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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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).

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