New German research shows EVs break down at less than half the rate of combustion engine cars.
New German research shows EVs break down at less than half the rate of combustion engine cars.
Der ADAC verrät, welche Autos am häufigsten liegen geblieben sind – und wie Elektroautos abgeschnitten haben.
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in the currently evaluated year 2023 the battery accounts for 44.1 percent of breakdowns
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3-10 year old combustion cars vs electric cars only having enough registered models to start observing their reliability in 2021
I'm very excited by the prospect of aftermarket batteries with better technology. This doesn't get discussed super often, but as an owner of a gen 1 leaf with an aging battery, I've very excited by this.
To sum up the premise: volts are volts and watts are watts. So long as can get something with a comparable battery controller into the right size and shape and space, its basically arbitrary what technology is making the angry pixies go from - to +.
This opens the door for range improvements to much older EV's.
volts are volts and watts are watts
If you tell me this while I work on electrical problem on these vehicles I'll shit yourself.
My shop spent a month yelling at our parts because they said "the alternator has the same electrical requirement. Why wouldn't it work?" We put it in, and it didn't work. Wow crazy! Did you know signals are just pulses. These shit ass companies can make it so if you use anything but proprietary garbage it just won't work.
I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at Ford once again being your typical company.
They already have third-party batteries for ebikes as well as battery repacking services for proprietary batteries.
Hopefully, such services come for cars, assuming we get comprehensive R2R for cars and bikes.
Some ebikes have proprietary stuff like proprietary motors, spokes, and batteries.
they explicitly only compared cars of the same ages, so only 3-4 years for both EV and gas powered
A total of 156 vehicle series from around 20 car brands were evaluated in the current breakdown statistics. All breakdowns during 2023 that affected vehicles between three and ten years old (first registered from 2014 to 2021) were taken into account. In order to be used statistically, the series must have at least 7,000 registrations in two years . If this requirement is met, all vehicle model years with at least 5,000 registrations will be displayed.
For context they seem to be specifically referencing the 12V "starter" battery not the HV battery used for the traction drive in EVs with that 44.1% figure. Additionally this figure seems to include all vehicles in the statistic, so some part of that is contributed by ICE vehicles.
Every single time my ICE car broke down, it was the 12V battery.
Comments like yours are why I'm trained to not bother reading the articles.
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I own a 2018 Nissan Leaf (40kwh). Zero issues, knock on wood. The only maintenance thus far, replace the brake fluid, replace the cabin air filter and before last winter, I decided to mount the Bridgestone Weatherpeak (All Weather) tires. The battery is still 100%. There are less parts involved and no emission control components that a re prone to failure.
I have a 2017 Tesla Model S (100kwh). I had my first maintenance issue this year. The 12v battery needed replacing (it runs the aux systems, just like an ICE vehicle) but didn’t keep me from driving while it was sending the error code. 107k miles and it’s mostly been wiper fluid, wiper blades, and 2 tire changes. I need to replace my windshield, but electrically and mechanically speaking… no major issues.
With how often I read about Teslas falling apart, I kinda wonder if most of the breakdowns are just from those pieces of shit.
If the article says, lemme know. I can't read German.
I could only find the Model 3 in their statistic.
- Year of registration: Breakdowns per 1000 vehicles
- 2021: 1.0
- 2020: 1.3
- 2019: 4.0
The best value for 2021 is 0.8 by the Audi A4 and A5, whilst the worst is the Toyota RAV4 with 17.6.
Overall they rank the Model 3 with "very low" and "low" rate of failure.
Granted these cars are still pretty young so who knows what that figure will look like in 5 or 10 years.
With how often I read about Teslas falling apart
Teslas have one of the highest owner satisfactions. I know a lot of people who have them and not a single one of them has ever told me a major complaint.
They arent the garbage cars you are being tricked into believing they are. It's just that some people hate (for good reason) musk, so every failure they can link to him is going to be posted here.
So you're mistaking hearing about it more with it actually happening more.
Reminds me of the Ohio train derailment...all of a sudden train derailments were front and center and every one of them was being posted to reddit...and then plenty of people thinking that means it was happening way more.
The media currently loves shitting on Tesla because Elon is a dick. The cars aren’t bad and a lot of the issues you hear about were early iteration problems that happen to all hardware manufacturers… that’s why you see a lot of the legacy auto brands backing off production despite the actual sales and adoption numbers. I wouldn’t buy a cybertruck for a few years, but most of their other cars are mature enough to be good purchases that save money over the life of the purchase.
I have a 2017 model s with 107k miles on it that I haven’t had any major issues with. I’ll never go back to an ICE vehicle and am waiting on a good electric motorcycle to hit the market.
Teslas have one of the highest owner satisfactions.
Well, they're excellent dick substitutes. Most of the gearheads I talk to find them to be kinda janky just as a car.
I don't actually have hard data or personal experience either, but any luxury product is going to get great reviews from owners, so that's not much of a help.
Doesn't say from what I understand. It's a short article with a simple point to make. Very German.
Consider what a disservice BMW is doing to the ICE side of the statistics!
The logical follow on from this is that EV owners should have cheaper car insurance. With far fewer moving parts they will also have much cheaper maintenance costs. Added to that EVs are cheaper to buy. China has reached the point where 50% of new car sales are EVs much quicker than anyone expected. Most people thought that was years away, but we're already there. How soon before people start talking about a "death spiral" when it comes to gasoline cars?
Relevant Data
Per 1,000 vehicles of 3 year old cars
ICE 6.4
BEV 2.8
The ADAC even noted a growing lead for electric cars in recent years. The analysis was based on the more than 3.5 million call-outs made by ADAC breakdown services last year
EVs are cheaper to buy.
I don't undestand this. My ICE car cost 10k euros in France. Most EVs have a price around 40k. How is it cheaper?
Citroen Ami starts from €8k https://www.citroen.fr/ami
Look the prices of Dacia and MG.
If you just look at sticker price, it seems dumb to think of buying an ev. Think about all of the money you spend on top of that 10k initial purchase for an ice vehicle for maintenance and energy. Add up all of the expense associated with the car over the amount of time you use it. Now look at all of the cost associated with an EV. If the cost of the ice vehicle is less, buy that. If not, buy an ev.
I’ve saved around 2-3k a year on gas alone since I bought my ev. My electric rates are less than a third of what I was spending on gas. Never have to change the oil or flush a radiator either. If I drive it for around 1 more years, I’ll be saving money on the total purchase. If I drive it another 8 years, I’ll have saved more money than the total cost of the vehicle.
It’s all dependent on how much you buy it for, the tax incentives you can get, how much you drive, and where you can charge on whether it’s right for you. It’s not right for some and is a no-brainer for others.
Car insurance doesn't cover breakdowns. EVs are expensive to repair right now.
EVs are expensive to repair right now.
Citation please. I have an EV and a gas powered truck. My truck is a hole in my wallet that bleeds money. In the entirety of the time that I've had my EV, I've had to.. get the breaks done.
Same manufacturer (Nissan), same-ish years.
Also have you had an ICE vehicle repaired recently? They too are extremely expensive to be worked on.
You must have shite car insurance 😂
Insurance has nothing to do with maintenance.
The logical follow on from this is that EV owners should have cheaper car insurance.
Yet I see a future where EVs will account for a rise in T-bone accidents. You are saved from red light runners more often because ICE have a slower acceleration. Now imagine everyone has an EV with massive acceleration from a stop. We will see many more people being hit by red light runners.
Are you saying the victims increased takeoff speed will increase their chance to be struck by someone running a red light?
My understanding is that most the time someone runs a red light, they didnt stop first and then accelerate at top speed through it before it turned green. I could be wrong about that though
Does your insurance pay for maintenance?
I'm sure they'll find a way to make them last exactly the length of the warranty, or come up with some bullshit regular maintenance that's required.
Google translated English version of that web page / article.
All this tells is car producer haven't reached peak profit yet. As with every product in capitalist humanity, they'll now tweak the quality to be in line with the combustion engine cars. Anyone remember the story about light bulbs? How they'd last almost forever, but it was secretly decided that this is bad, as customers would never need to buy a new one, so they intentionally made them worse. eCars are still too new, so they are not daring enough yet.
Edit: thanks for the comments who backed me up.
Anyone remember the story about light bulbs? How they'd last almost forever, but it was secretly decided that this is bad, as customers would never need to buy a new one, so they intentionally made them worse.
WTF are you smoking? I think I've replaced 1 led bulb since switching to them 10 years ago.
As far as I know he's talking about the old filament bulbs. And it's actually a myth or at least a bad example of planned obsolescence. It is possible to make a light bulb that lasts virtually forever, but they would be expensive. It was a compromise between lifetime and production costs.
And where do you get those led bulbs? Mine break all the time...
It's called planned obsolescence and is a well known aspect of modern product design, no conspiracies required.
Leds bulbs are definitely made to be break in a few 1000 hours. They push them to their max specs so they don't last as long. But this way of course they sell more, no one wants to sell a bulb that lasts 10 years of continuous use.
If you're buying cheap Chinese shit from a supermarket, then yes. But even my IKEA LED bulbs are in their 8 year without a sign of degradation.
LEDs don't fail, cheap Chinese LED drivers do. Because they're utter shit and a fire hazard.
As always, dependa what you buy. Initially, LED lamps were advertised as lasting 25 years, but nowadays you have much cheaper lamps, and more expensive ones.
GP is actually not totally wrong. The crappy light bulbs of the EVs is called Tesla.
The light bulbs being designed to fail is a myth. Light bulbs can last theoretically forever but when they are extremely dim. Ever seen the centennial light? You need to view it in a darkened room because it produces almost no visible light. The lifespan of a lightbulb is a function of the required brightness and power consumption.
New observative research says that you won't fit the tools needed to fix your EV on the roadside inside your EV.
My last breakdown was when all the transmission fluid in my car drained out because the mechanic that did my tuneup didn’t replace the drain plug properly. What tools should I carry in my car to do a complete transmission replacement while on the side of the highway?
Realistically, the only roadside repair the average ICE car comes equipped to do is a tire change. In that regard, EVs are on par with ICE vehicles as far as "roadside repairability" goes.
When was the last time you fixed your turbos roadside?
Why would you need to carry the tools when they breakdown half as often?
If you look at the statistics other than lightning which is skewed because it includes bulb failures, the top failures aren't really stuff you want to be doing on the side of the road.
lol. I’m sure you carry a spare ECU in the trunk, right? Along with all the tools to replace it.
Do you carry a fab in your vehicle to reproduce failed electronic parts? How exactly do you fix a broken control arm with tools?
Combustion engines are super complex. They have tons of parts that move and rub together causing lots of issues. Electric cars have electric motors that use magnets and very few parts. Leaving less to break.
I mean it makes perfect sense. EVs have a lot less moving parts that wear down
Why? Less parts less problems.
EVs are generally much never vehicles than the average combustion driven.
It should be impressive if they broke down more often
They only compared vehicles of the same age.