Adrià González is a mechanic from Berga who has just won the award for second best mechanic in the entire state. A couple of weeks ago he was in the final of the contest for the best professional in the workshop in Spain, held on the Jarama circuit in Madrid, and after passing two previous phases with more than 1,000 participants.
“The prize was already there, I couldn’t be happier with this second place,” says González in an interview on RAC1.cat. This 39-year-old from Bergadan, who works at the Motor Drive Berguedà workshop, had never entered the competition: “An apprentice encouraged me to do it,” he explains.
In the different tests of the contest he demonstrated great skills and technical knowledge to detect and repair breakdowns in a short time. Also for facing dissatisfied customers (played by actors). “Unfortunately, I often find myself in the workshop with many people who come back from a bad experience; our profession is quite mistreated by the bad name that the pirates of the profession have given it; then a hot client comes to you and you must try to calm things down,” he says.
The contest for the best mechanic in the state was won last year by another Catalan representative: Joel Becerra, from Lleida. In an interview in Versió RAC1, he was very critical of the electric car: “It breaks down more than a combustion car,” he warned. Adrià González agrees that 100% electric vehicles are not a good option.
With Adrià González we have talked about the best options on the market currently to buy a car and how to know how to choose between an electric, a hybrid or a traditional combustion engine.
Do you agree with Joel Becerra’s opinion about electric cars?
Yes. Of all the options that exist right now, for me the worst is the 100% electric vehicle. It can be a short/medium term solution if you live in an urban area with flat terrain and have a house or charging point nearby, but it is not a long-term solution. The network in Spain is not prepared and sales are falling month by month.
Why is it such a bad option?
In cold temperatures, batteries do not work well. Furthermore, the range mileage they give you is totally fictitious, they tell you 500 km and you end up doing 300, and that’s when they are new. In three, four or five years there is a deterioration of the batteries, especially with fast charges. There is a loss of 5-10% of the total battery capacity each year, depending on mileage.
Does that mean they last a few years?
Yes. With the years of useful life of a diesel vehicle, you will have to end up buying two electric cars, and the prices are exorbitant. When the battery runs out you have to buy a new vehicle, because changing it costs more than 20,000 euros. It is a totally unviable repair, a total disaster.
So it’s not as sustainable as we think?
The electric car is not as ecological as they sell you, especially due to the manufacturing and recycling process of the batteries. If you do the global calculation, it pollutes the same or even more than a combustion engine throughout its useful life. There are entire warehouses full of lithium batteries waiting for someone to recycle them, and many are sent to France to be buried in battery cemeteries.
The manufacturers want to sell us the electric car motorcycle because in this way they reduce the European Union fines for CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, but it is totally misleading. In Germany they have already released aid for the purchase of electric cars.
What do you think of hybrid cars?
The hybrid has the advantages and disadvantages of both technologies, but the batteries are much cheaper (between 2000 and 4,000 euros). For ecological reasons and daily expenses, if I had to choose a vehicle today, I would choose a gasoline plug-in hybrid.
And diesel hybrids?
They have many problems due to anti-pollution systems and filters, which become saturated. It’s not the type of vehicle most people need, but the salespeople don’t explain it well and the wrong product is sold. We encounter this a lot.
What brands do you recommend?
The one who has the most experience in hybrids by far is Toyota, and also Lexus. They are the ones with the most advanced technology. The Koreans, like Kia, have also put their efforts into reliability and level of finish. They are making good cars but they are expensive like the Japanese ones.
And the European brands?
There are brands like BMW and the Volkswagen group with good options, depending on what you are looking for. Maybe they don’t have such developed batteries, but the driving and performance are better. They are cars with DSG or sequential transmission, you interact more with the vehicle and it is more pleasant to drive.
However, the Japanese and Koreans have very economical driving, but not everyone likes it. I recommend trying them, because sometimes it seems that the car does what it wants and you have to get used to it.
What will the car of the future be like?
We will have to coexist with various technologies. The combustion is impossible to end in the near future. It will continue to exist, but it will surely be more residual due to the burden of taxes. If all cars were electric we would have to change the country’s entire electrical infrastructure.
There are luxury brands that are betting a lot on synthetic fuel, but it needs to be mass produced. Hydrogen would be the cheapest to manufacture, but it is difficult to reach the utility car. Hydrogen is the future because it is the most available component on the planet and only has the cost of compression, storage and transportation.
What recommendation would you give to someone who wants to buy a second-hand car?
There is a boom in the second-hand market, there are many platforms, and we find everything. Sometimes they don’t know what they are selling. My advice is that your trusted workshop take a look at the car before formalizing the purchase. There are always some guarantees, but it is best if your mechanic can look at the vehicle. You agree with the seller, pay for an hour of work and it will be the best invested 50 euros of your life.
We connect the diagnosis machine, do a road test, look at the vehicle from below and see if it has any rust, saturated particle filters, traps or misleading things that sometimes not even the seller knows about. We look at the biggest and most expensive, and we always find something. In the workshop we do it a lot and for every 10 cars they bring us, customers keep one.
