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.
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...
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.