Brakes can get rusty if they don't get engaged frequently enough b/c you're using the regenerative braking most of the time. I've read that a lot of newer EV's will periodically engage traditional brakes to help alleviate this issue though.

FWIW I just had my 2018 leaf inspected and at 22K miles they said the brakes looked good.

Yes, that’s what I meant. For some reason my ICE’s brakes were so rusty after 5 years that they had to be replaced.

VW uses drum brakes for that reason now, at least for the ID3. Those don’t really rust AFAIK.

I thought drum brakes were considered inferior/cheap/old tech and that everyone switched to disc about 20 years ago? Edit - I should add that when buying a car in the early 2000s having disc was considered a nice feature like "rack and pinyon steering" which was frequently mentioned then too

Indeed! But since EVs rarely need the posterior brakes (if at all), low maintenance becomes more important than performance. Changing 2 disc brakes costs ~€500, and I‘d rather not pay that every few years.

I had a Neon in the late 1990s and it had disc front and drum rear brakes, I assumed it was just because it was a cheap car. That's super interesting how it just isn't as needed for EVs.