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Electric cars could last much longer than you think
- mtreis86 2y agoDepends on where you live, in New England the salted winter roads tend to win and few cars last more than 10 years before there are holes in body panels.
- greenthrow 2y agoThe body panels are more and more often plastic or aluminum these days. There's still often steel in the suspension and subframe, though. The point of the article, though, is lots of people still spread FUD a out EV batteries and the data we have shows that batteries are not a problem. They last longer than transmissions and engines on average.
- phil21 2y agoI've noticed so many "common knowledge" things being anchored into the past, especially as I age - and especially for vehicles. The "rotting frames and body panels" thing was certainly common where I'm from when I grew up, but these days it's very normal to see 20+ year cars on the road with very little salt related damage. I have a 2007 Acura MDX that is stored outside for the past 8 years, never washed by my parents who I gifted it to, and driven through some of the worst winter road conditions possible. Visiting in the winter you'd think it was a grey vehicle (it's black) from all the salt spray adhered to it which stays on until it's driven in the rain come springtime. It shows utterly zero frame or body rust even today. I expect the rubber seals and such to fail before anything else. This is pretty much the norm. Cars are not made like they were in the 1980's and 90's any more. The coatings and type of materials are vastly different and improved. There are certainly models out there that have problems and you can get unlucky, but it's no longer a rule of thumb. It's not just vehicles though. It's pretty much endemic to all things. People get anchored to their "formative years" and then never update their priors. I assume it takes a generation or two for such things to die off and the "common knowledge" to be updated. EV battery tech will be one of these things - we will be anchored to the common tropes that were true for first and second generation vehicles but no longer are for quite a long time.
- likeabatterycar 2y agoIt persists because incompetently-managed cities and their sycophants need a convenient scapegoat for why they can't properly clean roads in the winter.
- bumby 2y agoWhile I suspect you’re right about newer cars because of galvanized steel etc, but I also wonder how much of the contrarian viewpoint is due to sampling bias. Maybe your Acura was just good luck? I’ve had a domestic wagon of similar vintage that went through many Midwest winters. The exhaust rusted off and so did the sub-frame leading me to offload it many years ago. We really need better data than our personal anecdotes to understand the problem.
- phil21 2y agoDefinitely need more than anecdote. Exhaust system though is a wear item, I'd expect to replace that every decade or so. Sub-frame, not so much! A quick google shows graphs for "Average age of the US used car fleet" to be around 6 years in 1975, and increasing to 12 years today. Not enough time today before family arrives to really dig further though.
- bumby 2y agoVery true, and car longevity has been steadily increasing. Although, I don’t think the bulk of them failures are attributable to “rotting body panels”. I remember when a car with 100k miles was considered essentially dead, whereas more drive trains routinely last twice that long.
- danaris 2y agoOn the other hand, I drove my 2009 Toyota Corolla in upstate NY for 10 years until the exhaust system literally fell out of it on the highway. There was very little visible rust on the body. (To be clear, if I didn't need more space inside nowadays I would absolutely be delighted to get another Corolla; I think it's a trooper for making it 10 years in this weather. I also replaced the exhaust system and then sold the car for significantly more than the repair cost to someone who wasn't planning on keeping it in quite a snowy climate.)
- kimjune01 2y agoYou're right that there's more parts that don't rust on modern vehicles. However, newer vehicles tend to be unibody compared to the older body-on-frame. When it comes to salty corrosion, parts sandwiched together often create places for the saltwater to be trapped, making the problem worse. The more I look at newer cars, the more I tend to believe that they will last exactly as long as the warranty, then disintegrate into repair hell.
- seb1204 2y agoMy theory here is that in the past many things have been over engineered or designed. Now all this fat is being optimized out and the weak spots are showing. But there is still a delay between the engineering change and the weak spots emerging.
- greenthrow 2y agoThe nostalgia based belief that "things were better before" is generally not supported by the facts. Cars in the past were much less reliable than they are today. This goes for most consumer products. That doesn't mean there aren't problems today that should be addressed, but the golden times of the past are largely imaginary.
- greenthrow 2y agoWell luckily we don't have to go on vibes and there's data that shows modern cars last longer than older ones, on average.
- mtreis86 2y agoAh this might be an in-industry definitions thing[1], I was taught most anything thin, especially the pieces that are welded to the unibody, are panels. Not just the outer skin. So floor pan, pillars, trunk panels, roof, subframe, maybe control arms, etc are all panels. Basically anything stamped out of sheet metal. It is the way they're often constructed that leads to corrosion, thin pieces of metal in close parallel proximity are especially hard to clean. Think two flat pieces spot welded together one on top of one another as many seams are. I'm sure capillary action doesn't help those either. They'd have to be sealed in paint or epoxy entirely to avoid the seam corroding. Welding itself changes the structure of the steel and leads to corrosion near the weld. If not spot welded, a different steel might be used for the weld that has higher strength to compensate for welds weakening the steel - but to get that they trade-off higher carbon content, making it more prone to corrosion. There are very few all-aluminum cars. Audi A8 was for a while and might still be. I am not aware of anything cheaper. [1] https://automotivedictionary.org/dictionary-of-automotive-terms/panel https://automotivedictionary.org/dictionary-of-automotive-te...
- seb1204 2y agoNot lasting forever but car bodies are fully submersed during the painting process and should seal many of the areas you mentioned for a good time.
- likeabatterycar 2y agoThis is a frequent trope employed in places with comically inept snow preparedness - like the Pacific Northwest - ignoring the existence of automatic carwashes. With how many persistently dirty Subaru Outbacks I've seen on the 5 I question if they know this alien technology exists.
- speedgoose 2y agoIs there a point to wash the car if you are going to spray salt on it immediately after?
- likeabatterycar 2y agoWhy stop there? Why do we wash cars or vacuum floors at all if they will get dirty again? Monthly car wash subscriptions are pretty popular in winter climates. Corrosion takes time. It doesn't bore holes into metal on contact. It's road salt not the blood from Alien.
- bumby 2y agoMany corrosion models are not time-variant. Eg Eyring and Arrhenius models
- jondwillis 2y agoAnecdata: bought a used off-lease 2019 Model 3 in 2021 (NCA chemistry.) The battery had degraded a typical amount (<10%) as they do in the first few years. Since then, I have been doing a pretty good job of following the advice to basically keep the battery >20%, and <80% as much as possible, and only supercharge when absolutely necessary. It hasn’t really degraded much further at all, if the range estimate can be believed. At the current rate, the suspension and other components seem more likely to fall apart (it was constructed in a hurry, in a tent after all) before the battery hits its EOL. Regardless, I hope to be able to reclaim the degraded cells to use in home energy storage if it is economically viable.
- grecy 2y ago> At the current rate, the suspension and other components seem more likely to fall apart They're trivial to replace when the time comes.
- jeffbee 2y agoThey would be if the makers had the parts widely stocked. One of the issues with Tesla, at least in the past, is they pretended to have nothing to learn from Toyota and Honda, and there just weren't any ball joints, control arms, and wheel bearings on the shelves. Getting your Tesla chassis fixed is a 2-hour job with a 6-month waiting list.
- marcus0x62 2y agoThat’s interesting. I had the upper control arms replaced on my model 3 a few years ago. It was a 1 hour job with a 1 week appointment lead time, and that was because I got a mobile appointment where they came to me.
- lm28469 2y agoAnd much much much cheaper too
- jajko 2y agoCan any service replace them, or only official tesla(tm) one? Is there a healthy ecosystem of original oem parts and good 3rd party ones? I'll never buy a car that a random service cant fix, bmws for example so far seems easy peasy to achieve this, which brings TCO almost down to cheap basic brands.
- miohtama 2y agoThe problem with the battery pack serviceability are proprietary technology and lack of standardisation, making fixing and getting replacement parts hard. Also a lot of closed source software contributes to this. This could change in the future, though.
- gpapilion 2y agoI don’t know this is significantly different than modern engines. They require special tools and software too. The bigger issue I think is most of the cars are teslas, which didn’t behave like a normal automaker for better or worse. For example the work done during the pandemic to avoid supply chain crunches may result in a maintenance headache a few years from now.
- lm28469 2y agoNew cars definitely have the same problem, they're computers on wheels with sensors every where. You can bring a 1980s shit box anywhere and unless it's totalled they'll get it running. For anything build after 2010: good luck. Let's see what happens when you bring your vintage 2012 tesla to a garage in the 2050s I still dream of the US/EU coming up with a standardized set of chassis/engines instead of having dozens of companies independently spending millions trying to solve the same problems Deep down I know all this complexity is needed because it generates a shit ton of money from fake competition, maintenance schedules, parts price gouging, &c. The inefficiency and waste is a feature
- jeffbee 2y agoAt what point would you have standardized this rapidly improving category of product? Would you have frozen the interfaces around the time of the Dodge Intrepid[1]? Perhaps after considering that example you start to see the problem with standardization. You hear the same think about electric bikes, and the argument has the same fatal flaws. Current e-bikes are massively better than what was on the market 3, 5, and 10 years ago. Standardizing them at any point would have been catastrophic, and we must assume that standardization now would also be catastrophic. [1: That said, all cars are converging on the exterior shape of the Intrepid, in a process similar to carcinization among animals. Weird!]
- loudmax 2y agoA point of anecdata: my 2010 Prius has nearly 200,000 miles on it and it's still going strong. The Prius has a traditional lead acid battery for starting the engine that's been replaced a couple of times. The traction batteries (the ones that help push the car forward and are charged from regenerative braking) are the originals.
- pmg101 2y ago2010 Prius traction batteries are NiMH whereas most EV batteries are Li Ion I believe. Which might make a difference or might not, I don't know
- NewJazz 2y agoReminder that Chevron bought some key NiMH patents and used their ownership of those patents to prevent building batteries for cars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_... If those patents hadn't been, or had they been shorter lived, or if antitrust law was more robust, we might have seen a lot more investment in optimizations on and variations of the NiMH chemistry. What a fascinating world I'll never live in.
- Tade0 2y agoI guess part of the reason is that the "M" in "NiMH" stands for Lanthanum - a rare earth element which happens to be used in catalysts facilitating oil refinement. Of course catalysts are consumed slowly, but you still don't want any disturbances in the supply of a key element.
- Rebelgecko 2y agoI know two people who have had battery degradation in their Priuses, but in their case it was just 1 or 2 cells that crapped out, not the whole battery. They were able to fix it themselves, which sounded like the sort of thing that isn't too hard if you're moderately handy
- aaronblohowiak 2y ago> Their report showed that, on average, EV batteries have 90 percent capacity after 100,000 kilometers of driving, and at 300,000 kilometers they still have 87 percent of their original kilowatts left Another example of how KWh is the wrong unit for energy storage — gets so many people confused and they don’t know the difference between storage and power.
- arlcode 2y agoTo people who know me I state the "range" in days to next charge (which I can't do at home). And that seems to be quite relatable if my circumstances are known by the recipient.
- nine_k 2y agoBut this is very dependent on the load, speed, road quality, flat vs hilly landscape, amout of traffic lights, etc.
- zdragnar 2y agoDon't forget climate, which is brutal on battery usage if you live somewhere with four seasons.
- arlcode 2y agoThat is true and therefore only a good measure in my friends and family circles. Many of these characterstics will be shared among us (climate, roads, landscape, charging infrastructure etc). Part of it is getting their thought processes away from "peak requirements" and into the direction of "average everyday" which for me is a more important measure. I wouldn't recommend cars be advertised this way but person to person its quite useful.
- kbutler 2y agoDid you do that with gas cars as well? Any reason why/why not?
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- boznz 2y agoHad a nice XMAS surprise this morning when my model 3 charged to 415KM up from 410KM yesterday, its the first LFP model from Feb 2022 when it was new it reported 431KM dropped to 419KM in the first year then lost another 9KM the next two years. I assume it is some bum-fuckery with the software updates (it dropped 5KM overnight after one a few years back) but at this rate it could be a keeper.
- rad_gruchalski 2y agoWhat is that KM unit? Are you measuring the capacity in distance? If yes, then the unit is wrong. It’s km, not KM.
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- rrr_oh_man 2y ago> charged to 415KM up from 410KM yesterday Maybe you were driving driving 1% more efficiently?
- lawlessone 2y agoGood, because i'm going to drive in to death the same way do my petrol car.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoThe good news is it might not take that long. As an automotive EE that was previously working the Fiat and GM, I can promise you this generation was not ready.
- mikestew 2y agoCare to elaborate, or is "automotive EE" supposed to be enough to just take your word on it? Because TFA has, like, data and shit to back up their assertions.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoTFA is Wired.com, I guess you don’t know any better yet… Studies done by industry partners that are all backed by China… is pretty much as bad as “Volvo (100% Geely Automotive, China) petitioning for EV semis. Do NOT take my word for it. Call your dealerships that sell EVs and ask if they can repair a single bad cell in your out of warranty battery pack. Almost no one will take that work on. It’s actually dangerous and you won’t pay the labor cost. Best case you can buy a used pack from a roll over or other wreck and good luck to you.
- whatever1 2y agoI would never buy a used electric car that is not covered by manufacturer warranty for the battery. It is a ticking bomb with a $30-90k price tag. Also no discounts because nobody repairs batteries.
- knicholes 2y ago$30k-$90k price tag? What electric cars are you talking about?
- whatever1 2y agoTeslas are around 20-40k depending on the model. Kias ~ 40-50k. Germans North of 50k, Mercedes EQS is at 90k.
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- asynchronous 2y agoThis confirms you are just spouting numbers, half the Tesla lineup MSRPs under $40k and I’ve seen battery replacement bills regularly in the $6k range. Continue being mad and misinformed.
- whatever1 2y agoThe values I mentioned are from either from my quote or from people in my direct cycle. Unfortunately ,none of the companies is publicizing their prices so you have to take mine and the rest of redditors word for it. A quick google search corroborates my numbers, if Google is to be trusted.
- knicholes 2y agoI don't get how it could cost more to replace the battery than to buy an entirely new car that also has a new battery. I bought my Nissan Leaf for $13.5k after a lease.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoAutomotive engineer. This is 100% BS. >But there is growing indication that EV batteries are much sturdier than those in smartphones. Just for starters, you don’t tend to recharge your EV every day like your handset. I want to reach through the screen and strangle someone. This type of article is written by someone pushing for EVs (hey China) or who has bought one. Reality check… a bad battery on your own after an expired warranty will likely total your vehicle. Read that a few times. I have in my shop a Fiat 500e. To pull the battery, you need to pull and disassemble the entire rear end suspension, just to access the battery. Once you do that, you are rewarded with 600lb pain in the ass. Disconnect the electrical and cooling lines, you can pull it down and open it. You are greeted with 400V or so of more pain. Need composite tools, 1000V gloves, and if you were to say fall on it, you may die. Remind me how many systems in an ICE vehicle will kill a mechanic? You can get to each cell to replace them; but no one will sell you one. So best you can do is to buy a used one; run your chances. And in order to charge these Samsung cells, good luck there too, since there is no single cell charger you can buy. You might be able to trickle charge to 3.5V… reverse this to re-assemble, plan to pay more than the vehicle is worth. Here is the hard fact… ready? These vehicles are disposable. I love EV for its real purpose, a second vehicle for town/city. It was a mistake to market them as ready to roll only vehicles.
- asynchronous 2y ago> Fiat 500e Maybe buy a Tesla next time?
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoTell me what you think is different in the Tesla vs GM vs Fiat. It’s Samsung cells when you get down to it.
- asynchronous 2y agoA million different pieces of engineering, primarily, that the battery is designed to be much easier to replace than disassembling the entire car like the Fiat is.
- davedunkin 2y agoRelated article and discussion from last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228901
- qwertox 2y agoAre these testing companies really independent? One is a company from Southwest Germany and the other one Swiss. In Germany, the sales of EV vehicles have not picked up, people are buying petrol engines again, due to the perceived lack of reliability of EV vehicles and its resale value. P3's portfolio reads more like the place where companies like BMW, Mercedes and VW would request a one-stop-shop package to make EVs look attractive. Nothing hints at them being experts in EVs. [0] https://www.p3-group.com/en/portfolio/ https://www.p3-group.com/en/portfolio/
- MoreMoore 2y agoEVs are just ridiculously expensive, the charging network coverage isn't great, the percentage of single home owners is comparatively low compared to renters of apartments (where there are no charging options), and the government keeps fucking around with the tax credits and rebates. I'm not sure why the perceived reliability outweighs any of these issues.
- thebruce87m 2y ago> EVs are just ridiculously expensive What are you basing this on? A Model 3 is around the median price of a new vehicle in 3 places I just checked - USA, Germany and UK.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoThis strongly hints at it: https://www.p3-group.com/en/p3-experte/electric-powertrain/ https://www.p3-group.com/en/p3-experte/electric-powertrain/ The way they introduced and describe it is weird though.
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- BLKNSLVR 2y agoMore anecdata: I recently bought a 2014 Nissan Leaf (to dip my toes into the EV world) and it's range is about 120km, down from the originally advertised ~135km. So in 10 years the distance capacity has degraded by 11%. Further info: In deciding to buy an electric car we looked at our driving usage patterns, and almost 100% of our regular car trips are less than 50km. It was also going to be the third car for the family since we've got a newly licensed member. We've only had it a couple of months, but it's been perfect so far. It's already everyone's preferred vehicle.
- apelapan 2y agoNissan Leaves are supposedly notorious for having the worst battery longevitey of all EV:s, as they didn't include any thermal management at all in the first generation design. I was researching them for a second car some years ago, and already then it seemed like many had lost almost half the range after 150kkm or so. That according to what people wrote in the ads when trying to sell them, so I assume it was not an overly pessimistic view. :-) Congratulations on snagging one with excellent battery health. Perhaps your car spent its life in a very friendly climate, where the battery never got either hot nor cold? Edit: For the record I've driven a few of them over the years and found them excellent A-to-B transport devices. Boring, but great.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoAfter my WRX, which was garaged six years ago, all our current cars are boring. I actually find the Leaf a bit more interesting in that it has pretty good pickup when you turn off Eco mode; very nice off the line for what looks like a granny car. The last X years, I've only ever driven with the purpose of getting from A to B, not "for the sake of the drive", so that adds some context to where my opinion comes from. The place I bought the Leaf from imports them from a Japan, so I assume he's fairly selective in choosing which ones to bring across. He also said that the Nissan themselves were expecting shorter life from the batteries than what ended up occurring - along the lines of setting up battery recycling / refurbishment / repurposing facilities. I'm actually considering getting a newer model (ZE1, 2018+) to replace one of the other ICE cars, but two months isn't enough time to form a definitive opinion. I think the newer model has options for Vehicle-to-X charging, which makes things interesting. But I'm probably getting way ahead of myself.
- Tade0 2y agoThere's an interesting new development in the world of batteries. Turns out single-crystal electrode batteries are particularly durable, which was confirmed after tests lasting six years: https://www.dal.ca/news/media/media-releases/2024/12/18/media_opportunity__new_lithium_ion_battery_material_for_evs_and_studied_by_dalhousie_university_lasts_for_10_times_more_charge_discharge_cycles_compared_to_a_conventional_battery__potentially_powering_cars_for_eight_million_kilometres.html https://www.dal.ca/news/media/media-releases/2024/12/18/medi... Money quote: They found it lasted more than 20,000 cycles before it hit the 80 per cent capacity cut-off. That translates to driving a whopping eight million kilometres. This lab has ties with Tesla, so we can expect to see such batteries in their offerings eventually. My bet is stationary storage will be their first application as any capacity thrown at it will be charged/discharged on a daily basis if its levelized cost in low enough.