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Comment by lttlrck | Hacker News Reader

How does it eliminate dealer service revenue? If anything goes wrong on a car these days it has been my experience it's quite unlikely to be anything specific to ICE. It'll be electromechanical (mirrors, seats, windows, locks), electrical (heating, cooling), mechanical (suspension bushes, axle boots, springs) and the biggest wear items brake and tires also remain...

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The Chevy Bolt's service schedule starts with a coolant flush at 150,000 miles. I've been driving two Nissan Leafs for 4 years (a 2012 then a 2018) that have not seen a dealer since I purchased them. The brake pads are good for the life of the car; you have to purposely slam the brakes every few months just to avoid them sticking and rusting from disuse. Well-made EVs generate virtually no revenue for dealer service centers.

I’d be a little cautious about going 150,000 miles without changing brake fluid. It does break down due over time and of course due to heating and cooling which can lead to sudden brake failure. Brake lines are also made of rubber in all but performance cars and can deteriorate/degrade independent of the fluid.

In an EV it’s possible this could happen when needed most as the brakes are used much less frequent than an ICE car.

I second that. I had Yaris hybrid from Toyota and the biggest problem with it was rust in brakes. As the car typically engaged regenerative braking charging the battery there was too little heat in the brakes. That lead to accumulation of moisture and rust. After Toyota replaced the brakes the second time within 3 years they strongly advise to brake really hard once each few days. There was zero other problems.

Tires are definitely still a factor, but regenerative braking reduces the wear on the brakes quite significantly. You also don't have a lot of the "regular maintenance" items like oil changes, transmission fluid changes, coolant flushing, spark plugs, air intake filters, exhaust gas sensors and so on.

Less wear is actually worse for brakes. The hard use of brakes coats the iron surface with pad material. Without this coating, braking is uneven and not 100%. This is why many mfgs have brake bedding coatings and/or procedures. On a related note, most 'warped rotors' are not warped, but have uneven pad deposits, creating stickier spots on the rotor/drum.

> If anything goes wrong on a car these days it has been my experience it's quite unlikely to be anything specific to ICE.

This is very much correct. For the warranty period (after which the OEM doesn't care and the customer stops taking it to the dealer) most maintenance is suspension components and leaks.

This doesn't eliminate dealer service revenue. If anything it makes it better because you remove the entire class of time consuming but low paying warranty jobs.

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