My Wife Hit a Metal Can on the Highway in Our 2025 Model 3, Now Tesla Says We Need an Entire Battery Replacement

Work for Torque News, follow on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.

Red Tesla Model 3 Sideview

My wife hit an unavoidable metal can in our 2025 Tesla Model 3 Long Range. What should have been minor road debris damage has turned into a major headache. Tesla Service Center just informed me the impact punctured the battery pack's protective casing.

There was a time, not so long ago, when hitting debris on the highway was a minor inconvenience, a bent rim, a cracked oil pan, maybe a chunk of aluminum embedded in your undertray. You’d pull over, curse the Department of Transportation, throw a wrench or two, and be back on the road after a weekend in the garage with a six-pack and some elbow grease. 

When Road Debris Leads to Expensive EV Repairs

But in the electric era, when a 4,000-pound techno-pod glides silently over pavement with a lithium heart beating beneath, the stakes are wildly different. What once cost a couple hundred bucks and a few swear words now threatens to write a five-figure check and throw a wrench into the entire green-car utopia we’ve been sold.

"My wife passed over metal can in highway with her new Tesla 3 2025 , Tesla told me that i need to change the whole battery , i am disappointed that battery is not protected with any metal. Insurance told me they will cover repairs in Tesla certified garages only not Tesla itself ,

Any thoughts about certified garages , i am in Montreal ?

** These photos in Tesla service center after they towed there , they told they will send me the estimate tomorrow to replace the whole battery , There is Battery Coolant Leak as well.

That’s the reality of owning an electric vehicle in 2025, a reality wrapped in laminated spec sheets and sold with the aroma of progress. One metal can on a Quebec highway, and suddenly, you're looking at a full battery replacement, not a patch job. 

$15K+ Costs and the New Reality for EV Owners

Not because the car exploded in a lithium-fueled inferno, but because the underbody battery pack, the core of the vehicle, was compromised. There’s a coolant leak and a dented casing, and now a tech at a Tesla-certified shop is running the numbers on what’s likely a $15,000-plus ordeal. Welcome to the age of plug-in fragility.

Back in the days of crankshafts and cam lobes, this would've been a two-hundred-dollar problem. Maybe you cracked the oil pan, maybe you dripped some oil onto the driveway, maybe you cursed your luck. But the fix was surgical, targeted, and rooted in decades of mechanical logic. 

From $200 Fixes to $15K Replacements

Not anymore. Now, a stray soda can trigger a cascade of diagnostics and a full battery swap, as though the only acceptable solution is total organ replacement. It’s the kind of overreaction you’d expect from a bureaucratic health insurance plan, not a modern car company. More troubling still is the environmental contradiction. 

Essential EV Battery Insights: Longevity, Warranty, and Replacement Costs

  • Electric vehicle (EV) batteries are designed to last between 15 and 20 years under optimal conditions, depending on the manufacturer. ​
  • Most automakers offer warranties covering EV batteries for 8 years or 100,000 miles, ensuring coverage against significant degradation or defects during this period. ​
  • Over time, EV batteries may experience reduced capacity, leading to decreased driving range. Signs of degradation include diminished range and longer charging times.​ Replacing an EV battery can be costly, ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the vehicle model and battery size. ​

The electric car was pitched as a beacon of sustainability. But where’s the sustainability in replacing an entire battery pack over minor underbody damage? That’s 1,000 pounds of lithium, nickel, copper, and rare earth materials heading for either an industrial refurbish plant, or worse, a landfill. It’s a wasteful response to what should be a routine repair. The absence of proper underbody shielding, no steel plate, no sacrificial panel, nothing, feels like negligence disguised as engineering efficiency. A few millimeters of aluminum could’ve prevented this mess entirely.

How Bureaucracy Drives Up EV Repair Expenses

Of course, it doesn’t end there. The insurance labyrinth adds insult to injury. Tesla won’t perform the work unless the insurer signs off, and the insurer won’t cover Tesla’s own shops, only third-party “certified” garages that often lack full access to proprietary repair tools and diagnostics. The result is a bureaucratic standoff while the car sits lifeless in a garage bay somewhere in Montreal. The owner is left pacing between adjusters and service advisors, fighting not just a coolant leak but the opaque policies of an automaker that seems allergic to its own customers.

The Growing Pains of the Electrified Auto Industry

This isn’t a Tesla-only issue, it’s systemic. It’s the growing pains of an industry sprinting toward electrification without considering the mechanical realities of daily life. EVs are marketed like smartphones, but roads are not sanitized Apple Store floors. They’re littered with cans, rocks, potholes, and the occasional rogue muffler. Until manufacturers harden their designs and rethink the “replace, don’t repair” philosophy, these small incidents will continue to balloon into headline-worthy disasters. It’s not that EVs are inherently flawed, it’s that they’ve been built for the showroom, not the street.

The Paradox of EV Sustainability and Fragility

And therein lies the central contradiction of the modern EV: A promise of progress wrapped in fragility. Tesla and its peers need to learn something ICE cars figured out decades ago, real-world durability matters. People don’t drive in controlled environments. They drive through snow, gravel, city filth, and yes, even over metal cans. And when a $200 oil pan fix becomes a $17,000 battery replacement, it’s not just a repair issue, it’s a design failure. Until that changes, every soda can on the highway is a reminder that the road to sustainability is still full of potholes.

Noah Washington is an automotive journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys covering the latest news in the automotive industry and conducting reviews on the latest cars. He has been in the automotive industry since 15 years old and has been featured in prominent automotive news sites. You can reach him on X and LinkedIn for tips and to follow his automotive coverage. 

 

Submitted by Bryan Simmons (not verified) on March 14, 2025 - 1:24PM

Permalink

Come on, it wasn't a soda can. News writers should do better than this. Your bias is very visible.

Yup! Huge bias showing. Suggesting that an entire EV battery would ever go to a landfill is incredibly dishonest. The cost is high because Tesla is swapping the whole thing out (fast) and then location the damage and "surgically" fixing it as the article tries to say can't be done with EVs. That battery pack will end up swapped into another car. The article leans into battery degradation despite all current research showing EV batteries lasting 40% longer than the manufacturers estimates. 20 years becomes 28 years, 10 years becomes 14. The average ICE car lifespan is 14 years. How is a battery pack that outlives an entire ICE car a worrisome thing? Only if you buy into oil propaganda and Fox fear-mongering. That said, Elon's obvious hand motions are a perfectly valid reason to avoid the Neo-Volkswagens of 'Merica.

Submitted by Thomas Wehmeyer (not verified) on March 14, 2025 - 7:27PM

Permalink

I think the Author is really downplaying this accident. A "Soda Can". I guarantee it wasn't a Soda Can. I have also read stories of Gas Powered Vehicles running over metal objects and it split opened the Gasoline Tank, caught on fire, and all Occupants were killed. You can't downplay running over a metal object on the road. Extremely dangerous. I'm glad your Wife is okay.

When are you people going to learn to stop buying these EVS that are being forced on us by the government saying that this is the future whether we like it or not all these things are is overpriced junk regular batteries three to four hundred dollars now they're $15,000 to replace wake up dummies.

Submitted by Steven Heagstedt (not verified) on March 14, 2025 - 11:49PM

Permalink

Lefty winger trying to sound like a tough guy is hilarious.
"Hit some road debris, then throw a wrench or two and be on my way." Hahaha, ya right.
Maybe the lefty can explain what happens when thousands of ICE cars a year drive into a few feet of water and destroy their engines.
Ya, didn't think so.

Submitted by Scott (not verified) on March 15, 2025 - 1:34AM

Permalink

That's awful and makes me a bit nervous. Were you being serious when you said it was a soda can? I sure hope not because there's no way on Earth a soda can could cause that kind of damage. It would have had to be something much stronger than that to break through. If that's the only thing you know was hot do you think it could have happened some other time and you just didn't realize it?

Submitted by Paul (not verified) on March 15, 2025 - 7:00AM

Permalink

What you describe has a lot to do with high automobile prices. Even a relatively normal ICE vehicle has so much tech in the bumpers and mirrors that a minor fender bender costs thousands of dollars. There is a remedy, though: buy older cars. When my daughter wrecked her 2022 Hyundai Sonata, it was drivable but totaled by the insurance company. I replaced it with a 2006 Prius with nothing but liability. Liked it so much, I sold my 2023 Miata and bought a 2013 Prius.

Submitted by GMan (not verified) on March 15, 2025 - 7:24AM

Permalink

I can sympathize, I just spent $500 to repair a near brand new Y. Reversing in Snow. The plastic faring that connects to the front bumper ripped.. ending up in a $500 fix..these things are so low and so flimsy.. yet another reminder that the roads are not sanitized shop floor..

Submitted by Everett (not verified) on March 15, 2025 - 8:55AM

Permalink

This is the number 1 reason why I won’t buy an EV from Tesla. Because of the Cost of repairs. And now, after reading this article about the quality of the undercarriage. where you can do so much damage to an Under Protected Undercarriage. Is reason 2. I will say that Toyota has reported that in 2027, they will have a 1000 mile battery being offered I will take a hard look at there line. And this article will be remembered on things to look for before I buy. Great Info, keep them coming..

Submitted by Flipd (not verified) on March 15, 2025 - 10:01AM

Permalink

So their brand new Model 3 under full warranty needs a new pack that will cost them nothing. Such a hardship.

Also they act like an industry that is only a decade or so old will never come up with better solutions over time for protecting the pack from road debris. Also battery packs are getting cheaper every year. In another decade or so when the entire automobile industry is EVs with tens of millions coming off the line every year then packs will be far, far cheaper.

Another boring EV hit piece.

Submitted by Harvey (not verified) on March 15, 2025 - 10:27AM

Permalink

You wrote all this and NEVER mentioned had Tesla used metal undercarriage covers instead of the cheaper plastic this would've never happened.
Tesla needs to spend the extra money for metal plate undercarriage covers.