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0 points_hypx2y ago0 comments

That's a lot of wishful thinking. Certainly, in places like California and Europe, they're much higher than they can be justified. Gas taxes feed into the general fund instead.

Maintenance costs are just marketing. The moment you factor in battery replacement costs, the advantage collapses. BEV companies just pretend this never happens.

Catalytic convertor theft is not that common. This is more wishful thinking.

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theshrike792y ago

Do you factor in timing belt costs, clutch costs, oil changes and a full engine overhaul cost to the ICE side?

Very very few EV batteries actually need replacing. We have statistics from Nissan and Tesla from over a decade ago and even those ancient batteries have performed better than expected, retaining 80%+ of capacity.

Newer batteries are better.

_hypxOP2y ago

This isn't the 1970s anymore. Very few cars have major repair costs from engine problems. People are just creating an elaborate narrative of cost savings.

Insurance cost data doesn't seem to bore this out. BEVs have pretty decent maintenance costs.

theshrike792y ago

Before switching to hybrids, I literally spend thousands of euros fixing my VW diesel that was worth maybe 10k€.

The dual-mass flywheel broke, that was 1k€. Had to do a clutch repair at the same time, 700€. The turbo started acting up, that was around a grand with all the labour. When the turbo was fixed, it clogged the already close to full diesel particulate filter. That would've been 2000€ to replace, but I knew a guy who just emptied the casing and modded the software on the car to think it was still there.

Finally a tiny hexagonal thing at the bottom of the engine broke, which prevented any oil from circulating in the engine. That would've been a 2000€ operation. Had my guy do a quick patch job with some bonding agent, sold the car.

...and that's on top of the normal wear and tear + yearly oil changes etc.

The car was under 10 years old at the time and 90% of the problems were issues with the overly complex drivetrain with thousands of moving parts, instead of just one like with electric engines.

On the hybrids I owned all the issues were in the combustion engine. On my current EV all the problems are unrelated to the drivetrain - currently the AC can't hold its coolant for more than 6 months, haven't found the leak yet.

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theshrike792y ago

Do you factor in timing belt costs, clutch costs, oil changes and a full engine overhaul cost to the ICE side?

Newer batteries are better.

_hypxOP2y ago

This isn't the 1970s anymore. Very few cars have major repair costs from engine problems. People are just creating an elaborate narrative of cost savings.

Insurance cost data doesn't seem to bore this out. BEVs have pretty decent maintenance costs.

theshrike792y ago

Before switching to hybrids, I literally spend thousands of euros fixing my VW diesel that was worth maybe 10k€.

...and that's on top of the normal wear and tear + yearly oil changes etc.

The car was under 10 years old at the time and 90% of the problems were issues with the overly complex drivetrain with thousands of moving parts, instead of just one like with electric engines.

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