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Comment by robodale | Hacker News Reader

My water pump went out on my (gasoline engine powered) car today. All 6 of my fuel injectors did earlier in the year, so I'm a little sensitive about vehicle repairs today.

Out of curiosity, I wondered if the upcoming Tesla Model 3 has any water pumps. It has no need to cool an engine, right? So, maybe I'd avoid replacing fuel and coolant parts. Less parts, means lower cost of ownership, right? ...Maybe?

Teslas have 3 water pumps, to pump ~26 quarts of coolant to keep the battery cool. Sigh.

Maybe I'd have no fuel injectors to replace in a Tesla, but the physics of getting me from 0-60 in a reasonable amount of time must necessitate a minimum complexity.

I wish I could fast forward ten years to see total cost of ownership of EVs versus gas/petrol powered vehicles.

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The motor and drivetrain is significantly less complex than an engine. A Tesla has a dozen moving parts in the drivetrain. Your gas car has thousands. Not only does a Tesla not have fuel injectors, it doesn't have a fuel pump, or spark plugs, or valves, or piston rings or pistons or connecting rods or rod bearings or a cam shaft... The electric powertrain is magnitudes simpler.

Not only that, but while it is orders of magnitude more difficult to fix than a classic gas engine, those don't really exist anymore either. Pretty much any engine electric or otherwise is out of range for typical home repair. (And I say this as someone that still has a manual with the thought that I could replace the clutch on my own, if I want to.)

I hasten to add that I do not know the expected cost of repairs between the two types of engines. Would be a good fact to know.

You are partially correct. The battery is very difficult to fix at home. But the motor and stator can be replaced in your own garage with just a few hours of work -- again a magnitude less time and effort than replacing an engine.

Replacing is just a facet of fixing, though. If the motor breaks, my understanding is you have to get a new one.

Compare this with old motors, where you could just replace individual parts. Sure, they had more parts, but most were replaceable.

Edit to add: If I'm misrepresenting, please correct me.

Yeah, with an engine you can conceivably fix parts of it yourself. An electric motor is much simpler, so if something goes wrong, it's more akin to blowing a piston or a rod -- you're likely going to need to replace the whole thing.

You are not allowed to fix your Tesla at home. Tesla refuses to release repair information. If they do that, I can't imagine they'll sell you parts or allow others to make them either. Perhaps the new DMCA exception for car repair will change that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I don't know how true this is, but my Tesla salesguy says the motor expected life is half a million miles.

That's not true in Massachusetts. There, Tesla does provide access to repair information, at an exorbitant price, because Massachusetts has a "right to repair" law on the books that requires automakers to make repair information available to independent mechanics.

We need that same law at the Federal level, except with some more teeth so that the repair info isn't locked behind a ridiculous price tag. If I were dictator, I'd make a law requiring all repair info for major products to be freely available. Companies used to do this several decades ago, and it was much better for the consumer, and didn't have any adverse affect on the companies (except that they couldn't make extra profit by monopolizing repair, but that's not "adverse" any more than it's "adverse" that I'm not legally allowed to own slaves).

Warranties on electric cars are insane right now, I suspect specifically to counter some of that new owner anxiety. Chevy are putting a 100,000 mile/8 year warranty on the battery systems in the Bolt; Ford are putting a similar warranty on EV components in their electric/hybrid range. Tesla do 8 year unlimited mileage on battery and drive units. You shouldn't have to pay for a repair on the battery cooling system in a new EV.

A buyer should check the warranty offered on replacement batteries. A coworker had the hybrid battery replaced on her car, and the car maker only offered their usual 12 month parts warranty on it, not the remaining time on the initial battery warranty.

That is a legal requirement. Emissions equipment has a higher warranty than the power train. With an electric car, it is all "emissions equipment".

The water pump on an EV can be engineered to be significantly easier to maintain/replace - the one in your car is driven by the engine and usually bolted directly in to your engine. This necessitates some crazy levels of work to get to in some cases.

There's also no possibility for a backup on an IC engine, if you water pump dies, you're not running. It would be pretty easy for an electric car to have their simple water pumps cover for each other to provide a limp-home or reduced power-mode.

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EVs do have a water pump, and a coolant tank. The batteries and charging systems need active cooling.

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