10 ms·

Servicing and repairing electric cars requires new skills

60 points by sohkamyung 5y ago

philips 5y ago
A similar problem: what happens when low margin fuel/petrol/gas station businesses start going insolvent? I wonder if states are ready for businesses to be abandoning their underground storage tank infrastructure in a decade or two?
- melony 5y ago
  Petrol/Gas stations make money from the convenience store, not the fuel. Considering how long batteries take to charge, they will make more money (but they would have to expand capacity significantly).
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Petrol/Gas stations are the last place I'd want to spend time whilst my car is charging. My guess is supermarkets and shopping centres are going to fill that need and local petrol stations will disappear.
    - kortex 5y ago
      I'd love to see the emergence of Japanese style konbini convenience stores. Something with a better selection than the big gulp and roller dogs of your typical American pit stop. That might actually drive a trend where a 20 minute stop to fill up makes sense. Shopping centers definitely have a nice synergy but I can see the demand for ev spots outpacing supply, so there will likely always be need for on demand charging.
  - alliao 5y ago
    they make operating cash flow from convenience store, the profit ultimately comes from increase in land valuation, same game as mcdonalds really
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      Globally, McDonald's makes an average of ~$200,000 income per store per year. Convenience stores mostly don't do that well, but the typical land isn't appreciating at anywhere near that pace either. (It can be in some places; here, there's undeveloped land near most of the stores, which is a common scenario…)
    - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
      Really? Gas stations usually become toxic waste cleanup sites at EOL. How do they turn a profit by selling the land?
      - philips 5y ago
        Exactly the term the EPA uses is Brownfield: > Petroleum brownfields, such as old abandoned gas stations, are being cleaned up and reused to the benefit of communities across the country. EPA’s Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST) and Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR) jointly focus on the cleanup and reuse of petroleum contaminated sites. https://www.epa.gov/ust/petroleum-brownfields https://www.epa.gov/ust/petroleum-brownfields
  - philips 5y ago
    I think it all depends on the location of the service station. The big gas stations on major freeways will likely survive. But, the local neighborhood stations near suburbs or other housing will likely go away as folks charge where they park their cars while at home or work. This article goes into data a bit based on information from Norway which has been electrifying passenger vehicles rapidly. Although, I wish there was better data to draw on. Maybe London will provide some data soon as they add more and more zones where EVs are preferred. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-18/when-cars-are-all-electric-we-ll-still-have-gas-stations https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-18/when-cars...
- tersers 5y ago
  They definitely aren’t ready. Zoning as it exists requires extensive environmental cleanup or delays of at least a decade before development can happen. A bunch of land is going to lay fallow for a good while.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - philips 5y ago
    I was skimming through the EPA’s Underground Storage Tank Responsible Parties documentation and getting more and more horrified at how I am sure these companies will structure themselves, via lease agreements or other mechanisms, to limit their liability as they go insolvent. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/rpsearchguide.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/rp...
- adrianmonk 5y ago
  Many gas stations are on valuable land, such as on the corner of two major streets. So maybe whoever is redeveloping that land will be willing to pay the cleanup costs to gain access to it.
- fergie 5y ago
  Pretty sure that this is happening already- there are definitely fewer petrol stations than there were.
- kortex 5y ago
  I predict the emergence of a cottage industry of rentable towable generators. Unfortunately you can't charge a Tesla while driving, but there have been EVs that let you do this. Regardless, I think there are certain situations (camping and long road trips) where having some electric peace of mind would be valuable, knowing you won't get stranded if you can't find a charger. Also I suspect we will need underground tanks of dinosaur squeezings for longer than 20 years. Cars being sold today routinely last over 15 years, plus yard equipment, generators, etc.
bumbledraven 5y ago
https://archive.md/PtDAP https://archive.md/PtDAP
tersers 5y ago
There’s a subtext to this article, that cars are getting better at diagnosing themselves and the troubleshooting typical for older and ICE cars is required less and less. It’s not fair to say that an average mechanic wouldn’t be able to service new cars, but rather that new mechanics will be unable to repair anything but new cars who have their problems diagnosed with a computer.
- kirse 5y ago
  mechanics will be unable to repair anything but new cars who have their problems diagnosed with a computer. This has been a thing for at least 10 years now, started by the luxury brands. There really wasn't much troubleshooting required for ICE (despite your mechanic's insistence on the severity of the issue) until cars starting running more LoC than a Mac. Pre-2005 ICE was very simple compared to any modern system, ICE or E.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I recently read that more than 70% of the code in modern ECU's is for diagnostics.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    And a big part of the remaining is for calculating the correct combustible/air mix
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      I always imagined that was just a big table with the accelerator on one axis and revolutions on the other.
      - pvaldes 5y ago
        Much more complicated in fact. Your car measures constantly the air flow, the temperature of this air, the altitude over the sea level, the velocity of the car, the position in real time of the accelerator and clutch pedals, etc... and then the computer takes all and sends an order to inject in the motor exactly the amount of combustible required for this parameters. Then manages the opening or closing of the valves to allow the gasses go out and those are reintroduced in the motor to be burnt twice. The remain is send then to the anti particles filter and the good parts are allowed to go out, while the problematic ones are sealed in a box.
aetherspawn 5y ago
Uhm, there is no way that a mechanic should ever try and rebuild a battery. Never. There are multiple thousands of wires inside, and multiple hundreds of tap fuses. Every single bolt and joint is critical and needs just the correct amount of cleanliness and jointing compound applied. The safety systems only work as well as the battery can isolate the problem (usually isolating the battery from the vehicle). Random workshops working on electric cars will just lead to internal battery problems that are uninterruptible by the control systems (ie a loose bolt or a washer floating in the casing), and this will lead to fires. And after you’ve pulled it apart, what about the quality control on all the casing water seals? Especially the single application seals (gaskets don’t work well in practice)? Battery aside, if you unbolt a motor resolver or move anything important then you need to do a resolver or phase calibration, which you can’t do without OE special equipment. Again, this could cause serious issues like hardware overcurrent and sudden cut outs, loss of power steering etc at high speed. The days of mechanic shops servicing these vehicles is going to have to be over… there is no way it will ever be safe for someone to touch the power train without all the right OE specific equipment, the right checklists and several weeks of training for each vehicle. Source: I was an EV battery design engineer.
- glitchc 5y ago
  Saying that a battery array and an electric motor is more complicated than an internal combustion engine is laughable at best. After all that’s one of the big draws of switching to EVs: A simpler and by extension) more reliable propulsion system.
  - aetherspawn 5y ago
    A battery typically has, excluding the rest of the EV: - Around 10-20 microcontrollers. - Between 150 and 250 voltage sensors - Between 150 and 250 tap fuses with fuse blow sensors - Between 5-10 contactors with sensing contacts - Around 50-100 temperature sensors - Around 300 to 500 N-fet switches with balance resistors - (Depending on the design).. up to 300 bus bars with perhaps 600 bolts. - In some instances, you'll find up to 50 pressure sensors - A variety of interlocks and plug sensors
qiqitori 5y ago
I guess there's a large variety of reasons why cars break down. Maybe I'm just lucky(?), but all the actually expensive problems I had with my car so far had very little to do with the fact that it's a hybrid car. Rust, puncture, broken tail light, broken rubber caps/washers, broken touch screen (left as-is). I'm sure that the mechanics who handled my car know not to touch the battery -- even if it's "just" ~200V vs. 800V. Both are very dangerous voltages. (ICE cars require oil changes all the time so that's a major difference perhaps, but EVs still require some lubrication, right?)
- alliao 5y ago
  unlikely I think, older gen cars used to have grease nipple for you to replenish old grease, newer car parts abolished those and instead you just throw the part away and replace. I'm sure some would say it's designed obsolescence but I think it's probably worth while for good portion of the cases as that grease nipple can introduce contaminants too... the cynics in me thinks the hybrids and ev are still over engineered to convince the masses, once mass adoption began the electronics can build in design obsolescence much easier..
mgarfias 5y ago
Maybe all those years racing electric r/c cars will serve me well.
mikewarot 5y ago
12 Volt electrical systems can turn your watch or wedding ring into a red hot cauterizing brand in milliseconds. There are new dangers in these high voltage systems, but with proper training anything can be repaired. *Even captured alien ships, if anyone has one, and a budget, I'm game to help.
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  I know someone who had that exact experience on an ICE vehicle.
- spyremeown 5y ago
  How is 12 volts high voltage? 12 volts would take a long time to heat up a ring or a watch, not millisseconds.
  - lights0123 5y ago
    Those are going to be mostly solid metal, so they're going to have very low resistance. Worst case scenario, you have a silver ring, which has the lowest resistance of any common metal at normal temperatures. Even at a high value of 0.1 ohms (it's sure to be much lower than that), you're looking at 1440 watts, around the heat produced by many plug-in heaters in the US.
  - bacheaul 5y ago
    It's not high voltage, that's the point. I suggest looking for videos [1] on welding steel with a 12v car battery to see how fast metal can heat up with enough current behind it. [1] eg. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtwrqIDnxg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtwrqIDnxg
  - neckardt 5y ago
    You are correct that 12 volts is not high voltage. However it can still heat up a ring or watch in milliseconds if the power supply can supply the needed amperage. Using the equation V (volts) * I (Amps) = P (watts) we could calculate the power of putting a car battery through a ring: 12 volts * 100 amps[1] = 1200 watts. That's more than your average microwave. The reason you don't heat up when you touch a car battery is that at 12 volts your skin (mostly an insulator) won't conduct the needed amps. Metal (a conductor) will however transfer close to the full 100 amps of the battery. Here's an example of the effect[2] [1]: https://www.bestpowerbattery.com/how-many-amps-is-a-car-battery/ https://www.bestpowerbattery.com/how-many-amps-is-a-car-batt... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wx6-ysokJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wx6-ysokJU
ls15 5y ago
I've been watching Rich Rebuilds on Youtube. The channel has previously converted gas cars into electric cars and currently has a series about converting a Tesla into a gas car with a V8 engine. https://www.youtube.com/c/RichRebuilds/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RichRebuilds/videos
- reflexero 5y ago
  And he's extensively covered the repair skills needed when rebuilding his flood-damaged salvage title Tesla, including teardown repair of battery packs, various ECUs and other onboard computers. These are skills he's picked up himself, Tesla don't provide shop manuals or training to 'unauthorised' mechanics.
  - ls15 5y ago
    > Tesla don't provide shop manuals or training to 'unauthorised' mechanics. They are basically big tech on wheels doing big tech things.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Take in mind that this would be absolutely illegal in Europe in 99% of the times, and a huge pain in the ass in the 1% remaining. And when I say huge I mean huge. Months of bureaucracy. To start can't be done without the maker agreeing and certifying that the modification does not affect the safety of the car (and the maker would never agree, of course). For a TV show? of course. Do it. Just don't expect to be allowed to drive that car in a public road. Ever.
adolph 5y ago
I for one look forward to training my FSD to hypermile effectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling
ofrzeta 5y ago
The introduction of ECUs (electronic control unit) brought a lot of new problems to repair shops. And frankly many times they don't really know why something is or isn't working. In the end it often comes down to replace all parts in an error chain such as the sensors, cables and sometimes the complete ECU. It's just a different world for a classic mechanic. Incidentally in a neighbour town a repair shop has popped up that has specialized in ECU repair. They developped a process to disassemble ECUs, dissolve the resin that contains the PCB and then do the repair on the boards.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  In the US, OBD II was mandatory in 1996. In that context, what's a classic mechanic?
  - stonogo 5y ago
    OBD-II only requires the car be able to report faults related to emissions. You can (and many did) build cars without central computers and still provide OBD-II compliance. For a long time, even if there was an ECU it might only have been handling injection and ignition timing. The modern approach, where a car is essentially a computer with some mechatronic peripherals related to making the wheels turn, is relatively recent even now.
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      So? A mechanic working 25 years ago had more than a little bit of incentive to understand electronic control systems. That's my point. Is the idea that we should build cars so that dead people have an easy time servicing them?
      - topkai22 5y ago
        I suspect the OP was making a historical analogy to the past experience of the ECU transition. The ECU transition was disruptive and caused pain for both mechanics (who had to reskill) and consumers (who had to deal with a market full of mechanics who didn’t necessarily know what they were doing for a long time.)
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Servicing and repairing electric cars is not going to be in demand as much as repairing ICE cars ever was. E.g. a lot of first generation Nissan Leafs are mostly still driving around on their first battery pack. Some of them have gotten life extensions with a battery pack replacement that is better than what they shipped with. They might still be doing shopping runs 20 years down the line. There is just very little that goes wrong with these things. Most maintenance is basically going to be replacing tires, topping up some fluids (e.g. windscreen wipers), etc. Battery replacements are sometimes needed of course but mostly not until well into 5 digit mileage. Quite a few manufacturers give you 8 years/100K miles warranty (whichever comes first) on the drive train. The reason is that they mostly only start failing long after that. Of course any kind of serious work on an electrical drive train is going to need an electrical engineer. There are quite a few shops already specializing in salvaging electrical drive trains and repurposing them for ICE conversions of e.g. classical vehicles. Not an impossible skill to learn. But indeed very different from servicing the types of things that fail on ICE cars which have lots of moving parts and complex systems.
- hoseja 5y ago
  Until brilliant engineers find novel ways to make the drivetrain so cheap it breaks down sooner.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  You are probably one of minority who enjoys having financial freedom to buy a new car and replace it after couple of years. A lot of people just don't have finances and will be buying second hand cars and will generally try to extend the life of it for as long as it is possible. A Tesla here in Poland costs as much as a small flat in a city center. Half of population does not have income to buy their own flat, let alone an electric car. That half of population currently buys cars that are are about 10 to 50 times cheaper because they have no value to people who have any possibility of buying a new car. A Tesla might be more reliable for longer, but it will eventually reach that part of market.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
djoldman 5y ago
An interesting takeaway: > All this could have a big impact on garages’ revenues. McKinsey, a consultancy, thinks evs may reduce spending on spare parts at American dealerships by as much as 40%. With no oil to change or spark plugs to replace, income from routine servicing will also be lower. Porsche’s Taycan, for one, is reckoned to need 30% less maintenance than if it was an ice vehicle.
Glench 5y ago
The impact on garages is going to be one of the many knock-on effects as we uproot polluting infrastructure from the core of our economy. A similar thing will for tradespeople electrifying houses with heat pump heating/cooling, hot water heaters, clothes driers, and induction stoves. Our economy is going to need to adapt incredibly quickly if we deploy at the necessary rate.
h2odragon 5y ago
My mechanic is very old school; but he's not afraid of the battery in our (early) Honda Insight. Discussed it with him and I'm far more comfortable with cow cooking electrical potential than he is; but he's not afraid of it just knows there's some extra precautions to take. Nothing that they don't do when busting out the big welder already. If I expected him to rebuild the battery pack with new cells; that'd be silly. I don't expect him to rebuild an automatic transmission, either. Not that he couldn't necessarily, but that kind of job is far better farmed out to a specialized shop that concentrates on it.
jeffrallen 5y ago
James and Kate disagree: https://youtube.com/user/James0852 https://youtube.com/user/James0852 James shows how a pro services EV cars on his channel. Here is the upgrade of a Nissan Leaf: https://youtu.be/bY66PGpR7jk https://youtu.be/bY66PGpR7jk

60 points by sohkamyung 5y ago

A similar problem: what happens when low margin fuel/petrol/gas station businesses start going insolvent? I wonder if states are ready for businesses to be abandoning their underground storage tank infrastructure in a decade or two?

melony 5y ago
Petrol/Gas stations make money from the convenience store, not the fuel. Considering how long batteries take to charge, they will make more money (but they would have to expand capacity significantly).
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Petrol/Gas stations are the last place I'd want to spend time whilst my car is charging. My guess is supermarkets and shopping centres are going to fill that need and local petrol stations will disappear.
  - kortex 5y ago
    I'd love to see the emergence of Japanese style konbini convenience stores. Something with a better selection than the big gulp and roller dogs of your typical American pit stop. That might actually drive a trend where a 20 minute stop to fill up makes sense. Shopping centers definitely have a nice synergy but I can see the demand for ev spots outpacing supply, so there will likely always be need for on demand charging.
- alliao 5y ago
  they make operating cash flow from convenience store, the profit ultimately comes from increase in land valuation, same game as mcdonalds really
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Globally, McDonald's makes an average of ~$200,000 income per store per year. Convenience stores mostly don't do that well, but the typical land isn't appreciating at anywhere near that pace either. (It can be in some places; here, there's undeveloped land near most of the stores, which is a common scenario…)
  - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
    Really? Gas stations usually become toxic waste cleanup sites at EOL. How do they turn a profit by selling the land?
    - philips 5y ago
      Exactly the term the EPA uses is Brownfield: > Petroleum brownfields, such as old abandoned gas stations, are being cleaned up and reused to the benefit of communities across the country. EPA’s Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST) and Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR) jointly focus on the cleanup and reuse of petroleum contaminated sites. https://www.epa.gov/ust/petroleum-brownfields https://www.epa.gov/ust/petroleum-brownfields
- philips 5y ago
  I think it all depends on the location of the service station. The big gas stations on major freeways will likely survive. But, the local neighborhood stations near suburbs or other housing will likely go away as folks charge where they park their cars while at home or work. This article goes into data a bit based on information from Norway which has been electrifying passenger vehicles rapidly. Although, I wish there was better data to draw on. Maybe London will provide some data soon as they add more and more zones where EVs are preferred. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-18/when-cars-are-all-electric-we-ll-still-have-gas-stations https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-18/when-cars...
tersers 5y ago
They definitely aren’t ready. Zoning as it exists requires extensive environmental cleanup or delays of at least a decade before development can happen. A bunch of land is going to lay fallow for a good while.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- philips 5y ago
  I was skimming through the EPA’s Underground Storage Tank Responsible Parties documentation and getting more and more horrified at how I am sure these companies will structure themselves, via lease agreements or other mechanisms, to limit their liability as they go insolvent. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/rpsearchguide.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/rp...
adrianmonk 5y ago
Many gas stations are on valuable land, such as on the corner of two major streets. So maybe whoever is redeveloping that land will be willing to pay the cleanup costs to gain access to it.
fergie 5y ago
Pretty sure that this is happening already- there are definitely fewer petrol stations than there were.
kortex 5y ago
I predict the emergence of a cottage industry of rentable towable generators. Unfortunately you can't charge a Tesla while driving, but there have been EVs that let you do this. Regardless, I think there are certain situations (camping and long road trips) where having some electric peace of mind would be valuable, knowing you won't get stranded if you can't find a charger. Also I suspect we will need underground tanks of dinosaur squeezings for longer than 20 years. Cars being sold today routinely last over 15 years, plus yard equipment, generators, etc.

bumbledraven 5y ago

https://archive.md/PtDAP https://archive.md/PtDAP

tersers 5y ago

There’s a subtext to this article, that cars are getting better at diagnosing themselves and the troubleshooting typical for older and ICE cars is required less and less. It’s not fair to say that an average mechanic wouldn’t be able to service new cars, but rather that new mechanics will be unable to repair anything but new cars who have their problems diagnosed with a computer.

kirse 5y ago
mechanics will be unable to repair anything but new cars who have their problems diagnosed with a computer. This has been a thing for at least 10 years now, started by the luxury brands. There really wasn't much troubleshooting required for ICE (despite your mechanic's insistence on the severity of the issue) until cars starting running more LoC than a Mac. Pre-2005 ICE was very simple compared to any modern system, ICE or E.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I recently read that more than 70% of the code in modern ECU's is for diagnostics.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  And a big part of the remaining is for calculating the correct combustible/air mix
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    I always imagined that was just a big table with the accelerator on one axis and revolutions on the other.
    - pvaldes 5y ago
      Much more complicated in fact. Your car measures constantly the air flow, the temperature of this air, the altitude over the sea level, the velocity of the car, the position in real time of the accelerator and clutch pedals, etc... and then the computer takes all and sends an order to inject in the motor exactly the amount of combustible required for this parameters. Then manages the opening or closing of the valves to allow the gasses go out and those are reintroduced in the motor to be burnt twice. The remain is send then to the anti particles filter and the good parts are allowed to go out, while the problematic ones are sealed in a box.

aetherspawn 5y ago

Uhm, there is no way that a mechanic should ever try and rebuild a battery. Never. There are multiple thousands of wires inside, and multiple hundreds of tap fuses. Every single bolt and joint is critical and needs just the correct amount of cleanliness and jointing compound applied. The safety systems only work as well as the battery can isolate the problem (usually isolating the battery from the vehicle). Random workshops working on electric cars will just lead to internal battery problems that are uninterruptible by the control systems (ie a loose bolt or a washer floating in the casing), and this will lead to fires. And after you’ve pulled it apart, what about the quality control on all the casing water seals? Especially the single application seals (gaskets don’t work well in practice)? Battery aside, if you unbolt a motor resolver or move anything important then you need to do a resolver or phase calibration, which you can’t do without OE special equipment. Again, this could cause serious issues like hardware overcurrent and sudden cut outs, loss of power steering etc at high speed. The days of mechanic shops servicing these vehicles is going to have to be over… there is no way it will ever be safe for someone to touch the power train without all the right OE specific equipment, the right checklists and several weeks of training for each vehicle. Source: I was an EV battery design engineer.

glitchc 5y ago
Saying that a battery array and an electric motor is more complicated than an internal combustion engine is laughable at best. After all that’s one of the big draws of switching to EVs: A simpler and by extension) more reliable propulsion system.
- aetherspawn 5y ago
  A battery typically has, excluding the rest of the EV: - Around 10-20 microcontrollers. - Between 150 and 250 voltage sensors - Between 150 and 250 tap fuses with fuse blow sensors - Between 5-10 contactors with sensing contacts - Around 50-100 temperature sensors - Around 300 to 500 N-fet switches with balance resistors - (Depending on the design).. up to 300 bus bars with perhaps 600 bolts. - In some instances, you'll find up to 50 pressure sensors - A variety of interlocks and plug sensors

qiqitori 5y ago

I guess there's a large variety of reasons why cars break down. Maybe I'm just lucky(?), but all the actually expensive problems I had with my car so far had very little to do with the fact that it's a hybrid car. Rust, puncture, broken tail light, broken rubber caps/washers, broken touch screen (left as-is). I'm sure that the mechanics who handled my car know not to touch the battery -- even if it's "just" ~200V vs. 800V. Both are very dangerous voltages. (ICE cars require oil changes all the time so that's a major difference perhaps, but EVs still require some lubrication, right?)

alliao 5y ago
unlikely I think, older gen cars used to have grease nipple for you to replenish old grease, newer car parts abolished those and instead you just throw the part away and replace. I'm sure some would say it's designed obsolescence but I think it's probably worth while for good portion of the cases as that grease nipple can introduce contaminants too... the cynics in me thinks the hybrids and ev are still over engineered to convince the masses, once mass adoption began the electronics can build in design obsolescence much easier..

mgarfias 5y ago

Maybe all those years racing electric r/c cars will serve me well.

mikewarot 5y ago

12 Volt electrical systems can turn your watch or wedding ring into a red hot cauterizing brand in milliseconds. There are new dangers in these high voltage systems, but with proper training anything can be repaired. *Even captured alien ships, if anyone has one, and a budget, I'm game to help.

EamonnMR 5y ago
I know someone who had that exact experience on an ICE vehicle.
spyremeown 5y ago
How is 12 volts high voltage? 12 volts would take a long time to heat up a ring or a watch, not millisseconds.
- lights0123 5y ago
  Those are going to be mostly solid metal, so they're going to have very low resistance. Worst case scenario, you have a silver ring, which has the lowest resistance of any common metal at normal temperatures. Even at a high value of 0.1 ohms (it's sure to be much lower than that), you're looking at 1440 watts, around the heat produced by many plug-in heaters in the US.
- bacheaul 5y ago
  It's not high voltage, that's the point. I suggest looking for videos [1] on welding steel with a 12v car battery to see how fast metal can heat up with enough current behind it. [1] eg. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtwrqIDnxg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtwrqIDnxg
- neckardt 5y ago
  You are correct that 12 volts is not high voltage. However it can still heat up a ring or watch in milliseconds if the power supply can supply the needed amperage. Using the equation V (volts) * I (Amps) = P (watts) we could calculate the power of putting a car battery through a ring: 12 volts * 100 amps[1] = 1200 watts. That's more than your average microwave. The reason you don't heat up when you touch a car battery is that at 12 volts your skin (mostly an insulator) won't conduct the needed amps. Metal (a conductor) will however transfer close to the full 100 amps of the battery. Here's an example of the effect[2] [1]: https://www.bestpowerbattery.com/how-many-amps-is-a-car-battery/ https://www.bestpowerbattery.com/how-many-amps-is-a-car-batt... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wx6-ysokJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wx6-ysokJU

ls15 5y ago

I've been watching Rich Rebuilds on Youtube. The channel has previously converted gas cars into electric cars and currently has a series about converting a Tesla into a gas car with a V8 engine. https://www.youtube.com/c/RichRebuilds/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RichRebuilds/videos

reflexero 5y ago
And he's extensively covered the repair skills needed when rebuilding his flood-damaged salvage title Tesla, including teardown repair of battery packs, various ECUs and other onboard computers. These are skills he's picked up himself, Tesla don't provide shop manuals or training to 'unauthorised' mechanics.
- ls15 5y ago
  > Tesla don't provide shop manuals or training to 'unauthorised' mechanics. They are basically big tech on wheels doing big tech things.
pvaldes 5y ago
Take in mind that this would be absolutely illegal in Europe in 99% of the times, and a huge pain in the ass in the 1% remaining. And when I say huge I mean huge. Months of bureaucracy. To start can't be done without the maker agreeing and certifying that the modification does not affect the safety of the car (and the maker would never agree, of course). For a TV show? of course. Do it. Just don't expect to be allowed to drive that car in a public road. Ever.

adolph 5y ago

I for one look forward to training my FSD to hypermile effectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling

ofrzeta 5y ago

The introduction of ECUs (electronic control unit) brought a lot of new problems to repair shops. And frankly many times they don't really know why something is or isn't working. In the end it often comes down to replace all parts in an error chain such as the sensors, cables and sometimes the complete ECU. It's just a different world for a classic mechanic. Incidentally in a neighbour town a repair shop has popped up that has specialized in ECU repair. They developped a process to disassemble ECUs, dissolve the resin that contains the PCB and then do the repair on the boards.

maxerickson 5y ago
In the US, OBD II was mandatory in 1996. In that context, what's a classic mechanic?
- stonogo 5y ago
  OBD-II only requires the car be able to report faults related to emissions. You can (and many did) build cars without central computers and still provide OBD-II compliance. For a long time, even if there was an ECU it might only have been handling injection and ignition timing. The modern approach, where a car is essentially a computer with some mechatronic peripherals related to making the wheels turn, is relatively recent even now.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    So? A mechanic working 25 years ago had more than a little bit of incentive to understand electronic control systems. That's my point. Is the idea that we should build cars so that dead people have an easy time servicing them?
    - topkai22 5y ago
      I suspect the OP was making a historical analogy to the past experience of the ECU transition. The ECU transition was disruptive and caused pain for both mechanics (who had to reskill) and consumers (who had to deal with a market full of mechanics who didn’t necessarily know what they were doing for a long time.)

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Servicing and repairing electric cars is not going to be in demand as much as repairing ICE cars ever was. E.g. a lot of first generation Nissan Leafs are mostly still driving around on their first battery pack. Some of them have gotten life extensions with a battery pack replacement that is better than what they shipped with. They might still be doing shopping runs 20 years down the line. There is just very little that goes wrong with these things. Most maintenance is basically going to be replacing tires, topping up some fluids (e.g. windscreen wipers), etc. Battery replacements are sometimes needed of course but mostly not until well into 5 digit mileage. Quite a few manufacturers give you 8 years/100K miles warranty (whichever comes first) on the drive train. The reason is that they mostly only start failing long after that. Of course any kind of serious work on an electrical drive train is going to need an electrical engineer. There are quite a few shops already specializing in salvaging electrical drive trains and repurposing them for ICE conversions of e.g. classical vehicles. Not an impossible skill to learn. But indeed very different from servicing the types of things that fail on ICE cars which have lots of moving parts and complex systems.

hoseja 5y ago
Until brilliant engineers find novel ways to make the drivetrain so cheap it breaks down sooner.
lmilcin 5y ago
You are probably one of minority who enjoys having financial freedom to buy a new car and replace it after couple of years. A lot of people just don't have finances and will be buying second hand cars and will generally try to extend the life of it for as long as it is possible. A Tesla here in Poland costs as much as a small flat in a city center. Half of population does not have income to buy their own flat, let alone an electric car. That half of population currently buys cars that are are about 10 to 50 times cheaper because they have no value to people who have any possibility of buying a new car. A Tesla might be more reliable for longer, but it will eventually reach that part of market.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago

djoldman 5y ago

An interesting takeaway: > All this could have a big impact on garages’ revenues. McKinsey, a consultancy, thinks evs may reduce spending on spare parts at American dealerships by as much as 40%. With no oil to change or spark plugs to replace, income from routine servicing will also be lower. Porsche’s Taycan, for one, is reckoned to need 30% less maintenance than if it was an ice vehicle.

Glench 5y ago

The impact on garages is going to be one of the many knock-on effects as we uproot polluting infrastructure from the core of our economy. A similar thing will for tradespeople electrifying houses with heat pump heating/cooling, hot water heaters, clothes driers, and induction stoves. Our economy is going to need to adapt incredibly quickly if we deploy at the necessary rate.

h2odragon 5y ago

My mechanic is very old school; but he's not afraid of the battery in our (early) Honda Insight. Discussed it with him and I'm far more comfortable with cow cooking electrical potential than he is; but he's not afraid of it just knows there's some extra precautions to take. Nothing that they don't do when busting out the big welder already. If I expected him to rebuild the battery pack with new cells; that'd be silly. I don't expect him to rebuild an automatic transmission, either. Not that he couldn't necessarily, but that kind of job is far better farmed out to a specialized shop that concentrates on it.

jeffrallen 5y ago

James and Kate disagree: https://youtube.com/user/James0852 https://youtube.com/user/James0852 James shows how a pro services EV cars on his channel. Here is the upgrade of a Nissan Leaf: https://youtu.be/bY66PGpR7jk https://youtu.be/bY66PGpR7jk