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Comment by SEJeff | Hacker News Reader

Here are multiple teslas with 400k+ miles on them.

Do you have a Toyota with higher than 300k miles on it? If not, why?

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/43592/heres-how-a-tesla-model-...

The tech in the Model 3s tends to be significantly better than these old model s cars mind you and they still hold up to 400,000+ miles. I bet you’d get an engine rebuild or two and maybe a new transmission or two after 400k miles on a gas car as well.

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I have no links or whatever but as a persistent Toyota owner most of them, particularly the smaller engines, have not required engine rebuilds. Prius' are notoriously reliable in that mileage range, also with taxi drivers for whatever reason.

In fact there is a lawsuit for the corolla 4 cylinder from the mid 2000s(one of the Toyotas I've owned) because the odometer stops working at 300k miles/kilometers due to some bug: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/some-toyota-models-...

I have a 2RZ-FE (2.4 I4) Tacoma (the vintage where half were recalled due to rusty frames) with 390k and 3UZ-FE (4.3 V8) LS430 with 300k, both requiring just normal maintenance. If you change the oil, many Toyotas will just keep going. A large portion of car owners simply neglect their vehicles, though. I've always read that keeping a car on the road is a net win for the environment versus creating a new one, as long as it isn't some unreliable gas guzzler. That isn't to say that Toyota doesn't have bad cars, like the 2nd gen Scion XBs that had bad rings and would eat oil, or even LS460s with their control arm bushings being a $15k repair. Their modern quality probably isn't as high as it was in the 90's or early 2000's, as their focus has been on bigger vehicles for us fat Americans instead of better quality.

The existence of individual vehicles with very high mileage doesn't feel like a good signal for overall reliability or maintenance req's over a lifespan. I did some brief searches and it seems there's a lot of "record-holding" gas vehicles with several million miles on them, some even claiming to be using original engines. Again though, I'm not sure this is a good representation of how reliable the vehicles are in aggregate.

There is no counterexample that escapes this signal for a Tesla, though, and that is what I'm arguing against.

The vast majority of cars are not scrapped because mechanical failures in their ICE engines. Typically, materials in parts (rubber, gaskets, hoses, electric switches, interior, body/chassi rust) degrade to the point of stopping peripherals from working, creaking/rattling/vibrations, and the user experience starts to feel like junk. Replacing these parts then costs more than the value of the car.

Median mileage has more relevance than any single machine , that entirely depends on how well the owner maintains it and a bit of luck.

Gasoline car engines are more complex while that can in theory mean lesser reliability, we should also consider that they been around a lot longer , we have had a lot of time to develop manufacturing process and mature them .

Battery vehicles are very very fast evolving, also Tesla is not exactly known for well manufactured vehicles

Finally also the availability of know how and feasibility to fix a motor is lot harder than gasoline engines , there maybe a tendency to replace the motor than fix it because cheaper or easier for Tesla like how phones do it.

> Do you have a Toyota with higher than 300k miles on it? If not, why?

Here you go. This driver has driven three of them over 300,000 miles:

https://www.torquenews.com/1083/driver-1-million-driven-priu...

> Do you have a Toyota with higher than 300k miles on it? If not, why?

Both cases where I sold my Toyota were because I was moving cross country and had to downsize to a single car, at least temporarily. We still have the other one.

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