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Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

> Which is understandable, ICE cars have 2000+ moving parts and tons of repairs, EVs have 20 moving parts and zero repairs. They aren't going to make much money replacing windshield wipers.

A hybrid can have a 2 year/20k factory oil change interval, and really doesn't need much of any other service. An ICE comes in once a year for an oil change and not much else. Maybe spark plugs and timing belt around 100k... if that even goes to the dealer service and not an independent.

Sure, more brake work on an ICE. More tire work on an EV (heavier, probably fancy low rolling resistance tires). Maybe some transmission work on an ICE or Hybrid, but they're all 'sealed' units these days that are not supposed to need anything done to them. Other than that, what does an ICE have that an EV doesn't that needs regular maintenance?

We're not going from a 1970s carburated car that needs regular tuneups to an EV.

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> Other than that, what does an ICE have that an EV doesn't that needs regular maintenance?

The short answer is: more stuff that can break.

What you outlined is true in the best case scenario. Anecdotally, if I had to guess, 20% of my friends and family with cars older than 5 years have had them in the shop for something other than routine maintenance just this year. (And I realize that this is cherry-picked, but many (most?) ICE cars, frankly, are just not that reliable.)

> What you outlined is true in the best case scenario. Anecdotally, if I had to guess, 20% of my friends and family with cars older than 5 years have had them in the shop for something other than routine maintenance just this year. (And I realize that this is cherry-picked, but many (most?) ICE cars, frankly, are just not that reliable.)

Do EVs fare any better in practice? Just looking at reliability by manufacturer, Tesla's reliability is below the industry average^[1], which you would not expect if electric cars were fundamentally more reliable by virtue of having less "stuff that can break". The related notion that EVs are cheaper to maintain also seems up for debate^[2], and GGP's assertion that EVs have "zero repairs" is risible on its face.

I'm willing to entertain the possibility that Tesla is simply a subpar car manufacturer despite being the West's premier EV manufacturer, but either way we are evidently not yet living in a world where EVs offer car buyers freedom from maintenance and breakage.

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^[1] random google search results: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/consumer-reports-toyota-lexus-m..., https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehi...

^[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/26/hertz-pulls-back-on-ev-plans...

The one thing I'd push back on about these reliability surveys are that most of the things its measuring aren't the drivetrain itself. The most impactful thing for reliability in their surveys are infotainment systems. Having some indexed score of "reliability" when it includes "could the user figure out how to pair their cell phone" and not actually getting the drill down on the different areas of reliability make the score pretty worthless to me when trying to determine if an ICE or an EV is more reliable.

Also, with Hertz having problems keeping Teslas repaired, its also not necessarily pointing to drivetrain reliability. Its not immediately obvious from the reporting if the issues they're having are mostly drivetrain or other parts like bodywork and suspension and what not. If a Tesla bumper replacement is more expensive than a Nissan Altima bumper replacement, is that EV drivetrains being more expensive?

I don't disagree, but from the consumer point of view I don't think it really matters unless repairs are much cheaper—which the Hertz thing, though admittedly just one data point from a company trying to justify a big move, contradicts. It just illustrates how EVs are in fact cars, and aren't magically free from most of the same old reliability issues drivers already deal with.

BEV evangelists commonly steer reliability comparisons toward the drivetrain, since it in theory ought to be more reliable (at the very least it will have fewer moving parts), but I don't think my earlier comment was in an explicitly drivetrain-specific context. As you say, there are many other facets of vehicle reliability that matter.

It's also worth mentioning that modern ICEs seem to be exceptionally reliable even with the bare minimum maintenance, which makes sense given the maturity of the technologies involved. Transmissions maybe not so much, but the obvious answer to that IMO is hybrid drive systems—series hybrids, simple planetary gear systems, etc. Everything on the road today ought to be a hybrid, since they're arguably the most impactful way to distribute our limited battery production capacity. A standard hybrid battery is something like 1/100 the capacity of a BEV battery.

Ok, but still then these links don't mean too much either way with these other ideas. If a Tesla bumper replacement is expensive compared to a Ford, that's not speaking to the repair costs of EVs that's the repair costs for Teslas. There's nothing inherently more expensive about an EV's headlights or whatever compared to a similar ICE.

Is a Volkswagen EV generally more expensive to repair than a Volkswagen ICE? Do your links answer that kind of question?

And you're talking to a person literally commenting from the auto shop after shelling out a couple hundred bucks in maintenance on a 2017 ICE, maintenance that I literally won't have to do on my EV. So kind of funny having someone suggest the EV is more expensive when it's going against my lived experience, right now.

This comment thread was started by a person who claimed that "EVs have 20 moving parts and zero repairs". That is the context in which I posted these links, because it's total bullshit and said links trivially prove it.

But—since you asked—just Googling around, recentish CR data^[1] (late '22) do seem to show that Tesla isn't a low outlier in terms of reliability, being joined in the lower echelons of EV reliability by such manufacturers as "Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jeep, GMC and Chevrolet." All well-established manufacturers that seem to be having just as much trouble building reliable EVs as Tesla.

All these data, though obviously incomplete, point strongly in a certain direction: that an EV powertrain is not a magic bullet for reliability or repair costs. Do you have any material reason to suspect that the obvious conclusion isn't the correct one?

> And you're talking to a person literally commenting from the auto shop after shelling out a couple hundred bucks in maintenance on a 2017 ICE, maintenance that I literally won't have to do on my EV. So kind of funny having someone suggest the EV is more expensive when it's going against my lived experience, right now.

Anecdotes like this are are just as irrelevant as the EV sob stories that constantly make the news, which is why I haven't posted any of the latter. But if we're doing that, did you catch that crazy story^[2] about the Tesla owner who was told their battery suffered "water ingress" after driving in the rain and that they'd have to shell out $20k for a new one just like that? What a bummer!

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^[1] https://insideevs.com/news/622136/tesla-consumer-reports-rel...

^[2] https://www.autoblog.com/2023/10/16/tesla-owners-heart-misse...

From your second article:

> “Remember, in the likes of GM and other OEMs, there’s decades of establishment of a broad national parts supply network. There’s an aftermarket of parts that that is there that is less mature obviously in the context of Tesla,” Scherr said, adding that margins and other EV issues would improve as Hertz looks to “diversify” that part of its fleet.

It sounds like they aren't saying anything about rates of issue, but rather cost. A Malibu could have 10 issues for every 1 of the same issue on a Tesla (e.g bumper replacement), but if the Tesla costs $2,000 to fix and the Malibu is $150 to fix, the Malibu is going to win. But one would expect that as the Teslas continue to become popular, cheaper parts will arrive.

Yeah, all other things being equal I would not expect EVs to be more expensive to repair unless batteries are failing at an unexpected rate. But since the majority of EVs on the road today are Teslas, I think it's still relevant to consumers.

Sure, I bought a first model year FCA car, so I understand. It's ICE only, and has been in the shop a lot (I should have pursued lemon law remedies, but it wasn't really that bad...). But it's never been powertrain issues. Bad crimping of connectors in wiring harness led to assistance features disabling, paint issues, multiple issues with infotainment, door beeper went out, problems with sliding doors, whatever recalls, 12v battery failed early, and the replacement failed a month after. All of that kind of stuff happens to EVs too.

Some day, I'm sure I'll add a spectacular transmission failure on this particular vehicle, and that wouldn't have been an issue with an EV, or at least not in the same way (EVs do often have some sort of gearing, and could be sensitive to manufacturing or assembly errors in the gears and bearings, but it's usually mechanically simpler than a 9 speed automatic)

> Some day, I'm sure I'll add a spectacular transmission failure on this particular vehicle, and that wouldn't have been an issue with an EV, or at least not in the same way (EVs do often have some sort of gearing, and could be sensitive to manufacturing or assembly errors in the gears and bearings, but it's usually mechanically simpler than a 9 speed automatic)

Mechanically, my CR-V hybrid's "transmission" is two electric motors and two lockup clutches geared for different cruise speeds. Given the reliability of modern ICEs, it seems like the best of both worlds from a complexity standpoint (not that reliability necessarily correlates in a straightforward way).

My C-Max has a mechanically simple hybrid transmission, but they screwed up manufacturing (bearing failure), so it was replaced under warranty. That did drive revenue to the dealer, I guess.

You’re forgetting: starters (in the same way), alternators, exhaust systems

I haven’t had major engine issues, but I’ve spent a lot of money on these systems

Starters are electric motors, EVs certainly have those. Alternators, are electric generators, which EVs kind of have, but different. Hyrbids usually omit separate starters and alternators (I think), because they've already got motor/generators and may as well use those.

Exhaust / emissions, yes. Emissions systems are notoriously flakey.

A bird and a plane both "fly" in the sky, but they aren't the same. A helicopter and a plane can both transport people in the sky, but they are also very different.

To claim that an EV has a starter motor and an alternator is misunderstanding at best, wrong at worst. An EV doesn't have a have a starter motor than cranks a huge mechanical engine. An ICE's alternator converts AC to DC, it has a DC/DC converter.

Here's an start for a RAV4 Prime, a plugin hybrid vehicle: https://parts.lakelandtoyota.com/p/TOYOTA_2023_RAV4-PRIME/St...

And here's an alternator for the same vehicle: https://parts.lakelandtoyota.com/p/toyota_2021_RAV4-PRIME/Al...

Electric vehicles certainly have their own issues (which may or may not be worse, depending on your point of view), but one of their advantages is fewer moving mechanical parts.

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