deeper intervention in the operating system,” Tesla would not have started at all. On the almost finished car display in the workshop, “factory condition” is written near the steering wheel. But instead of Tesla engineers, Obuchow controls the program via his tablet. This is not legal in the strict sense. But since the company has no official representation in Ukraine, digital pirates are not direct competition.

Ukrainians are difficult to find any original part of Tesla

Mechanics repair equipment more fundamentally. There are several accidents waiting in the back of the house, next to the well-designed chassis, bumpers, doors and hubcaps. If possible, nothing is thrown away and almost everything is repaired: getting original parts is the biggest problem: Tesla does not deliver directly to Ukraine, other ways are expensive and few. According to Obukhov, many partners work with Chinese equipment. But these are worse.

There are dozens of cars in various states in the workshop. One is missing wheels, the other is missing windows. Kostja Kobez even removed the entire battery module from the Tesla Y in the elevator above it. Now it is open in front of him in the form of rectangular plates made of plastic and metal.

“Our customer had it repaired in a cheap garage and they put everything together carelessly,” says the 36-year-old. Condensation got into the battery and it gave up. Now Kobez takes everything apart and cleans the individual parts by hand. It has not recovered for the owner, he adds dry.

As an expert in difficult cases in the garage, Kobez often spends a long time trying to find a problem. But he has a clear philosophy: “Once I try something with my fingers, it stays in my head.” This has a real meaning when he touches the Tesla batteries with a voltage of 400 volts. “The skin grows back,” says the motorcycle enthusiast when asked about the dangers. And: “The more dangerous, the more interesting.” But Kobez also insists that they never had a fatal accident at work in the garage.

A profitable niche for older children

In their Tesla niche, Dnipro mechanics earn money, which is not available in difficult economic times. But sometimes you also get the impression that boys always come here to pursue their hobby. Mechanics are eager to discuss cars and exchange technical information with enthusiasts in Ukraine and abroad.

“We’re the big kids,” says Kobez. He was sitting next to the engine with friends for hours, taking them apart and putting them back together again, in the tradition of Soviet car enthusiasts who spent all their free time in that way. Before the war he also played with Russians on Ladas, today only on Teslas and Ukrainian models.

For Olexander Obukhov, it’s not just about profit. “We want to be the first to solve a difficult problem, like in sports,” he says. Outside of work, he built his own Tesla. He willingly takes the journalists on a joy ride and accelerates the car at a speed that is more than the speed limit. The first time he drove it, it was like a party, says the iron man. “It’s the same for our customers.”

The rise of the electric car during the war

However, Ukrainian enthusiasm for technology is not enough to explain the rise of electric cars. These also meet well-developed structures: there is a very dense network in the country 3200 public charging points. In addition, the government abolished almost all import duties and taxes on used cars in 2018, which keeps prices comparatively low, especially for electric cars.

But the war played a decisive role. After the Russian invasion, the price of gasoline went up for a while by fifty percent. To this day they are higher than ever. The crisis means even the middle class has less money. Electricity, however, is still cheap. New Tesla owner Max Wolkow says he can charge his car with electricity at night for the equivalent of 2.30 francs. That is equal to two liters of petrol.

Even a severe Russian attack on the energy supply could affect the popularity of Teslas. Last winter, when there were widespread power outages, Obuchow remembers that demand at his garage slowed for a while. “But as soon as it warmed up, people started planning again.” Ukrainians will not let their passion for beautiful cars be taken away from them.