An electric DS 3 E-Tense, vehicle criticized by the company EV Clinic.
Caradisiac readers are never kind in the comments column with the Stellantis group, whose reliability problems are regularly singled out, particularly since the explosion of the Puretech gasoline engine scandal. While we also hear about bugs concerning the first delivered examples of the new Citroën C3 but also about problems affecting the mild hybrid gasoline powertrain and automatic transmission now installed on almost all of the group's city and compact models, here we go that an electric car repair specialist violently criticizes Stellantis products.
It is EV Clinic, a company expert in the repair of vehicles without thermal engines, which has just published several murderous posts (spotted by Numérama) about the products of the Stellantis group, using colorful and almost insulting language towards them. In question, the design philosophy of these electric cars of the Stellantis group, but also its policy regarding collaboration with third-party companies for repairs carried out outside the official network.
“If you drive an electric Stellantis, may God be with you”
This accusatory post, which the Stellantis group's lawyers will probably not miss, denounces the practices and quality of the automobile giant's products and describes them as “the worst in the electric car market”.
He takes the example of a Ds 3 e-Tense displaying 23,000 kilometers on the odometer, immobilized for 20 months due to failure to be able to precisely identify the origin of the breakdown (due, according to him, to a design that does not guarantee third-party companies have easy access to troubleshooting). In this specific case, the garage of the official Stellantis network has drawn up a repair invoice in the amount of €12,500 for an engine change, without warranty coverage.
EV Clinic gives other examples (such as vehicles no longer being able to recharge with a type 2 cable after an unidentified breakdown) illustrating a design described as problematic of these electric cars, with poor quality parts favoring breakdowns with consequences aggravated by the impossibility of isolating the elements to be replaced without having to change everything. The company denounces a violation of the “right to repair”, normally contained in the legislative texts of the European Union, with a refusal to communicate on the part of the technical services of the group when they are asked to provide access to the tools of repair (software and parts) of their cars.
Remember that this is a third party company whose interests are very different from those of Stellantis. In the case of the DS 3 brought by a customer, the repairs carried out by EV Clinic did not resolve the problem even though the vehicle was was immobilized for a long time with 200 hours of labor and €5,000 spent. The company claims that this situation is due to the poor quality of the product and the unfair practices of the Stellantis teams, but without providing any proof (even if it publishes images supposed to illustrate the botched design of certain electronic components, which I I am not in a position to judge due to lack of being a specialist in the matter).
As in the case of the Puretech affair, it is probably the number of these cases that will tell in the future whether the Stellantis group is really to blame or not. But EV Clinic's accusations are serious, especially since the terms used go far beyond simple technical criticism and sometimes fall into the realm of public insult. This company had already made similar criticisms of Stellantis in the past.
