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Cont: Electric Vehicles II

Rolfe said:
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.
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2019 Tesla Model 3, 230 000km, still original brakes.

2021 Tesla Model Y, 280 000km, still original brakes.

Whenever I take them in for service, I do some hard brakes in the days before. It removes all surface corrosion from the brakes.
 
The Don said:
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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Most maintenance on EVs can still be done by the local garage. Suspensions and brakes, mostly. What other maintenance does it need?

Of course, a lot less maintenance will be required, which will hurt the garages. There's not a lot of money in maintaining EVs. Most non-Tesla dealerships have already figured this out, requiring regular service intervals on the cars to keep the warranty even though it's not neccesary.
 
I drive my brother's 2018 Model 3. Both of us make full use of the regenerative braking, so I think the rotors and pads will last the life of the car. When the car is kept in the garage for a few days, the pads break free of the rotor with a crunching sound when pulling out in reverse.
 
Ryokan said:
Most maintenance on EVs can still be done by the local garage. Suspensions and brakes, mostly. What other maintenance does it need?

Of course, a lot less maintenance will be required, which will hurt the garages. There's not a lot of money in maintaining EVs. Most non-Tesla dealerships have already figured this out, requiring regular service intervals on the cars to keep the warranty even though it's not neccesary.
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Maybe it's an education thing. Our local garages won't touch Mrs Don's EV.
 
Ryokan said:
2019 Tesla Model 3, 230 000km, still original brakes.

2021 Tesla Model Y, 280 000km, still original brakes.

Whenever I take them in for service, I do some hard brakes in the days before. It removes all surface corrosion from the brakes.
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I did that  after the issue with the dealer but before I took the car into my local garage to be checked out. He still said, well, since I've got the wheels off anyway (he was changing the tyres), the brakes could do with stripping down and cleaning off. I think Tesla brakes might be slightly better quality than MG.

Ryokan said:
Most maintenance on EVs can still be done by the local garage. Suspensions and brakes, mostly. What other maintenance does it need?

Of course, a lot less maintenance will be required, which will hurt the garages. There's not a lot of money in maintaining EVs. Most non-Tesla dealerships have already figured this out, requiring regular service intervals on the cars to keep the warranty even though it's not neccesary.
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Exactly. Most of what needs doing is just basic car stuff. I still have to jump through a dealer's hoops once a year to keep the warranty going and get the software updated, but anything else goes to the local garage. He doesn't deal with the high voltage stuff - yet - but I still see quite a few EVs going in and out of there.
 
EV owners should not forget about brake fluid. With other brake components lasting so long, the brake fluid is less likely to get checked and more likely to be overlooked when it should be replaced.

My previous EV required the brake fluid to be replaced every 12 months. Being an early EV, I think BMW was being very conservative.

Fortunately, my new one car requires it just once every 48 months.
 
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I'm not sure how often mine is supposed to be done, but at least that's something actually useful I'm getting for the mostly pointless "servicing".
 
The Don said:
Maybe it's an education thing. Our local garages won't touch Mrs Don's EV.
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They're definitely missing a trick there, and they may find they have to reconsider this. Brakes, tyres, suspension, bodywork repairs, 12v battery issues, aircon are all pretty much the same as in an ICE car. They're losing out on potential business. Even the reduction gearbox and so on don't need any messing with the high-voltage system and could easily be maintained by an ordinary garage who took the trouble to figure it out.
 
The issue in some cases may not be education but liability and warranty issues. If getting out of network service threatens a warranty or the independent garage fears liability for issues related to the complex monitoring systems, they'll steer clear even if the work itself is simple and familiar.
 
It's the law here that manufacturers can't insist on dealers being used for service so long as the independent garage does it right and uses the correct parts. However, I'm not talking about "servicing" or indeed warranty repairs, I'm talking about ordinary car stuff, and how people who get an elderly (and probably out of warranty) EV would find themselves perfectly well served for most purposes by an ordinary garage.

Refusing to touch EVs at all seems remarkably cut-me-own-throat these days.
 
Rolfe said:
They're definitely missing a trick there, and they may find they have to reconsider this. Brakes, tyres, suspension, bodywork repairs, 12v battery issues, aircon are all pretty much the same as in an ICE car. They're losing out on potential business. Even the reduction gearbox and so on don't need any messing with the high-voltage system and could easily be maintained by an ordinary garage who took the trouble to figure it out.
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You're almost certainly right and as the number of EVs grow, especially older ones whose owners don't want to pay maintenance dealer prices and don't have warranties to protect, then they may step in.

Mrs Don's car had its first MOT test in April. We had to go to the main dealer in Bristol because none of the local MOT testing stations were comfortable doing it.

I expect this will change.
 
Rolfe said:
Exactly. Most of what needs doing is just basic car stuff. I still have to jump through a dealer's hoops once a year to keep the warranty going and get the software updated, but anything else goes to the local garage. He doesn't deal with the high voltage stuff - yet - but I still see quite a few EVs going in and out of there.
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Why doesn't the software update via wifi? Tesla does it that way in the USA.
 
Here in Vermont we have annual inspections that include electronic testing via the standardized OBD port, and I think that Federal regulations require manufacturers to make the outputs pretty standard. So at least any code that the inspectors require must be in the right format.

A while ago I would have been confident that this trend would continue into the electric car era, with Federal regulations continuing to break the monopolistic hold of manufacturers, but with our current leadership, all bets are off.
 
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Ranb said:
Why doesn't the software update via wifi? Tesla does it that way in the USA.
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Over-the-air software updates are done using cellular phone networks, not Wi-Fi.

I think all of the software in a Tesla can be updated over the air, but for most cars that isn't the case.

There may be concerns about security and what happens when an update fails, so other makers don't update critical systems over the air. My car, for example, receives updates to the navigation and entertainment system over the air, but updates to the software that actually controls the car have to be installed by the dealer.

By the time a car's warranty ends, one would hope that any critical issues with the car's software would have already been addressed so that no further updates would be required. So that may not be a real issue for independent repair shops. Or they could do like the BMW shop that I mentioned earlier and buy, borrow, steal, or reverse engineer the manufacturer's software tools for doing updates.

I said earlier that I thought we might see more specialized shops, but I have reconsidered. Cars are complex enough now that mechanics are really technicians that use online services to guide them on how to work on specific cars.

Outside of the software, I don't think working on EVs will be much different for repair shops. When you bring your car in, they will follow diagnostic steps to figure out what's wrong and produce an estimate. Then they will follow the repair steps to fix the issue.

Parts that can't be fixed, can be replaced. Specialized places can repair or recycle the used parts. That's not something new.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Teslas use Wi-Fi, not cellular, for software updates.
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Yes, I was wrong to say that they only use cellular. But they can and do receive critical updates by cellular.

It wasn't an unreasonable mistake. Using Wi-Fi seems silly. I guess it is just a way for them to save on data costs.
 
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I think I'm going to build my own electric car. My neighbor is in the process of building one. He just purchased a used 600 hp electric motor from a wrecked Tesla.
 
acbytesla said:
I think I'm going to build my own electric car. My neighbor is in the process of building one. He just purchased a used 600 hp electric motor from a wrecked Tesla.
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At a Maker Faire a few years ago, several people were showing off their home-built electric conversations. They weren't getting the range or performance of modern EVs, but most people don't need 300hp and don't drive more than 30 or 40 miles a day. And it is pretty cool seeing a classic VW Bus or whatever powered by an electric motor.

I wonder what it would take to convert our Mustang to electric? Sacrilege, I know, but Ford started it!
 
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