But the same is true of ICE cars. Transmission, engine, catalytic converter, fuel pump, alternators (not to mention routine maintenance like oil changes). EV's win on ongoing maintenance, and even if you have to replace a battery at an authorized dealership, you will still come out ahead versus the maintenance cost you would have otherwise paid.
In terms of 'catastrophic battery failure' compared to 'catastrophic engine failure' - not sure the EV would lose that battle either.
In short, yes, EV's have a finite lifespan, but so do ICE cars, and ICE cars are much more complicated, with many more expensive components that can fail, and are extremely expensive to replace.
I have driven approximately 700k miles across five vehicles and never touched any of these, nor have I ever been concerned about them, except with the vague idea such things can become a problem around ~250-300k miles.
What I have had enormous trouble with in all ICE cars is the electronics, which if anything are more populous in EVs.
The idea that "EV maintenance is clearly superior to ICE maintenance" seems like a baffling canard to me, aside from relieving me of the very minor burden of changing my oil twice a year or so, and some even more infrequent $20 filter replacements or simple spark plug replacements I've had to do exactly once which required only a deep socket. I've done more maintenance on my desktop computer.
Years matter as well, not just mileage. I have a 20 year old truck and the interior is basically just destroyed from sunlight and time.
EV maintenance costs have been well studied at this point and are lower than ICE, and for very sensible reasons, it’s not a mystery or a canard.
There have been many many studies. Here’s a random one;
https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/evs-offer-big-sa...
I’ve seen lots of electronics failures. This will only be worse in EVs, or at least EVs like Teslas, where things like door handles have been motorized.
[0] https://moottori.fi/liikenne/jutut/suomen-henkiloauton-keski...
Of course a sufficiently old car will be falling apart, whether it's part of the "ICE" or not - the suspension and shocks will be need to be replaced, door seals degraded or positively worthless, interior will be faded and cracking, wheel bearings fail, AC compressor goes out, various sensors fail (my favorite so far was the antitheft sensor)...when everything starts going bad, that's when I would expect the engine to be just be worn; basically, I would expect the ICE to last as long, or outlast, the rest of the car, save any issues on the left hand of the bathtub curve from manufacturing defects that should be covered under warranty. What you're saying is totally wild and alien to me. Mechanics must get a lot of business there.
If EVs are so reliable and maintenance free, why is the Tesla drivetrain warranty only 100k miles on the Model 3? That's no different than many ICE cars (eg I know Kia has the same warranty on ICE cars), and also well within the middle of the bathtub curve for an ICE car.
But for the rest of it, like temperature differences...this is still going to be a major impact on EVs, and like ICE cars, it won't be just the engine you have to worry about.
As I noted upthread, Tesla has the same powertrain warranty that, say, Kia has. It isn't much of a testament to the vaunted EV reliability that the most famous EV manufacturer doesn't have more faith in their electric powertrains than Kia does in their ICE powertrains.
- Turbo (~1k€)
- Radiator (300€)
- Clutch
- Dual-mass flywheel (1.5k€ combined with the clutch)
- DPF (would've cost upwards of 2k€, bypassed it for 500€)
Dunno if you always drove brand-new cars or were really lucky.
For my current EV (2,5 years of ownership) I've had to replace the cabin filter twice and I've filled the washer fluid a half dozen times. That's it.
None of my cars stayed with me longer than 220k, but I have never heard of anyone that wasn’t driving cars from the 70s and 80s having to do those things, or with very high mileage.
No more weird running issues where it works just fine to 2000rpm, but at 4000rpm makes that weird noise. Or the transmission rattles a bit at exactly 3700rpm, but is fine on other rpms.
There will be plenty of “weird running issues” from software bugs and electronics failures, which are the worst and least reliable parts in ICE cars as well. An EV is not just a simple electric motor packed into a case.
Finally, as I noted elsewhere in the thread, Tesla is offering the same powertrain warranty on Model 3s that Kia is offering on their ICE cars. Clearly Tesla doesn’t have any more faith in electric powertrains than Kia has in ICE powertrains. If the EV powertrain was really so much more reliable than ICE, Tesla would be offering a standard 250k mile warranty on the powertrain instead of the same 100k warranty offered by some ICE manufacturers.
Anyone with mechanical knowledge, tools, and patience can rebuild an engine or a transmission. It really is not that difficult.
When you have a vehicle with a monolithic conformal battery pack, once you can't buy a new one the car is junk. Unless you just so happen to own a factory you can afford to retool.
It doesn't exist yet beyond some small enterprises because there isn't enough volume: even 10+ year old EVs are still going strong with very few battery issues. We need to wait longer to get any business going.
There was a dude in Finland who replaced and upgraded Nissan Leaf batteries, he had to stop because it was a) impossible to get new batteries due to huge demand b) ran out of customers.
The controllers are black boxes though, but you can get 3rd party units for Tesla batteries _today_. JerryRigEverything on Youtube built his own EV Hummvee on the military chassis using some Model X batteries and all 3rd party electronics.
It wasn't plug and play, but perfectly doable in a semi-well stocked home garage.
Just imagine what can be done with actual resources and R&D.
The current limiting issue isn't skill or technology, but available new batteries. They can't make them fast enough even for new cars, never mind for spare parts.
But when battery production ramps high enough, there's absolutely nothing preventing people from upgrading existing batteries with more modern tech - bigger battery capacity in the same space.
There will also be a huge industry converting "dead" EV batteries to in-house battery backups. A car with 50% battery degradation is a bit iffy, but the battery will still have tens of kWh of usable capacity. Enough to run a house for a day or two in a pinch - or just store cheap energy and sell it back to the grid when the price goes up.
If we're talking hypothetically, why not just expect someone to develop a battery that lasts forever?
It just takes time to build enough factories to produce enough.
Just like everyone with a PC and an internet connection can become a software developer; there are a few steps in between why it doesen't "just" happen
There is some reason to believe this; stories like this [1] are going around, where EV owners have been told they need to replace the battery pack but, by the way, the part cannot be procured.
[1] https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/electric-car-battery...
Yes, other than the battery, EVs are very low maintenance. But that doesn't matter at all to low income people who usually buy 10 year old cars. They are guaranteed to owe a large repair bill on any car that is available to them.
The EVs I see on the second-hand market for $2000 have neither. It'll be a few years before I can get a used tesla for $2000.
True. But since every point has at least three counterpoints (true, false and anywhere in between), I will provide a counterpoint.
> They just lose capacity. So instead of a 300 mile range you have a 250 or 200 mile range. It's still a useful vehicle, just not as valuable.
This is true for urban environments where infrastructure is plentiful, and making it to the next recharging station is not a problem.
There are, however, many places on this planet that have resisted urbanisation (for one reason or another). On the A87 highway from Adelaide to Alice Springs in Australia, service stations can be up to 300 kms apart in some places. Losing 150 km of the driving range out of 450-500 kms on a brand new battery means that the vehicle will not be able to make it to the next service / recharging station.
People going across South Australia into Western Australia on the federal highway bring extra fuel along because there are no service stations in between. Yes, people still travel by cars and, no, they can't bring a spare battery with them but they bring extra canisters filled up with petrol/diesel. Also, going up the coast in Western Australia can be a pretty harrowing or even lethal experience if the vehicle runs out of power especially at the turn of dry and wet seasons when weather turns a holiday road trip into a gamble with life.
Cape York in Far North Queensland is not electrifed at all, and is powered locally by diesel generators. Electric vehicles are of no use in Cape York.
I imagine there are multiple similar fringe areas in countries such as Canada, the US (Alaska certainly comes to mind), Argentina, Brazil, Russia, west and nort-west of China and probably many others that require the infratructure to be built first and, until that happens, the liquified hydrocarbons are still the only viable option.
The remote regions you describe, currently powered by diesel generators (where does that fuel come from?), isn't there an incentive to power them by solar and also charge electric cars that way?
And even if there are some remote spots on earth where electric cars are not useful, how large is the market share for cars for these regions? If Toyota continues to make land cruisers for those regions, what does it matter for eletrifying 99% of all other cars?
Depending on geography diesel comes from boats, tanker trucks or planes. Solar might start getting some niche use, but it's not reliable even with batteries at a reasonable scale. The main benefit to diesel generators is it's pretty easy to fix and maintain them with minimal equipment. The amount of diesel per person for a generator isn't that much, even smallish planes can carry about a week of diesel for about 10-20 people.
EV charging stations just need an electric grid connection. Some maintenance/labor is still a good idea, but it isn't necessarily the same regularity and overhead costs of a trucking-based supply chain.
Maybe these situations will require more service stations be built. Maybe they'll require the development of better towable battery packs. Maybe they'll require the development of specialized vehicles for the, relatively speaking, very small number of people who need to make these trips on a regular basis.
What they don't require is maintaining our horribly-wasteful fossil fuel based transport system indefinitely.
People used to do powertrain replacements on used cars, after all. (Maybe still do? The used cars I see are generally in better mechanical shape these days.)
Then they get less range, they don't die completely..
A 5-6 year old EV battery is unusable in winter at low-ish temperatures. Not only do you lose range when parked, you can be in real trouble if you’re stranded in a snowstorm.
These issues are manageable with a new car of course!
I definitely don't live in California.
> A 5-6 year old EV battery is unusable in winter at low-ish temperatures.
A brand new EV gets less range in winter. A used EV gets less range in winter. A used EV in winter gets less range still.
But that doesn't make it unusable, it just changes the use case. A 300km range (when new) EV might reliably get 50% range in winter, and 70% range when 6 years old, combining for 35% of new range when used and in winter - plenty of buffer for an average driver's commute, but wouldn't want to use it for a winter road trip.
> you lose range when parked
Same applies whether it's a new EV or a used. If I were driving an EV in the winter (gets to -20C here regularly), I'd definitely be looking to park somewhere I could plug in - which are pretty common. As is, I drive an ICE, and I have to turn my car on for a few minutes to warm the engine before I start driving (or else the windshield becomes an unusable fogged-up mess before the end of the block)
> you can be in real trouble if you’re stranded in a snowstorm.
Yes, monitoring weather is important regardless of your vehicle choice. The only time I've been stuck in a snowstorm was when knowingly going for a weekend camping trip when a blizzard was forecast. (the solution was bring extra food in case we got stuck)
> These issues are manageable with a new car of course!
Or used. It's all about anticipating a situation.
At least with current tech, battery chemistry makes such replacement extremely tricky without a full replacement. You can technically swap individual packs in a Model S/X battery[0], but it'll inevitably die[1][2] because of how voltage balancing works.
Packs each with their own BMS would be interesting but I'm sure the automakers have already considered the tradeoffs for a lot of ideas like this.
0: https://electrek.co/2021/09/13/tesla-battery-pack-replacemen...
1: https://twitter.com/wk057/status/1437607772959428608?s=20&t=...
On the other hand, I don't pay for: oil/fluid changes, filter replacements, transmission/engine rebuilds or smog checks. Probably forgetting a half dozen other things too.
Add all that up and it's a free battery replacement in 10 years which I don't even think I'll need.
EV batteries won’t get replaced in 20k cars anymore than engines are. You total it out at that point.
Battery replacements may be much easier to complete.
If you buy a full replacement engine (as opposed to parts to rebuild an engine), replacement is quick and easy in an ICE. In endurance racing an engine can often be replaced in less than 30 minutes. In non-racing conditions you'd do it a bit slower but it's not hard.
At the higher end of professional racing, those are custom built cars.
But for most categories of racing, endurance race cars are just regular street cars. Hondas, Mazdas and BMWs are what I've raced or crewed with.
It sounds like there may even be a fully new battery option available for early Model S vehicles in the near future.
If you had to rent your cell phone off of ma bell with no other equipment allowed on the network we wouldn't have iphones.
If roads had ford specific infrastructure like the future elon imagines we wouldn't have tesla.
A balance between interoperability, end user control, and freedom for manufacturers is how you get innovation. In the current auto market you have none of the above.