I have a Nissan LEAF. In 8.5 years, my expenses have included replacing wiper blades twice, cabin air filter twice, filling the washer fluid bottle several times and I’ve looked at the tires and brakes, rotating tires once.

It’s been crazy nice. (As the family wrench-turner, even my wife’s CR-V, which is generally low maintenance, has felt like an inconvenient pig for maintenance demands by comparison.)

You... don't need to change brake pads with an EV? Wheel bearings?

Regenerative braking is very, very good at slowing the vehicle without brake pad involvement, so the brake pads are actually not used that much, unless you actively apply brakes with sudden/aggressive stops.

Regen braking means you use the brake pads much less than non ev cars.

The pads are about 2/3 worn on the rear (very small pads) and 1/2 worn on the front. Of course, they'll eventually need changing, but regen braking takes a large amount of the deceleration energy.

Wheel bearings on modern cars are incredibly long-lived. I don't think I've changed one in over 30 years on our family cars.

> Wheel bearings on modern cars are incredibly long-lived. I don't think I've changed one in over 30 years on our family cars.

Depends on the car. I had a POS Chevy uplander and had to replace them 3 times. Angry because my Mazda was the same age, same milage and on its original set so i asked the GM mechanic why..

He told me the design. I'm going to guess the Uplander has the cheapest ones available?

But like you, I thought the same thing.. is "bearings" really a thing these days and apparently it is??

I'm never going to buy another "domestic" car again, and this whole "infotainment" mess we see here reinforces my decision.

I have never heard of someone needing to change wheel bearings in my 30+ years being alive in the US. And my family has driving 5 or 6 cars to 250k+ miles.

Regen breaking.. similar to how manual transmission cars can transfer some stopping power from the brakes to the engine.. regen breaking changes the electric motor into a generator and this consumes power slowing the car down.

These actions cause the brakes to last a LOT longer. I've never driven an EV but the manual transmission cars i have had needed far fewer brake jobs.

I’d probably recommend rotating tires more than once in 8.5 years.

Why? My goal is to get the full wear out of all four and change them all at once.

Rotating them around the halfway mark (at ~5 years in my case) accomplishes that. Anything else seems like more work than benefit to me.