After-sales & service · Available now
EV Powertrain & Charging Service
The after-sales cost structure of an electric vehicle is not the petrol one. The most expensive component can need attention without being broken.
Prefer Chinese? The Chinese edition of this page carries the full source list and every numeric caveat. 本页中文版
- ObjectsBattery · motor · controller
- SignalsSOH · safety · availability
- GatesHV safety · replacement approval
- LedgerBaseline at handover
- BoundaryNo chargers, no operations
1. Degradation is not a fault, and there is no field for it
Applying the petrol after-sales model to an electric vehicle misses in three places.
The first is that failure is gradual. Capacity falling from 100% to 80% is not a fault, but it changes range and resale value materially — and a conventional work-order system has nowhere to record it.
The second is that diagnosis depends on data. Cell consistency, internal resistance and temperature rise show up in trends, not in a single reading; one inspection produces a snapshot and nothing else.
The third is that the service perimeter includes charging. A customer who cannot charge has a vehicle that does not work, even though nothing is broken — and compatibility, home installation and public charger availability all become after-sales questions.
The response is one file per VIN across three stages: powertrain state at handover, battery health readings at every visit, charging scheme and installation, then faults, replacement and retirement. The file is both the basis for warranty adjudication and the input to residual value.
It also turns a warranty promise into an account. Promising eight years or a number of cycles without continuous SOH records means that at the end nobody can say whether the degradation was normal — and these disputes tend to be expensive.
2. On the vehicle, outside it, after it
Three stages with different owners and different deliverables. Managing them as one flow is the most common structural mistake here.
| Stage | Object | Main actions | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| On the vehicle (powertrain) | Battery, motor, controller | Handover inspection, health baseline, fault diagnosis, repair and replacement | Inspection sheet, SOH record, repair order |
| Outside it (charging) | Home charger, public chargers, charging network | Scheme design, installation, connection and compatibility verification, availability tracking | Charging scheme, installation record, availability statistics |
| After it (retirement) | Retired batteries, replaced assemblies | Test and grade, second-life use or recycling, destination traceability | Retirement record, destination certificate |
Responsibilities usually differ by stage; the table is the structure, and the split follows the customer's organisation.
Unclear boundaries produce two familiar confusions. Charging problems get treated as powertrain faults — the customer cannot charge, the battery tests fine, and the parties point at each other. And retired batteries get treated as ordinary scrap — replaced packs accumulate in a corner, occupying space and carrying risk.
3. Eight steps, two that cannot be softened
High-voltage safety is not a process step, it is a floor. Replacement approval is about money and engineering judgement, and does not belong to whoever is on site.
| Step | Gate | What must be true | What is recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Pre-handover inspection | Gate | High-voltage system, insulation and function checked; baseline recorded | Inspection sheet, baseline |
| 2. Health baseline | SOH baseline, test conditions and batch information registered | Powertrain file | |
| 3. Charging scheme | Home or public scheme designed for the use case; connector and protocol verified | Charging scheme | |
| 4. Installation and connection | Installed and accepted; supply conditions and charger identifier registered | Installation record | |
| 5. Fault diagnosis | Distinguish vehicle compatibility, charger fault, protocol setting, supply condition | Diagnosis conclusion | |
| 6. Repair or replacement | Gate | Repair within authorisation; assembly replacement approved and matched/calibrated | Work order, replacement record |
| 7. Retirement | Tested and graded; second-life or recycling; destination certificate registered | Retirement record | |
| 8. Warranty and residual | Adjudicated on the SOH curve and batch distribution; residual updated | Warranty conclusion |
A diagnosis that ends in replacement returns to diagnosis if the customer still reports short range — the first question is whether the calibration was performed.
One work item deserves being mandatory rather than noted: matching and calibration after replacing a powertrain assembly. It is not 'repair', but omitting it produces performance anomalies that then get attributed to the new battery — and the next replacement repeats the mistake.
The loop is therefore not an exception path. Replacement without calibration is a defect, and recording each iteration is what makes that visible.
4. Battery warranty: three definitions to settle first
Without them, a dispute has no basis for a decision — and the amounts involved are large.
| Definition | What must be fixed | What happens if it is not |
|---|---|---|
| How SOH is measured | Test conditions (temperature, rate, rest time); remote estimate or workshop measurement | The same vehicle measured twice gives two numbers, and neither can be defended |
| How degradation is computed | Against the handover baseline or rated capacity; by mileage or by time | Different methods can land in different warranty tiers |
| What counts as abnormal | A threshold, or a degradation rate significantly faster than the same batch | A threshold alone misses vehicles degrading fast but still above it |
A structural description. Thresholds and methods come from the warranty policy and the manufacturer's technical documents; this page publishes no values.
The measurement definition is the one that gets waved through, and it is the one disputes turn on. Remote estimation is convenient and sensitive to conditions; workshop measurement is accurate and costly. The usual arrangement is remote tracking for trends and workshop measurement for adjudication, with the conditions recorded — otherwise two readings are not comparable.
And the baseline can only be produced at handover. Degradation is relative; without a handover reading, every later number is just a number. This is why the pre-delivery inspection has to include the powertrain check.
5. High-voltage work and battery data both need minimum necessary
Two constraints at once: physical safety, and data that reveals supply chain detail.
| Terminal | Primary users | What it does | Normally not available |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop / internal workspace | Powertrain engineering, service managers, warranty | File maintenance, SOH analysis, warranty adjudication, retirement handling | — (main workspace) |
| Mobile | Technicians, roadside assistance | Inspection sheets, fault records, job check-in, photos | Full battery curve — conclusions and alerts only |
| Dealer portal | Overseas service points | View files, submit warranty claims, report charging anomalies | Other service points' data, cell batch information |
| Group dashboard | Management | SOH distribution, warranty spend, charging availability, retirement volume | Per-vehicle detail and customer information |
| Owner-facing site | Vehicle owners | Charging scheme, book a powertrain inspection | Other owners' data, internal technical detail |
Exact visibility follows the customer's organisation and authorisation model; the table is the default.
Two hard rules. High-voltage work is performed only by qualified personnel, and the system enforces the qualification as a precondition of opening the job — a checkbox is not enough, because a checkbox gets ticked. And cell batch and detailed test data are not distributed by default: a service point needs conclusions and work instructions, not supply-chain detail.
6. Six, two of which are safety floors
The first four affect cost and experience. The last two are the ones where a mistake cannot be optimised away.
- Treating degradation as a fault. It is gradual, not binary. Without continuous SOH records, abnormality cannot be established and the claim becomes a negotiation.
- No baseline at handover. Without it nothing later can be called degradation. The baseline can only be produced at handover — it cannot be reconstructed.
- Treating a charging failure as a powertrain fault. Four causes — compatibility, charger fault, protocol setting, supply condition — must be separated, or every case starts from zero.
- Replacing an assembly without calibration. Not optional. Omitted, it produces an anomaly that gets misread as a battery problem and triggers another replacement.
- High-voltage work without qualification check. A personal safety matter, not a process preference. It has to be a precondition of the job.
- Retired batteries as ordinary scrap. The destination must be traceable and documented. Handled wrongly, the risk comes back in a different form.
The particularity of this line: once a safety floor is breached, every efficiency gained above it stops mattering.
7. Questions we are asked most
Six, including the one that has to be answered before export, not after.
Does SOH always need a workshop measurement?
Not every time. Track trends with remote estimates and measure in the workshop when an anomaly appears or a warranty decision is required. The essential part is recording the measurement conditions — temperature, rate, rest time — or two results are not comparable.
Charging connectors differ by market. How is that handled?
Verify the destination market's dominant connector and protocol before export, and decide explicitly whether an adapter is acceptable. An adapter has to be assessed for compatibility and safety and explained at handover. This is a product-fit question; after-sales cannot fix a connector mismatch once the vehicle is with the customer.
How is the cost of a battery replacement allocated?
To the VIN's cost card, in the holding-cost group, recording whether it fell within warranty. That supports both lifetime cost per vehicle and warranty spend by batch. Without VIN allocation there is only a total, which cannot say which batch or which market caused it.
Can retired batteries be handled in-house?
Not as ordinary scrap. They go to a qualified handler under local rules, with a destination certificate retained. The system records and traces; it does not replace the compliance determination.
How does it divide work with the connected-vehicle line?
That line collects — battery state, charging events, alerts. This line judges and acts — SOH analysis, diagnosis, replacement, retirement. Collection and judgement are separated because they are different disciplines; putting judgement into the collection layer produces an alert stream nobody can interpret.
Is the demo battery data real?
No. Demo environments contain constructed sample data only, with no real vehicles, batteries or charging records.
Citation
Suanshu Haiyuan. EV Powertrain & Charging Service. Shanghai Siyang Information Technology Co., Ltd.. https://eficien.com/en/solutions/wai-ev.html (source list verified 2026-10-17; English edition 2026-10-29).
This page describes how the system carries these stages and fields. It is not legal, tax or customs advice. Rates, categories, deadlines and document requirements follow the competent authority's current rules and must be confirmed by your responsible staff and professional advisers. The Chinese edition lists the official reference entry points; this edition does not restate them, and deliberately gives no numeric conclusions.
8. Start with the baseline question
One question decides whether this line is worth installing: was a powertrain baseline recorded at handover?
- Sample ten delivered electric vehicles and check whether a handover baseline exists.
- Check whether those vehicles have subsequent powertrain inspection records.
- Group the last three months of charging complaints into the four causes.
- Confirm whether replaced batteries have destination certificates.
- Walk through the SOH curve and the charging availability view in the demo environment.
Was a powertrain baseline recorded at handover?
Send ten delivered vehicles' records; we will show whether degradation can be evidenced and where the charging complaints group.
Book a 30-minute walkthrough