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Comment by whatever1 | Hacker News Reader

“... "reliable enough" might change with electric cars though, because it's looking like they will have a fraction of the moving parts and may last 5x or more what an ICE car will last.”

Just no.

Electric cars have rotors, brake pads, compressors, heat pumps, fans, water pumps all of the nice stuff that typically drive you to your ICE mechanic.

On top of that they have a battery that degrades from day 1 of the purchase and data from the Teslas don’t support your opinion that they can hold 5*12=60 years. I did not even mention their reliance on electronics, that fail as bad as they fail on ICE cars (sensors, microcontrollers, screens, capacitors, cable looms etc).

Pitch EVs for something else, but not for their reliability.

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Re: the battery lifetime, I think you're mistaking lifetime for reliability. You can have something with a moderate or even short lifetime that still has high reliability during that lifetime. Lithium batteries certainly do degrade over time - even in storage they degrade. But during their expected lifetime they are very reliable, and you can expect them to need no maintenance at all. The same goes for the power electronics and electric motors: if properly designed and operated within their specs they can last indefinitely as there are hardly any wear mechanisms.

Of course, Tesla has had a spotty history in actually achieving that, with the flash chips being a good example. At least when I was doing electronics a few years ago, I ran into quite a few automotive grade microcontrollers and flash chips advertising expected lifetimes of 25 or even 100 years(1) if used correctly with sufficient wear levelling. In that case, Tesla obviously didn't.

1) http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/91072a.pdf 40 years retention over full temperature range, 100 years at 25degC.

The “unreliable” luxury brands are reputed to be just fine during their lease/warranty periods. If this defense works for Tesla it has to work across the board.

You know what, I guess my thinking and writing was not clear.

I was thinking - with an EV you don't have to DO anything.

I had a leaf and was thinking I should take it in for maintenance, but looking at the manual there was coolant, but you changed it at 125k or something. The brakes wore very little. Tires maybe. maybe brake fluid since it's hygroscopic.

There was small stuff - windshield wipers and fluid. there was a cabin air filter. wash it.

As far as reliability, it worked fine daily.

Having read that EVs are more reliable in the past, I was surprised at your response.

https://www.quora.com/Are-electric-cars-more-reliable/answer... seems quite comprehensive.

Overall, they should be more reliable, though it’s early days and there are teething problems. At the moment they are at least at a similar level to Petrol engines.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/2019/09/0... supports this.

ICE cars contain a chunk of metal that is guaranteed to wear out from day 1 of the purchase due to friction and combustion effects. So overall not that different.

That’s really not true. Maintained gas engines average around 200k miles without overhaul, diesel 1.5M. The typical car’s life is governed by failure of suspension, braking and other components.

Tesla tends to dominate the electric conversation. Their quality is inconsistent and minor problems are major because they really suck when it comes to parts and controlling who can repair. (Ie a 48 hour repair in a Honda may be 48 days on a Tesla)

My former employer operated a fleet of Toyota Prius, which are more complex and had an expected service life of 190,000 miles.

People tend to hand wave about reliability, but the reality is that emissions standards drove ICE car reliability to a very high level. The reasons that cars are scrapped usually boil down to corrosion and stress related failures between 200-300k miles.

Electric cars eliminate belt failures. Everything else is driven by reliability engineering. 95% of Teslas or Chevy Bolts will be scrapped within 10 years or 250k miles, just like anything else.

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