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Cont: Electric Vehicles II

When my car had its 2-year service earlier this month the stealer tried to tell me it needed new brake pads and discs all round. At that point they were talking about corrosion, which is an issue with lightly-used EV brakes, but if the car needs completely new brakes after only two years and 20,000 miles there's something very wrong with it.

Obviously I got a second opinion from the mechanic in the village who has looked after my petrol cars since 2007. Nothing wrong with these brakes that stripping down and cleaning off won't fix. When I told the dealer this (I had to go back because they didn't complete all the work at the first visit I was told "your brakes are nearly 100% worn!" Which was obviously a flat-out lie. Be warned.
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Batteries are getting cheaper $1400/kwh in 2010, new battery announced at $10/kwh
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That is astonishing. I do disagree with him regarding one thing - and that his view that only the rich will still use non-electric vehicles and that the rest of us will use electric because is so much cheaper. That won't be the case, the poor will be forced to continue to use ICE vehicles, why? Because of charging them. When you live in a HMO - and often an illegal over capacity HMO how do you charge the electric vehicle? There are already issues with people with no driveway having to run cables into the street.
 
Yes, I think you're right, but his argument wasn't rich vs poor, rather it was "really rich" vs "ordinary, hard working". He wasn't considering people who never buy new cars. There will be a long tail of the last generations of ICE cars making their way down the 2nd, 3rd, 4th owner ladder. People who buy £1,000 cars and run them into the ground won't buy a new electric car just because the price drops from £25,000 to £18,000. Even if the running costs are tiny, the price of entry is daunting.

As these cheaper EVs age and used prices fall, the ICE cars will gradually disappear.
 
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There are already used EVs on the market for under £5,000. I saw a twin to my own car, 2023 model with 35,000 miles on the clock, on sale for under £12,000. Given the greater reliability and durability of EVs, and the much lower maintenance costs, I don't think it will take all that long for them to become popular with the "buy the cheapest old banger I can find and run it into the ground" demographic.
 
Rolfe said:
There are already used EVs on the market for under £5,000. I saw a twin to my own car, 2023 model with 35,000 miles on the clock, on sale for under £12,000. Given the greater reliability and durability of EVs, and the much lower maintenance costs, I don't think it will take all that long for them to become popular with the "buy the cheapest old banger I can find and run it into the ground" demographic.
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It makes sense but there may be a couple of barriers to this.

As Darat points out, many people may not have easy access to cost effective charging. This will likely improve rapidly as EV take-up improves.

There are thousands of cheap garages who can work on ICE vehicles while EV maintenance is carried out by main dealers and a handful of specialists. This too will likely change over time unless the costs are prohibitive.
 
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The Don said:
It makes sense but there may be a couple of barriers to this.

As Darat points out, many people may not have easy access to cost effective charging. This will likely improve rapidly as EV take-up improves.

There are thousands of cheap garages who can work on ICE vehicles while EV maintenance is carried out by main dealers and a handful of specialists. This too will likely change over time unless the costs are prohibitive.
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it'll be interesting, as far as repairs and maintenance, to see how that will go. in many ways ice and ev vehicles are similar. as far as the mechanics of the engine, the ev is much more simple. electric motors are much less mechanically complex than ice engines when it comes to how the thing makes the rotational force, there's simply fewer moving parts. which is good, for reliability and simplicity. but i think there's a level of electronics, programming, and communications that isn't present in the mechanical systems. wtih that comes a proprietary software aspect, and questions of how much and even whether or not ev companies will give you the necessary access to do certain maintenance and repair tasks.

that's certainly true in the industrial world. with many oem manufacturers, if you don't have certain software packages, which require purchase and licensing, you're simply not going to have the necessary access to the electronics to make certain repairs.
 
dirtywick said:
i think there's a level of electronics, programming, and communications that isn't present in the mechanical systems
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I think you may be underestimating how much electronic controls ICE cars have these days; not only for controlling the engine, but for collision avoidance, smart cruise control, automatic wipers and headlights, and so on. One of the reasons I traded in my diesel car for an EV was that some sensors had failed. Nothing that actually made the car work, but sensors that monitored how well it was working.
 
zooterkin said:
I think you may be underestimating how much electronic controls ICE cars have these days; not only for controlling the engine, but for collision avoidance, smart cruise control, automatic wipers and headlights, and so on. One of the reasons I traded in my diesel car for an EV was that some sensors had failed. Nothing that actually made the car work, but sensors that monitored how well it was working.
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well, not really. they do have quite a few more electronic controls than the past and they suffer from many of the same issues in some areas, but mechanical linkages and couplings and internal parts are what they are, and can be replaced freely with the physical part. whether it's aftermarket or oem. much of what an ev makes up in mechanical simplicity is handled by electronics and software out of necessity, which can require these licensed and copyrighted programs to install and function regardless of whether or not you physically install the part yourself. this can be a massive barrier obviously to a much greater extent with a machine that relies on electronics and software to a much greater extent
 
dirtywick said:
well, not really. they do have quite a few more electronic controls than the past and they suffer from many of the same issues in some areas, but mechanical linkages and couplings and internal parts are what they are, and can be replaced freely with the physical part. whether it's aftermarket or oem. much of what an ev makes up in mechanical simplicity is handled by electronics and software out of necessity, which can require these licensed and copyrighted programs to install and function regardless of whether or not you physically install the part yourself. this can be a massive barrier obviously to a much greater extent with a machine that relies on electronics and software to a much greater extent
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I think it's true about what is, but not so much about what must be. There's plenty of proprietary software in the various modules of a modern ICE car, but once in they're complete, and when they break they can be replaced. It's not entirely necessary for an electric car to stay networked and connected and subject to continuous updates and revisions. I doubt that will change in the future, but I think it should be theoretically possible to design an electric car that goes off grid completely forever.
 
bruto said:
I think it's true about what is, but not so much about what must be. There's plenty of proprietary software in the various modules of a modern ICE car, but once in they're complete, and when they break they can be replaced. It's not entirely necessary for an electric car to stay networked and connected and subject to continuous updates and revisions. I doubt that will change in the future, but I think it should be theoretically possible to design an electric car that goes off grid completely forever.
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i agree, it doesn't have to be that way. it's what i find interesting, whether or not they'll take a more end user friendly approach as they lean harder into electronics over mechanical
 
I'm already seeing posters locally advertising "electric cars serviced and repaired". As noted earlier, 10 and 12 year old Leafs are proving very popular either as local-only runabouts (I saw a YouTube video recently where someone bought "the cheapest EV there is", which turned out to be an elderly Leaf, did the minor repairs necessary, and sold it to someone who simply wanted a car to go back and forward to his work 15 miles away) or with replacement batteries as all-round cars. A speaker at the Everything Electric show last year declared that after the apocalypse all that will be left will be cockroaches and Nissan Leafs.

Nobody cares about the most up to date software in these cars. And as an aside, techie MG4 owners even now are doing their own software updates with USB sticks. For the most part these things are cars, and tyres, brakes, suspension, bodywork and so on can be maintained and repaired by anyone. The motor and drive train hardly ever go wrong and aren't either difficult or expensive to repair. Specialist firms are already offering battery repairs and updrading.

I think it won't be all that long before EV maintenance and repair, using specialist companies as necessary for the high-voltage components, will be just as simple and just as common as with ICE cars. And given that this is going to be generally cheaper than with all the intricacies of the ICE, it will catch on faster than some people think.
 
The fancy electronics and software are often shared among all the cars (ICE, hybrid, and EV) from a single manufacturer. So as those things are more complicated and iften require special tools and software, we will see more repair places specializing in servicing specific brands.

When I had a BMW i3, I learned about a local shop that handled repairs and upgrades for BMW owners around the country. Some services they offered were done remotely. They would send a device that you connected to the car's OBD2 which they would talk to via a connection to your phone.
 
fyi when i say programs and software, it's more about firmware and addressing and things of that nature, like software required for the components to function, than software updates and things of that nature.
 
See this video, which is made by a firm that specialises in EV repair and maintenance.


They bought this car with over 200,000 miles on it, that had been used as a taxi. Everything that needs doing is just bits of car. The rear seat cushion, a couple of door seals, a sun visor, bits like that. Even the gear mount thing and the charging port cover don't involve the high voltage system. Given that the battery, motor and drive train are unlikely to be the issue in a second-hand car, I can see lots of people tackling this sort of job for themselves. They got the parts from a breaker's yard for less than £200 all in.

I think this is far less taxing than messing around with an ICE with a similar history.
 
I expect that as electric cars become more prevalent, mechanics may end up specializing in a narrower range of fields, but things will not change all that much. As it is now, the best current ICE cars' engines and transmissions are likely to outlast the rest of the car here in rusty New England. My last two Jeep Cherokees, and my last Mercedes diesel, all went far beyond 250 thousand miles with purring engines and fatal rust. But as electric cars become more prevalent, I'd expect more high milers, with a boom in used parts, and a subsidiary industry of battery rebuilding and replacement. I'm just guessing here, but I wouldn't be surprised if electrics get more service when old, in part because although some things like a new battery might cost a great deal, it will be possible to replace them quickly and with less labor. Problems that might send today's car to the junkyard may not in the future.

As it is now, if the hydraulic variable cam timing thingamabob in your Volvo goes bad, the relatively inexpensive part will cost you thousands in labor to replace, probably take some time to order, and days of engine disassembly and reassembly, and oh by the way a bucket of new bolts and gaskets and fluids and so forth, oh and we couldn't get the rusty exhaust apart without sawing it off, etc. etc. On your electric car, the motor conks out and a new one will cost a bundle but they'll be able to install it in an afternoon, and you'll probably get a core allowance on the old one.
 
i agree, every vehicle i’ve ever owned has rusted out before the engine fails
 
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