Getting the lift points for electric vehicles wrong isn’t a minor mistake — it can mean a punctured battery pack, a fried high-voltage cable, or a car that drops off the arms because the pad landed on plastic instead of steel. We install and service lifts for shops all over Iowa, and EVs are showing up on more of those lifts every month, from Tesla sedans to electric pickups to hybrid crossovers. The pinch welds and jack pads you learned on a Camry don’t always exist in the same place on an EV, and sometimes they don’t exist at all. If your shop is starting to see electric vehicles on the schedule, here’s what we tell every customer about lifting them safely.
Auto Lift Services stocks pucks, extenders, and pads sized for electric vehicle frame rails and pinch points. Call us before you guess.
Why Lift Points for Electric Vehicles Are Different
Most gas cars give you a forgiving pinch weld or a subframe rail that’s roughly in the same spot generation after generation. Electric vehicles throw that out the window because the battery pack is the chassis, essentially, and it runs flat along the underside of the car. Manufacturers build in specific reinforced lift points for electric vehicles to keep arms and pads away from the pack, the coolant lines that run through it, and the orange high-voltage cabling connecting it to the drive units.
Land a pad six inches off spec and you’re not just risking a slipped car — you could be pressing directly on a battery module or a coolant line running underneath. That’s an expensive mistake and, worse, a safety one. Some EVs also carry their weight far more toward the center of the vehicle than a traditional car, which changes how the load balances across your arms even when you do find the correct points. We’ve walked technicians through this on 2-post and 4-post equipment alike, and the answer is always the same: check the manual, use the OEM-recommended pads, and don’t assume last year’s Silverado experience applies to this year’s EV.
Where the Battery Pack Changes Everything
On most electric vehicles, the battery pack spans nearly the entire underside of the car, protected by a metal or composite skid tray. That tray is not a lift point, even though it looks flat and strong enough to hold weight. Manufacturers mark specific reinforced sections — usually along the outer edges of the pack housing or at factory-designated brackets — as the only approved contact locations.
We’ve seen technicians instinctively reach for the center of the car out of habit, the way you might on a truck with a solid frame rail, and that’s exactly the spot to avoid on most EVs. Puncturing a battery enclosure isn’t like denting a floor pan; it can compromise the cooling system or create a fire risk that isn’t obvious until hours later. This is one of the biggest reasons we push shops toward adjustable lift pads with wider, flatter contact surfaces rather than the narrow rubber blocks that came with an older 2-post lift. The correct lift points for electric vehicles are almost always wider and set further outboard than what techs are used to, and having pads that can adapt to that geometry matters more with every new EV model that lands in your bay.
2-Post Lifts and EV Arm Configuration
A properly rated 2-post lift can absolutely handle electric vehicles, but arm reach and pad placement take more attention than they do on a comparable gas vehicle. EV lift points for electric vehicles are often set closer to the center of the car than a traditional pinch weld, which means your arms may need to extend further and your pads may need risers or extenders to make clean contact without interference from underbody shielding.
We’ve fitted Iowa shops with Rotary and BendPak 2-post equipment rated well above the EV’s actual curb weight, because these vehicles run heavier than most techs expect — a battery pack alone can weigh as much as a small engine and transmission combined. If you’re speccing new equipment for an EV-heavy bay, capacity is only half the conversation; arm geometry and pad adaptability are the other half, and we walk through both when we quote a lift for any shop expecting a mix of gas and electric work.
4-Post Lifts and Drive-On Simplicity
A 4-post lift sidesteps a lot of the pad-placement anxiety because the vehicle drives on and rests on its own tires, not on arms and pads touching the underbody. For shops doing alignments, storage, or general service on electric vehicles, this is often the lower-stress option, especially for less experienced technicians who aren’t yet comfortable identifying the correct lift points for electric vehicles by eye.
The tradeoff is that you lose full underbody access unless you add a rolling jack or a mid-rise attachment, so if you’re doing battery service, coolant work, or suspension repairs, you’ll still need to know where it’s safe to place a jack under the car. We’ve set up several Iowa shops with 4-post lifts paired with a low-profile rolling bridge jack for exactly this reason — drive-on convenience for routine work, precise lift point access when the job calls for it.
Mobile Column Lifts for Heavier EV Platforms
Electric trucks and larger SUVs are heavy enough that some shops are moving toward mobile column lifts instead of relying solely on a fixed 2-post setup. Columns lift at the wheels rather than the underbody, which removes the lift-point guessing game entirely for routine service — you’re never touching the battery pack or its housing.
Where this gets more nuanced is heavy-duty and fleet work, which is why we point Iowa shops taking on electric fleet vehicles toward resources like our guide on mobile column lifts for electric vehicles, which covers how column sets handle the extra weight and wheelbase variety you’ll see across electric trucks, vans, and buses. For shops doing underbody service on those bigger EVs, a column setup combined with careful attention to the manufacturer’s designated points is often the safest, most flexible combination we recommend.
Capacity Math Still Comes First
Before you even get to where the lift points for electric vehicles are located, you have to confirm the lift can hold the vehicle at all. EV curb weights routinely run 20-40% heavier than a comparable gas model because of the battery pack, and that extra weight isn’t always centered the way an engine and transmission are.
We’ve had Iowa customers assume a lift that comfortably handled their gas fleet for a decade would be fine for an electric replacement, only to find the new vehicle pushes right up against or past the rated capacity. If your shop is adding EVs to the mix, it’s worth reading through our breakdown on lift capacity for electric vehicles and our guide to choosing lift capacity for electric vehicles before you buy or upgrade anything. Getting the tonnage right is step one; getting the pad placement right is step two, and both matter.
Training Your Techs on EV Lift Points
The equipment is only half the equation — your techs need to actually know where to look. Every EV manufacturer publishes a lift point diagram, usually in the service manual or occasionally printed on a placard near the jacking location, and it’s worth building a laminated reference sheet for each EV model that regularly comes through your bay.
We recommend Iowa shops keep a binder or digital folder specifically for lift points for electric vehicles broken out by make and model, updated as new EVs roll into the local market. It takes an hour to set up and saves you from a very expensive guess six months from now when a new tech who’s never touched an EV pulls one onto the lift. If you’d rather have someone walk your crew through it in person, our team at Auto Lift Services does on-site training as part of installation and service work across Iowa, and we’re glad to fold EV-specific lift point guidance into that visit.
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