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Comment by Ray20 | Hacker News Reader

>People who can do the math realize that paying more up front for a hybrid or full electric is paying less long-term.

Can they? In long term maintainability decides. And hybrids usually has it with maintainability pretty bad. Large area of potential breaking, expansive spare parts usually with strong vendor-lock.

Hybrids are very costly in maintainability, even if you are privileged elite that buys hybrid and in two years resell it and buy brand new car, even then hybrids looses comparatively big percent of its original cost.

So people that buys hybrids, usually CAN NOT do the math.

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Toyota hybrids are much cheaper to maintain.

- No engine belts

- No starter

- No alternator

- No transmission(1)

- No torque converter

- No turbochargers

- Regenerative braking can significantly reduce brake pad wear

Edit: - AWD is an electric motor on the rear axle. No driveshaft or transfer case required.

As long as you drive it regularly and keep up with scheduled maintenance, you don't have to do anything for well over 100,000 miles.

Replacing the traction battery after 10~15 years is cheaper than the additional maintenance required for regular cars.

1: Yes, it has an “e-CVT”. Which is just a set of fixed planetary gears. All “shifting” is done through varying the power output of two electric motor-generators.

CVTs are generally less reliable than traditional transmissions, especially under heavy loads. You get better mpg in exchange. You don’t have an alternator, but you have a much more expensive electric motor. You don’t have a turbocharger, but in exchange you lose performance at highway speeds. So like most engineering problems, it’s all about tradeoffs.

The e-CVT is _not_ a typical belt driven CVT like the crap Nissan puts in everything. It's better known as a Power-Split-Device.

https://eahart.com/prius/psd/

Despite the name, "eCVT"s are mechanically unrelated to the CVTs used in gasoline cars. They are mechanically similar to a differential, and have extremely low failure rates.

Thanks for clarifying! It does seem like the planetary design would be more reliable (but the point able heavy loads may still apply)

The gears easily handle the instant torque of electric motors from thousands of full-throttle standing starts.

The electric motors are the limiting factor when it comes to continuous performance. You really don’t want to tow anything heavy with a hybrid.

If you need to tow things a lot, get a pickup truck or a heavy-duty SUV with a gas engine.

No starter and no alternator? Hybrids don’t have an electric motor or a way to turn mechanical power into electrical power? Also they don’t have timing belts?

I’m not super convinced that accessory belts are a major cause of maintenance. I only recall having to do that once at around 120k miles.

I think there is a good argument to be made that implementations like Toyotas HSD are more reliable than plain ICE, but you’re not making it here.

Since I was specifically talking about Toyota hybrid, let me elaborate…

The gas engine has a timing chain and chain-driven oil pump. Everything else runs off the DC-DC converter.

The transmission is two motor-generators and an ICE directly connected by fixed gearing. This is used to start the engine.

The ICE in a hybrid doesn’t need any accessories beyond what the electric drivetrain already provides. Therefore, it does not have a starter or alternator.

There are a lot fewer moving parts that can break or wear out.

It’s a pretty elegant system that bolts a bare ICE to what is otherwise an electric car.

I thought the Toyota Prius had been winning lowest TCO contests since it came out. I'm still driving my '07, and yeah, it's finally time to look at replacing it, but it's 18 years old and has almost a quarter million miles on it. Maintaining it hasn't been noticeably more expensive than, say, the older Civics I drove before it.

The Toyota hybrid system has basically no wear items. There are no clutches, belts, or delicate hydraulic systems. The whole thing is made with big hardened steel ring gears and two electric motors. There are taxis in Vancouver with over a million KM clocked with nothing other than fluid changes and brakes/suspension.

https://eahart.com/prius/psd/

That’s not been my experience. Hybrids have several major advantages on the maintenance side. Regenerative braking means brakes need to be replaced far less often and keeping the engine off so frequently means it gets far less ware in city driving.

Electric motors outlast the vehicle, and significant battery degradation only results in slightly worse fuel economy.

There are a handful of significantly different hybrid designs. Some of the early designs were in fact just electric drivetrains slapped on to existing gasoline drivetrains, and were more complicated than their gasoline counterparts. But most of the designs that are more popular today are not that. Many of them eliminate some of the most problematic parts on gasoline cars and replace them with solid state components.

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