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I must admit that's not what I expected - I've seen it repeatedly asserted that electric cars are so much simpler than ICE cars that their reliability should be

• inferiorhuman 7y ago
  They're much simpler but they're still complicated and you still require experience to design and build properly. Tesla was too busy breaking the rules to stop and think about why things may have been done a certain way.
  • arethuza 7y ago
    Actually, most of the problems we had were fundamental design flaws e.g. a Toyota my wife had where the instruments (speedometer etc.) started cutting out occasionally - problem was tracked back to, of all things, the sunroof! There was a small leak and the electrical connectors for the instruments were in the bottom of the passenger foot-well - where the water was collecting from the sunroof and shorting things out. Similarly I had a VW that was prone to flooding the interior due to poor design of the battery compartment - if the drain hole from the battery compartment was blocked it would overflow into the interior of the car (we're in Scotland so problems inevitably involved water). Edit: To anyone asking why we bought a car in Scotland with a sunroof, I do wonder and we'd never do it again!
    • ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      >Edit: To anyone asking why we bought a car in Scotland with a sunroof, I do wonder and we'd never do it again! Actually I really enjoy a sunroof especially in cloudy weather as it makes the interior a lot brighter and less claustrophobic even in dark days.
    • Marsymars 7y ago
      I don't especially want a sunroof, as they inevitably leak, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to get a car at anything other other than the base trim level without sunroof - and when combined with other requirements I have (e.g. sat radio) presence of a sunroof is one of the first things I'll compromise on.
  • rightbyte 7y ago
    I think it is a fallacy that EVs are simpler. You have just moved mechanical regulators to software so the complexity is hidden. I.e. instead of a timing belt you have an inverter etc. Instead of a water pump driven by a belt you habe an electrical pump cooling the batteries and motor.
    • jacobush 7y ago
      Agreed, but the potential is there even so, software can not wear out with use. (Corrupted flash notwithstanding.)
      • bdavis__ 7y ago
        But with the constant OTA updates from Tesla, the software will degrade and turn to mush over the years.
    • elihu 7y ago
      That's a fair point that transitioning from hardware complexity to software complexity isn't making the design inherently simpler, but at the same time the software to manage an electric car doesn't have to be complex. Modern electric cars are complex because the manufacturers have chosen to make them so. Electric motors are fundamentally simpler than gasoline engines, and motor controllers, charge control systems, and battery management systems aren't particularly complicated either, especially when compared to a modern engine and all its emission-control apparatuses. I hope some manufacturer at some point decides to actually build a simple electric car for the mainstream market, with no over-the-air updates, no self-driving, no location tracking, no touchscreen infotainment system, or any of that. Just an FM radio and an aux port, and the minimum amount of software and hardware to manage the motor and battery and airbags and anti-lock brakes.
• rootw0rm 7y ago
  push a vehicle hard enough or put enough miles on it and you'll run into engine/tranny trouble. maybe you just don't keep vehicles long enough, or you always buy Toyotas =)
• kd5bjo 7y ago
  The industry has a lot more experience at making reliable ICE drivetrains, which helps to offset the increased complexity. After another decade or two they should be able to make the same reliability gains for electric ones. It may also be the case that everything is reliable enough for that to no longer be a significant differentiator between brands, and development money will be spent elsewhere.
• Neil44 7y ago
  It's not just the engine and trans that can have problems though, there's a whole car full of electromechanical gadgets and weather seals and sensors and nice finishes to worry about. That all still has to be got right too.
• codeulike 7y ago
  Evs not built in the USA are very reliable
• The_Double 7y ago
  Most of Tesla's problems seem related to the other parts of the car: doors, seats, suspension, etc. They are probably the best electric powertrain company in the world, but still not that great at being a car company.
  • patrickk 7y ago
    A lot of those parts are from third party suppliers (not that it excuses Tesla completely of course). I watched a video some time ago, where Musk was complaining that the big automotive parts suppliers simply didn't take Tesla seriously, and therefore it led to quality issues, in the video it was the quality of the sun flaps. It's probably due to Tesla shipping much lower volumes, and the big suppliers not being familiar with dealing with a supplier that has low volumes but aims to be a mass market car maker.
    • SiempreViernes 7y ago
      So Musk is saying their finished cars have problems because they get bad parts and they have to put those bad parts on their cars? I would have tough you did some quality assurance on all parts you put in the car, and not use the bad ones.
      • ptaipale 7y ago
        I really don't believe Tesla gets any worse parts than other manufacturers. Those parts come from the same production line. They are the same parts. Almost all of the automotive industry uses the same parts, chosen from a fairly limited variety of models, produced in great numbers. The design of a car has a great impact on how long those parts last. It's easy to blame a parts supplier for faults that are because of your own design. Let's take an example. The water that rains down on your windshield is cleared away by windscreen wipers. If the wiper motor or mechanism doesn't work, the car is not roadworthy. Were does the water go from the windscreen? It flushes down along the edge into the scuttle between windscreen and bonnet (hood), and then usually goes down scuttle drains, to be released underneath the car. What happens if your scuttle drains are designed so that tree leaves that always fall on the windscreen in some places get stuck and block the scuttle drains? The water is not drained. Instead, the water level raises in the scuttle. The water may flush inside your car if the seams are not tight. Or the level just raises above the bearings of your windscreen wipers, you have a little pool in front of the windscreen. So you have water in your wiper mechanism bearings. This water will freeze in the winter. It will push out and flush away any grease in the bearings. There will be corrosion. Eventually, your windscreen wiper won't move because the bearing is stuck. Now, do you blame the wiper mechanism and bearing manufacturer (like Musk appears to do) or do you blame the design that floods the standard parts that everyone is using? The former is of course tempting, but in the end, it's your responsibility to design and manufacture the car so that it keeps running for long enough.
• baybal2 7y ago
  > I've seen it repeatedly asserted that electric cars are so much simpler than ICE cars that their reliability should be much higher That's only one side of the problem out of many. It has more to do with the general attitude and culture withing the company, which ultimately stems from wider culture. Tesla is currently enthusiastically repeating all of GM's failures with their engineers screaming murder, and being dismissed. https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+welding+cracks https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+welding+cracks
• Someone1234 7y ago
  They are, but the drivetrain is a very small part of a modern vehicle. If we're talking about Tesla in particular, if you've ever watched those transplant drivetrain videos you can see that aside for the battery temperature control and a few other things it isn't super complex. Where Teslas are complex is everything else. Tesla started as a luxury brand and you can really tell even in the Model 3. Everything is electrified. Everything. Even the door handles themselves have electric motors in them. That little flap that changes the direction of the airflow in other cars? Electric motor in a Model 3. The design aesthetic is almost a contradiction with the reality: minimalism brought to you by huge increases in back-end complexity. I'm not claiming this is intrinsically bad (nor good). But I am pointing out that when you complicate simple things you add more points of failure. The "debate" is if the assembly/maintenance/etc costs are worth the benefits provided, and that is largely a matter of opinion (and how much people value the benefits).
  • milkytron 7y ago
    > The design aesthetic is almost a contradiction with the reality: minimalism brought to you by huge increases in back-end complexity. Isn't this the point of a lot of software? Make things as simple as possible, regardless of what's happening behind the scenes.
• ptaipale 7y ago
  Electric cars are not that much simpler than ICE cars. The drivetrain is simpler, but most parts of the car are similar and share the same potential weaknesses. The body may rust, the doors have hinges and seals that may leak water, the windscreen may crack or its seams may leak, the brake discs will wear out (even if more slowly due to energy regeneration feature), the brake fluid pipes may corrode and leak, the suspension system wears out with every bump on the road and the springs may break or the shock absorbers become ineffective; the steering has ball joints and tie rod ends that will become loose and need to be replaced, there are heaters and A/C which have pumps and pipes and sensors and controlling electronics, the lights have to work and they have alignment motors, the windscreen has wipers and their controls, there are mirrors and their adjustment systems... All these parts need to work, and getting the design right requires immense competence and experience from the manufacturer. All of these are required in an electric car just like in an ICE car. I've been frugal about cars and over the past 10 years have bought cheap ones (here it means French cars, because their quality reputation is worse than their actual quality, and therefore they are cheap to run). None of the cars have needed replacing or major repairs in the drivetrain or fuel system (apart from one Suzuki 20 years ago that had rust in the gas tank). I've always given them up because the things that wear out are in the other mechanical parts, mostly steering, suspension and brakes. None of the cars I've had have been beyond repair, but the cost of new parts and work to make them roadworthy exceed the price of the car (I don't want to do too much of that work myself.)
  • delecti 7y ago
    The problems I've had to repair on the cars I've owned have mostly been things that don't exist on an electric car. If you weight repairs by cost, then it skews even further. And probably most of the ones that would still apply to an electric are maintenance tasks (replacing bulbs, brakes, tires). All of the non-drive bits of the car are still there, but in my experience those just don't fail as often, and they can generally be tolerated a bit before fixing it. Drive bits breaking in an ICE car tend to make the car undrivable.
    • ptaipale 7y ago
      Interesting. From what I have heard, Toyota Prius, which as a traditional hybrid has both an internal combustion engine with its drivetrain and electrical drivetrain and batteries, does not suffer from much more drivetrain defects than pure electric (or pure ICE) cars. Toyota is generally known for quality build and good aftermarket care. Prius gets more rejects in the annual inspection in my country (Finland) than e.g. Avensis or Corolla which are powered by gasoline or diesel ICE, but the primary defect sources are - brakes - suspension faults - front wheel assembly defects (typically ball joints and tie rod ends) - tyres (which are too worn) Why are suspension faults are more common in Prius than in other Toyotas? I would guess it is because of the weight of the drivetrains, engines and batteries.