Comment by torginus
1 day ago
EVs are not more reliable in general, at least not according to the stats. And a lot of them haven't been on the road for long enough to know how their running costs will look like when they are a decade or two old.
There's just been an article here on HN, that BMW installed a crash safety fuse that triggered on a minor fender-bender and killed the battery. It was WELDED in, and even after getting to it with a torch and installing a new one, the ICU needed to be hacked to accept the new part.
They're also full of proprietary parts, basically you have entire car functions integrated to the same PCB, which are essentially unrepairable.
I hope I'm wrong, but I guess there'll be a major disillusionment with EVs once these cars get to 10-15 years and people find out in mass, that it's no longer economical to fix them.
I'm not an EV hater, I'm more of a pessimist - when it comes to manufacturers, I'm kinda 'pricing in' the worst behavior.
EVs aren't immune to design problem or recalls.
However they don't have as much routine maintenance overhead as ICE engines. No oil changes, regenerative braking reduces brake pad and rotor wear, etc
In practice however, most manufacturers mandate a yearly inspection when the car is in warranty, and after it's not, usually the state requires you to do one at least every other year.
During these the mechanic will do the routine maintenance. I'm a casual driver, I drove like 100k km in 6 years, and my first set of brake pads still haven't worn down.
I didn't claim they were maintenance-free. They still have moving parts and some fluids.
They do not have the same level of moving parts, wear items, and fluids as an ICE engine though.