10 ms·

I realize this article focuses primarily on comparative energy efficiency, but missing from the discussion is an equally important comparison of powertrain reli

I realize this article focuses primarily on comparative energy efficiency, but missing from the discussion is an equally important comparison of powertrain reliability, complexity, performance, and long-term cost of ownership.

bb88 4y ago
I have bought two cars new in my life, and held each for ~12 years. The second is on it's 12th year, and still going strong. Also there's really no reason that I won't be able to keep my car another 8 years, making it a 20 year car. If I buy a 60k electric vehicle today, how long will it be until I replace the batteries? 10 years? 20 years? At what point does the maintenance cycle, render the car worthless? Even after 12 years, the Saturn SL1 I had still worked as a car. There would still be maintenance cycles (oil, brakes, etc). But if you took that into the cost of ownership, it's still relatively cheaper than buying a new car.
- markvdb 4y ago
  > Also there's really no reason that I won't be able to keep my car another 8 years, making it a 20 year car. In northwestern Europe, the reason would be low emission zones. "Sorry, this type of car is not allowed here anymore." is a real thing here.
  - oynqr 4y ago
    In reality I have only seen this happen to old/bad cars with equally bad diesel engines.
    - markvdb 4y ago
      Take Brussels, the EU capital. Euro 4 diesel cars are forbidden there now. Euro 5 became mandatory for new car registrations in 2011 [0]. That means 11 years old cars could still be Euro 4. These are not old or bad cars to a lot of people. Many are not able to afford car mobility anymore due to low emission zone restrictions on these cars. It's easy for the upper middle class or above running society to develop a blind spot for this. "Just buy recent a second hand car or a new Dacia Spring" is not the answer if the money for that is missing. Has enough attention been paid to this social side of the low emissions zones? I'm not so sure. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Emission_standards_for_passenger_cars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Em...
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      Paris is going to lock out parts of the city for ICE cars in 24.
      - bb88 4y ago
        In the US there are large areas where gas powered vehicles are going to be needed for at least 3 or 4 more decades.
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    Only for diesel cars and only in certain cities and you can still drive there if you pay a fine. It's perfectly reasonable.
  - bb88 4y ago
    Where I live, we have to do emissions testing. And it passed this year. The emissions testing was a result of the 1970s/1980s smog crisis.
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  In the US, electric vehicle batteries are required by law to be under warranty for 8 years or 100,000 miles. In California, it is 10 years and 150,000 miles.
  - bb88 4y ago
    If the average ownership of a car is 12 years, that doesn't help for the next owner.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Renault has found, to it's surprise, I guess, that 10 year old Zoes are keeping minimum 85% battery capacity. The BMS babies the batteries. Forget what you think you know about LiPo from laptops and cellphones. For example: you can't get a Zoe without A/C. Why not? Because the battery is air cooled, by the A/C. If there is capacity left over AFTER ensuring the battery is comfortable, it is shared with the human occupants. :)
- sgt101 4y ago
  How many components have you replaced on the Saturn? If you put 200k and 20 years on it then I am guessing you will need two new clutches, at least one pump and a bunch of sundries. Tyre wear can be heavy in EV's if you put your foot down a lot, brake wear is a lot lighter. At about 200k the battery may well go - but at 200k you can expect something major in your ICE drive chain to go. A new gearbox can set you back $6k - that's pretty similar to the cost of a tesla battery replacement.
  - bb88 4y ago
    These are what I can recall on the top of my head. Starter $800 (on warranty). AC $400. Transmission service $1500 at 70k. Coolant flush $400. 2 set of brake pads @ $400 a piece. Timing belt $200. Battery $100. Oil changes at $30 every 3k miles. Lets call it $1k total. Cabin Air filter change every 15k miles $20 Bottom heat shield $100 Shocks @100k miles $250 Sundries sure, but spread out over time.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Most ICE cars that age are either falling apart or long retired to the junk yard. They get nowhere near the fuel economy they might have had when they left the factory. Also, cumulatively the amount of maintenance, parts, and hours tinkering with the vehicle adds up. A battery replacement is an economical choice for an EV. You could buy a new vehicle or buy a life extension of another decade plus. That's how long the battery lasts and there's very little else in the vehicle that is very likely to start falling apart. Electrical engines last a long time. Drive trains are much simpler. And parts for that are relatively cheap. So even if the engine were to fail, replacing it would be pretty straightforward and cheap probably. E.g. a Nissan Leaf battery replacement will set you back around 7000 dollars. A lot of money for sure. But it will last quite long and when there's really nothing else wrong with the vehicle, it's a perfectly rational decision to make. Lots of original Nissan Leafs from 12 years ago are still driving around and quite a few will survive into their second and third decade. As it is one of the older EV models available, that's a great benchmark. We're talking first generation technology. The batteries and drive train were more primitive. Cooling and battery management were not a thing yet. Etc. Just great little vehicles. And a 7K battery doubles their original range (from 20kwh to 40kwh).
  - bb88 4y ago
    > E.g. a Nissan Leaf battery replacement will set you back around 7000 dollars. A lot of money for sure. But it will last quite long and when there's really nothing else wrong with the vehicle, it's a perfectly rational decision to make. Lots of original Nissan Leafs from 12 years ago are still driving around and quite a few will survive into their second and third decade. This is better than Tesla which charges $12-20k + labor + parts to change the battery pack. But $7k is still a big chunk of change. That will set a price cliff on the car. Basically if it is worth $13k, but you're going to need a battery change in the next year, the true price of the car will be worth $6k on the market. Cars that are less than $7k become effectively worthless as the new buyer will be guaranteed to have to replace the battery pack on them. This happens with home sales. Like if a house needs a new roof, the buyers will ask the home owners to discount the price of the new roof off the house. https://www.way.com/blog/tesla-battery-replacement-cost/ https://www.way.com/blog/tesla-battery-replacement-cost/
- clysm 4y ago
  > the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that today’s batteries may last 12 to 15 years in moderate climates (8 to 12 years in extreme climates). https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62813.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62813.pdf
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    "Today" being 2014 for this particular source. I wonder if we have any newer information that doesn't rely on predictions?
djaychela 4y ago
On all those areas, an EV is better. Modern ICE vehicles are hugely complex because its they only way they can meet emissions targets. EV power trains are much simpler in comparison, and electronics are much more reliable. Batteries are not the issue that the naysayers say they are - lasting much longer than an ICE engine (which usually die around the 250k mile mark) , and at similar replacement cost at that point. And in the meantime you've saved hugely on servicing and maintenance costs - youd have changed the clutch and DMF at least twice by then, something that people like to leave out when they say "what about my iPhone battery, that dies in months".
- artificialLimbs 4y ago
  Would like to know where you get those numbers. I just changed the clutch in my 2010 Toyota Yaris at 260,000 miles and it’s the first repair I’ve ever done on the car.
  - sgt101 4y ago
    You have been very lucky. Many years of buying cheap used cars taught me that clutches tend to last less than 90k miles when driven by normal people. In addition you can expect at least one of the pumps on an ICE to fail in less than 100k and there is a small risk of an electrical component like the alternator going as well.
  - djaychela 4y ago
    I've owned maybe 150 cars (personal ownership plus buying and selling). 100k miles is the usual point. Ive never owned one that had made it past 150k without needing a clutch. Many much sooner (town use only cars, maybe 50k?). Dual mass flywheels are always changed at the same time due to labour costs. A friend has a 2013 T5 van that needed it doing at 50k, bill was £1300. He never loads the van up (it's a people carrier really), and has done some long road trips as well. Id suspect you do lots of highway miles with no gear changes (hence no clutch wear). Manufacturers now aim for ideal 150K life on a clutch, but that's aspirational, not the median by any means.
WalterBright 4y ago
The article is nonsense. It magically claims that regenerative braking makes up for losses from friction and heat. There's no way 87-91% efficiency can be achieved when 10% is lost just charging the car.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Bringing a car to a halt without regen uses only friction brakes. Bringing it to a halt with regen uses some regen and some friction. Both cars always have friction loss from rolling friction and drag. What's not to understand about such a simple comparison?
  - mlindner 4y ago
    > Bringing it to a halt with regen uses some regen and some friction. To clarify, most EV cars use only regen braking until either the pedal is pressed (Tesla regens automatically by letting off the accelerator) or when the pedal is pressed hard (most other EVs).
    - varjag 4y ago
      I owned 3 different makes of EVs, this is incorrect for all three. On a Nissan Leaf, mild regenerative is always engaged in Eco mode unless you touch gas. Otherwise when you put on the brake it's regenerative + extra braking with pads if necessary. On BMW i3 it brakes regeneratively once you slip the gas. If you use the brake pedal hard it's still regen + pads. On VW id.4 it's quite like on the Leaf. On all three it's pads only braking only when the battery is fully charged.
      - mlindner 4y ago
        > On all three it's pads only braking only when the battery is fully charged. So they don't encourage only charging to 90% like on Tesla to maintain good braking action?
        4y ago
princeb 4y ago
> cost of ownership some of the cars that i've seen have EV equivalents that are so significantly more costly that the gas savings only start to work out at around 1.25-2x the average driving distance of a personal vehicle owner. it makes no sense for example for me to replace my glc300 with a eqc. and if you don't drive at least 10k miles/yr, the kona electric is more expensive than the kona ice. a lot of discussions revolve around downgrading from an expensive ice to a cheap ev to make the cost work but that seems a bit disingenuous. of course getting a cheaper car is cheaper. when we do like-for-like, a lot of the advantages disappear.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Cost efficiency is where the money is. Quite literally. Miles per $ is the metric you need to apply to transport. You can fold the life time cost of the vehicle into that metric as well. All the interest, maintenance, inspections, etc. In short, that's why a lot of commercial fleets are transitioning to electric. Dollar per mile is the only relevant metric there. ICE vehicle technology is basically going obsolete rapidly. Commercially, that game is over. And the gap is widening every year. We've had a period where the tax incentives were important, helpful and necessary. But that is increasingly just a nice to have thing. Fundamentally, it's not technically hard to build much lighter and efficient electrical vehicles. So, if the current ones are cost effective now, imagine how much more cost effective they could be.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  This. At $5 per gallon, my 30 mpg ICE car can go 6 miles on $1. My Tesla can go 4 miles with 10 cents worth (1 kWh) of electricity, or 40 miles per $1. Obviously there can be mitigating factors, but even if you drive a 50 MPG ICE car, or your electricity is unusually expensive, or you drive your Tesla at 85 mph and only get 2 miles per kWh, it's still no contest.
  - jillesvangurp 4y ago
    The kicker is what happens if you get your kwh at the expense of a one time investment in solar and batteries. The grid or fast charging rate is the worst case in terms of pricing. You can actually charge smarter way cheaper than that. Many fast charging setups essentially only rely on the grid to top off the batteries if solar is not providing enough energy. Basically, if you charge using solar panels that you own, the miles per dollar is a function of maintenance, and purchase cost of the vehicle and panels. The efficiency of the panels or vehicles are not a factor at all since the variable cost is 0$/mile. You only have variable cost when you charge the vehicle somewhere else. The non variable cost is basically the ownership of the vehicle and panels. Which you might simplify via e.g. leasing constructions.

bb88 4y ago

I have bought two cars new in my life, and held each for ~12 years. The second is on it's 12th year, and still going strong. Also there's really no reason that I won't be able to keep my car another 8 years, making it a 20 year car. If I buy a 60k electric vehicle today, how long will it be until I replace the batteries? 10 years? 20 years? At what point does the maintenance cycle, render the car worthless? Even after 12 years, the Saturn SL1 I had still worked as a car. There would still be maintenance cycles (oil, brakes, etc). But if you took that into the cost of ownership, it's still relatively cheaper than buying a new car.

markvdb 4y ago
> Also there's really no reason that I won't be able to keep my car another 8 years, making it a 20 year car. In northwestern Europe, the reason would be low emission zones. "Sorry, this type of car is not allowed here anymore." is a real thing here.
- oynqr 4y ago
  In reality I have only seen this happen to old/bad cars with equally bad diesel engines.
  - markvdb 4y ago
    Take Brussels, the EU capital. Euro 4 diesel cars are forbidden there now. Euro 5 became mandatory for new car registrations in 2011 [0]. That means 11 years old cars could still be Euro 4. These are not old or bad cars to a lot of people. Many are not able to afford car mobility anymore due to low emission zone restrictions on these cars. It's easy for the upper middle class or above running society to develop a blind spot for this. "Just buy recent a second hand car or a new Dacia Spring" is not the answer if the money for that is missing. Has enough attention been paid to this social side of the low emissions zones? I'm not so sure. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Emission_standards_for_passenger_cars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Em...
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Paris is going to lock out parts of the city for ICE cars in 24.
    - bb88 4y ago
      In the US there are large areas where gas powered vehicles are going to be needed for at least 3 or 4 more decades.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Only for diesel cars and only in certain cities and you can still drive there if you pay a fine. It's perfectly reasonable.
- bb88 4y ago
  Where I live, we have to do emissions testing. And it passed this year. The emissions testing was a result of the 1970s/1980s smog crisis.
enraged_camel 4y ago
In the US, electric vehicle batteries are required by law to be under warranty for 8 years or 100,000 miles. In California, it is 10 years and 150,000 miles.
- bb88 4y ago
  If the average ownership of a car is 12 years, that doesn't help for the next owner.
jeffrallen 4y ago
Renault has found, to it's surprise, I guess, that 10 year old Zoes are keeping minimum 85% battery capacity. The BMS babies the batteries. Forget what you think you know about LiPo from laptops and cellphones. For example: you can't get a Zoe without A/C. Why not? Because the battery is air cooled, by the A/C. If there is capacity left over AFTER ensuring the battery is comfortable, it is shared with the human occupants. :)
sgt101 4y ago
How many components have you replaced on the Saturn? If you put 200k and 20 years on it then I am guessing you will need two new clutches, at least one pump and a bunch of sundries. Tyre wear can be heavy in EV's if you put your foot down a lot, brake wear is a lot lighter. At about 200k the battery may well go - but at 200k you can expect something major in your ICE drive chain to go. A new gearbox can set you back $6k - that's pretty similar to the cost of a tesla battery replacement.
- bb88 4y ago
  These are what I can recall on the top of my head. Starter $800 (on warranty). AC $400. Transmission service $1500 at 70k. Coolant flush $400. 2 set of brake pads @ $400 a piece. Timing belt $200. Battery $100. Oil changes at $30 every 3k miles. Lets call it $1k total. Cabin Air filter change every 15k miles $20 Bottom heat shield $100 Shocks @100k miles $250 Sundries sure, but spread out over time.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Most ICE cars that age are either falling apart or long retired to the junk yard. They get nowhere near the fuel economy they might have had when they left the factory. Also, cumulatively the amount of maintenance, parts, and hours tinkering with the vehicle adds up. A battery replacement is an economical choice for an EV. You could buy a new vehicle or buy a life extension of another decade plus. That's how long the battery lasts and there's very little else in the vehicle that is very likely to start falling apart. Electrical engines last a long time. Drive trains are much simpler. And parts for that are relatively cheap. So even if the engine were to fail, replacing it would be pretty straightforward and cheap probably. E.g. a Nissan Leaf battery replacement will set you back around 7000 dollars. A lot of money for sure. But it will last quite long and when there's really nothing else wrong with the vehicle, it's a perfectly rational decision to make. Lots of original Nissan Leafs from 12 years ago are still driving around and quite a few will survive into their second and third decade. As it is one of the older EV models available, that's a great benchmark. We're talking first generation technology. The batteries and drive train were more primitive. Cooling and battery management were not a thing yet. Etc. Just great little vehicles. And a 7K battery doubles their original range (from 20kwh to 40kwh).
- bb88 4y ago
  > E.g. a Nissan Leaf battery replacement will set you back around 7000 dollars. A lot of money for sure. But it will last quite long and when there's really nothing else wrong with the vehicle, it's a perfectly rational decision to make. Lots of original Nissan Leafs from 12 years ago are still driving around and quite a few will survive into their second and third decade. This is better than Tesla which charges $12-20k + labor + parts to change the battery pack. But $7k is still a big chunk of change. That will set a price cliff on the car. Basically if it is worth $13k, but you're going to need a battery change in the next year, the true price of the car will be worth $6k on the market. Cars that are less than $7k become effectively worthless as the new buyer will be guaranteed to have to replace the battery pack on them. This happens with home sales. Like if a house needs a new roof, the buyers will ask the home owners to discount the price of the new roof off the house. https://www.way.com/blog/tesla-battery-replacement-cost/ https://www.way.com/blog/tesla-battery-replacement-cost/
clysm 4y ago
> the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that today’s batteries may last 12 to 15 years in moderate climates (8 to 12 years in extreme climates). https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62813.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62813.pdf
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  "Today" being 2014 for this particular source. I wonder if we have any newer information that doesn't rely on predictions?

djaychela 4y ago

On all those areas, an EV is better. Modern ICE vehicles are hugely complex because its they only way they can meet emissions targets. EV power trains are much simpler in comparison, and electronics are much more reliable. Batteries are not the issue that the naysayers say they are - lasting much longer than an ICE engine (which usually die around the 250k mile mark) , and at similar replacement cost at that point. And in the meantime you've saved hugely on servicing and maintenance costs - youd have changed the clutch and DMF at least twice by then, something that people like to leave out when they say "what about my iPhone battery, that dies in months".

artificialLimbs 4y ago
Would like to know where you get those numbers. I just changed the clutch in my 2010 Toyota Yaris at 260,000 miles and it’s the first repair I’ve ever done on the car.
- sgt101 4y ago
  You have been very lucky. Many years of buying cheap used cars taught me that clutches tend to last less than 90k miles when driven by normal people. In addition you can expect at least one of the pumps on an ICE to fail in less than 100k and there is a small risk of an electrical component like the alternator going as well.
- djaychela 4y ago
  I've owned maybe 150 cars (personal ownership plus buying and selling). 100k miles is the usual point. Ive never owned one that had made it past 150k without needing a clutch. Many much sooner (town use only cars, maybe 50k?). Dual mass flywheels are always changed at the same time due to labour costs. A friend has a 2013 T5 van that needed it doing at 50k, bill was £1300. He never loads the van up (it's a people carrier really), and has done some long road trips as well. Id suspect you do lots of highway miles with no gear changes (hence no clutch wear). Manufacturers now aim for ideal 150K life on a clutch, but that's aspirational, not the median by any means.

WalterBright 4y ago

The article is nonsense. It magically claims that regenerative braking makes up for losses from friction and heat. There's no way 87-91% efficiency can be achieved when 10% is lost just charging the car.

jeffrallen 4y ago
Bringing a car to a halt without regen uses only friction brakes. Bringing it to a halt with regen uses some regen and some friction. Both cars always have friction loss from rolling friction and drag. What's not to understand about such a simple comparison?
- mlindner 4y ago
  > Bringing it to a halt with regen uses some regen and some friction. To clarify, most EV cars use only regen braking until either the pedal is pressed (Tesla regens automatically by letting off the accelerator) or when the pedal is pressed hard (most other EVs).
  - varjag 4y ago
    I owned 3 different makes of EVs, this is incorrect for all three. On a Nissan Leaf, mild regenerative is always engaged in Eco mode unless you touch gas. Otherwise when you put on the brake it's regenerative + extra braking with pads if necessary. On BMW i3 it brakes regeneratively once you slip the gas. If you use the brake pedal hard it's still regen + pads. On VW id.4 it's quite like on the Leaf. On all three it's pads only braking only when the battery is fully charged.
    - mlindner 4y ago
      > On all three it's pads only braking only when the battery is fully charged. So they don't encourage only charging to 90% like on Tesla to maintain good braking action?
      - 4y ago

princeb 4y ago

> cost of ownership some of the cars that i've seen have EV equivalents that are so significantly more costly that the gas savings only start to work out at around 1.25-2x the average driving distance of a personal vehicle owner. it makes no sense for example for me to replace my glc300 with a eqc. and if you don't drive at least 10k miles/yr, the kona electric is more expensive than the kona ice. a lot of discussions revolve around downgrading from an expensive ice to a cheap ev to make the cost work but that seems a bit disingenuous. of course getting a cheaper car is cheaper. when we do like-for-like, a lot of the advantages disappear.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Cost efficiency is where the money is. Quite literally. Miles per $ is the metric you need to apply to transport. You can fold the life time cost of the vehicle into that metric as well. All the interest, maintenance, inspections, etc. In short, that's why a lot of commercial fleets are transitioning to electric. Dollar per mile is the only relevant metric there. ICE vehicle technology is basically going obsolete rapidly. Commercially, that game is over. And the gap is widening every year. We've had a period where the tax incentives were important, helpful and necessary. But that is increasingly just a nice to have thing. Fundamentally, it's not technically hard to build much lighter and efficient electrical vehicles. So, if the current ones are cost effective now, imagine how much more cost effective they could be.

dreamcompiler 4y ago
This. At $5 per gallon, my 30 mpg ICE car can go 6 miles on $1. My Tesla can go 4 miles with 10 cents worth (1 kWh) of electricity, or 40 miles per $1. Obviously there can be mitigating factors, but even if you drive a 50 MPG ICE car, or your electricity is unusually expensive, or you drive your Tesla at 85 mph and only get 2 miles per kWh, it's still no contest.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  The kicker is what happens if you get your kwh at the expense of a one time investment in solar and batteries. The grid or fast charging rate is the worst case in terms of pricing. You can actually charge smarter way cheaper than that. Many fast charging setups essentially only rely on the grid to top off the batteries if solar is not providing enough energy. Basically, if you charge using solar panels that you own, the miles per dollar is a function of maintenance, and purchase cost of the vehicle and panels. The efficiency of the panels or vehicles are not a factor at all since the variable cost is 0$/mile. You only have variable cost when you charge the vehicle somewhere else. The non variable cost is basically the ownership of the vehicle and panels. Which you might simplify via e.g. leasing constructions.