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Comment by skybrian | Hacker News Reader

> Electric vehicles are mainstream and last longer than their gas engine counterparts, with an estimated lifespan of 200,000 miles.

What's this based on? Don't many gas cars last that long? It seems like it depends very much on how well you maintain them.

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I also thought this was an odd statement to see. Electric cars really haven't been around long enough to give that kind of respect to time. A few brands have but the newer models are totally different beasts.

Vs ice which easily last long, long past 200k. I'm at 240k right now and it still performs perfectly.

As a side note on the newer ice vehicles I don't see how those terrible tablets that control everything will last long enough for the other mechanical problems in the cars to show up.

Most cars now can easily last 15 years/200,000 miles with maintenance. Obviously a few will fail, but I’ve done it a few times now (miles wise), 200k seems like a cut off, transmission can fail, various chassis parts worn out, etc. Some people even get 300-400k miles out of some of the more reliable brands like Toyota/Honda/Subaru

It also depends on the batteries themselves. An older Nissan leaf? Doubt it. A newer Tesla? I sure hope so.

Im curious as to how car batteries will be repurposed to use for energy storage. Once they degrade to the point of only holding charge for short trips, can they still be used for other scenarios that don’t require as much from them?

They're already used for industrial storage of surplus solar- and wind power.

I'm my opinion the big problem with electric cars are the price of replacement batteries in combination with buying used.

300k on my Toyota right now. Most modern ICE engines should last 200k with no problems. EVs (other than the battery) should last a million miles. Even the batteries are turning out to last longer than everyone expected, ignoring some notable notable failures.

Betting on Teslas didn't work out so well for Hertz due to expensive repairs. Rental cars take a beating, though.

I'm not sure about averages, but given the second hand pricing I've seen: I thought after 100 or so megameters, even well maintained internal combustion engines needed maintenance of a price comparable to replacement?

Barring weird parts supply issues rebuilding an engine should be significantly cheaper than purchasing a low mileage crate replacement. Same with transmissions.

Probably going off of the, now outdated, rule of thumb that a car lasts ~100,000 miles.

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