Comment by SupremumLimit
15 hours ago
Average fleet age in EU looks to be around 13 years so when you say "most people", you're likely off by 10-15 years in terms of second hand purchases. Greece might be the only EU country that gets close to what you said. I get the point about affordability but it's good to base discussion on facts.
Also, EVs have been around for quite a few years now so it is no longer necessary to buy them new.
https://www.acea.auto/publication/report-vehicles-on-europea...
Buying an EV outside of the factory warranty period is not an experiment I’d be interested in participating.
What do you do when, say, the insulation on the motor’s windings disintegrates over night on a whole production run of thousands of cars.
Or the batteries turn out to a fail at some yet to be revealed number of charge cycles.
It's not an experiment anymore. Long term data is in, and high mileage EV's are far more reliable than high mileage petrol cars.
file:///home/blarsen/Downloads/How-durable-are-electric-vehicles-BVRLA-report-by-New-Automotive-September-2026.pdf
> file:///home/blarsen/Downloads/How-durable-are-electric-vehicles-BVRLA-report-by-New-Automotive-September-2026.pdf
Your download folder path is leaking : D
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If you worry about such failure modes, you shouldn't drive a car at all. And especially not one with an ICE.
The main batteries most often have a 8y/160,000km guarantee. (Some even more.) There a enough affordable, used BEVs that are only a quarter through that milages and age.
These are pretty rare failure modes.
ICE engines eat themselves in many more different kinds of weird ways: timing chains and belts, coolant leaks, any number of problems with valves and actuators. They're extraordinarily complex devices and it's a testament to engineering genius (and persistence) that we've made them this reliable. But they fail much more often than batteries or motors. They have many more moving parts. It's just the devil we know.
I've got two EVs. Basically zero problems. I've known one or two people who have had issues, but never with the drive train. Always something dumb like the "infotainment system" or (for a Tesla owning friend) stupid buzzing and vibration they couldn't make go away and stupid problems with door handles.
The Tesla weirdness is part of why I went with Nissans. They're 100% normal cars except for the electric drive train. All the other parts can be purchased at AutoZone and everything else can be worked on by a normal mechanic.
There's some mechanics in my area that have been learning how to do stuff with EVs like aftermarket battery upgrades on older models, but it's a bit expensive. Mine are 5 and 13 years old respectively and both batteries are fine. The 5yo one is the same as the day it was bought. The latter's lost some capacity but still very usable as a city car.
We picked up a used 2022 Leaf S+ a while back and it's been amazing.
Also just about the only shade tree mechanic EV. Even swapping a battery is doable by the typical car guy. Rebuilding one isn't much harder due to no cooling.
Tesla’s motors are like $200 or 1k for rare ones