The future is electric: How one Meineke franchisee is preparing
Meineke franchise owner Mike Baden has made it his mission to make sure his shop is ready for the future of electric vehicles.
When Mike Baden drove a Tesla for the first time, something occurred to him right away – it’s just a normal car with an electric engine.
While Tesla and other electric vehicles (EV) are unique under the hood, Mike quickly saw an opportunity that other auto service shops were missing out on: “They need to be serviced like any other cars on the road. They have cabin filters. They have wiper blades. They have brakes, and right now, drivers think they have to go to the dealership for these types of things and are skeptical about taking it to other places.”
Mike opened his Meineke franchise in 2013 in Indian Land, South Carolina, and built a customer base from the ground up. Today, the store is thriving, and Mike’s future plans include making sure they are at the forefront of the EV market.
His interest in EVs began roughly five years ago with the production of Tesla's Model 3. From there, Mike began to notice there were EVs everywhere: “When I’m at a stoplight, I look to my left and look to my right, and there’s at least one electric vehicle next to me. People don’t realize how many are actually out on the road.”
According to the U.S. Energy Information Association, the United States officially passed the 2 million mark of number of EVs on the road in 2021. Many people still associate EV with Tesla, but nearly every major automaker has added a hybrid or EV to their lineup, including Nissan, Honda, and Ford.
Despite this, Mike noticed many auto repair shops were hesitant to work on these types of vehicles. He decided to change that at his store and knew it had to start with his own education. In June 2023, Mike completed training through Weber State University, which included a mix of online classes and an in-person boot camp.
“When I walked into the classroom, I’d never seen anything like it,” he recalls. “There was every kind of EV there, and we were taking them apart and diving in.”
To make Meineke truly competitive in the EV repair game, Mike knew he needed someone other than himself to be confident and willing to learn how to work on these vehicles. As he looked around the shop, it was clear who the best choice was.
“I went into my shop, found the kid under the age of 23 who is wicked smart and took him for a ride in my Tesla,” Mike says. “I told him, ‘this is your future. This is what you’re going to be working on.’ And it sold him.”
Now, Austin Johnson, who started working for Mike at the age of 17 changing oil, is completing the same training through Weber State and set to finish his EV certification in March.
With two trained hands on deck, Mike feels confident that they can begin to make a name for their shop as a place to bring your EV. Most recently, the shop has started doing some preliminary advertising focused on promoting their ability to work on EVs. Their first round of direct mail fliers generated many phone calls with people asking if they really could bring their EVs there.
Right now, Mike estimates the service around two EVs a week, but it anticipates that in two years, working on EVs could potentially make up 20% of business.
“When I believe in something and I think that I can do that, I don’t quit,” Mike says. “EVs might not be for everyone today, but it’s coming. I’ll take the lumps and hard knocks of figuring it out now.”