I think when you look at some of these saturated cars, it's not just the state of the engine that causes the write-off, but the soaked carpets, upholstery, soundproofing and so on. Hell of a job to fix all that.
There's a video somewhere made by a guy who rescued a saturated Zoe. It was his wife's car and it was caught, parked, by a flash flood when a river burst its banks. Sitting hip-deep in water for 12 hours did it no good at all, and the idiots in their snorkel-equipped Land Rovers speeding past sending up waves didn't exactly help. Nevertheless, when the flood water went down, he was able to get in the soaked car and drive it away without any error messages.
The insurance company were prepared to write the car off, as I suppose they were doing for all the ICE cars in the same position, but the YouTuber asked if he could have a go at restoring it. He was a professional EV technician with access to a workshop. The amount of work that went into drying that car out was phenomenal, and if it had all been done on a time-sheet I could well understand that writing the car off might have been preferable. But he did it, and kept the car for more than a year (at the insurance company's request) to ensure that there were no delayed issues. The motor, drive-train and so on were fine, all the seals had held. It was literally just getting it dry without letting mould set in.
