this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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[Dormant] Electric Vehicles
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Hybrids have all the maintenance cost of ICE vehicles and twice as many drivetrain components to break. The extra cost to keep a hybrid on the road easily cancels out the gas savings.
Buy an EV and you have a simple drive train that will rarely break and has no maintenance.
Except not.
Prius is one of the most reliable vehicles of the past 20 years with the lowest total-cost-of-ownership. Literally one of the best and most reliable vehicles ever made.
Seriously, look at the stats before echoing bullshit that over-zealous EV fans have told themselves. The least reliable component in all of these vehicles is the battery pack, always has been.
I’ve worked as an automotive technician for about 20 years and 8 of them were as a Toyota tech. The Prius was not a reliable vehicle.
How could the Prius possibly have a lower total-cost-of-ownership than an EV? That statement wreaks of bs. EVs don’t leak engine oil or transmission fluid or coolant or need spark plugs or timing belts or fuel filters or air filters or transmission filters and on and on… or even gas.
Regular maintenance on ICE cars is relatively low. The fluids, belts, and filters are fairly cheap and should be sparsely-needed throughout the normal lifespan of a car. The high number of Prius you saw in the shop is merely due to the popularity of the car (most go over 200k miles and many last 250k-300k). Its counterintuitive. If they weren't dependable, you wouldn't see them getting maintained (because they would be in a scrapyard).
Relatively low compared to what? Because we are comparing them to EVs which dont need any of the fluids, filtersseals, gaskets or belts that gas engines need or transmissions or differentials for that matter.
You’re comparing spending money on maintenance to not spending money on maintenance and saying the cost is low. Wtf?
I’m not saying Prius is unreliable because of my personal experience. I’m saying it because of all the common failures that it has documented on a site called Identifix, a site mechanics use to track pattern failures on vehicles.
I gotcha. I absolutely agree EVs should have a lower maintenance cost vs. ICE and hybrids. I'm kinda off-topic (if you are just focusing on maintenace costs).
The real costs-of-ownership working against EV's are high depreciation and battery failures (very rare). I'd like to see comparisons between how often conventional motors and transmissions fail vs. EV battery failures. Those are the big, worst-case repairs for each and I don't think we have enough EV data quite yet.
Again, I totally agree with ya that EV maintenance is lower without all the normal ICE fluids and filters. Tires are the only consumables EVs eat more of (when compared to similarly-sized, lighter gas vehicles). Shocks, sway bar links, brakes, tie-rods, etc. all seem approximately equal across the board.
EVs still have fluids and they really ought to be changed. Shit some really bad ones still have belts. Your battery pack still has coolant, and differentials are still differentials they've still got oil. Just because Toyota says the fluid is "life time" doesn't mean it actually lasts a life time.
Coolant for EVs doesn’t need to be changed because they aren’t operating at the high temperature that combustion engines create burning fuel. It has nothing to do with Toyota or what they say. Differentials aren’t needed on EVs because each axle in an electric motor can turn independently.
Hybrids shift all of the hard work to the dead simple electric motors, and allow the gas engines to stay in their happy zone. There's a reason why priuses and other hybrids are know to be stupid reliable. Maintenance is also a lot less frequent because of that. So while you technically have to do it, you go MUCH longer in between doing them. I'd be comfortable doing 15k mile oil changes on a hybrid, but not on a gas car.
Granted this is GM so I'd expect them to fuck something up about these cars. But it's their trucks and those are like the only good things GM makes.
There are several different configurations of hybrids so most of them don’t drive the wheels with only the electric motor. Most of them operate just like a gas car with twice as many parts to break by assisting the gas engine with the electric motor for a short range.
Gaskets and seals and spark plugs and air filters and fuel filters and all the maintenance items and fluid changes are often recommend based off time/mileage whichever comes first. So while you may not be adding up the miles as fast, the times between service is the same.
It doesn't matter if it's a parallel or series hybrid. The electric motor does the most work in stop and go traffic, and thats what also hurts your engine the most. The electric motor allows the gas engine to not have to stress itself as much, and run in much more optimal load ranges.
Gaskets and seals almost never have change intervals, it's replace them when they leak. Air filters are $30 and take 10 minutes to change so the labor rate is stupid cheap for those. Synthetic oil changes aren't that expensive, and last a lot longer than most people think. Many German (regular gas) cars suggest 1-2 year and 10-15k mile intervals for their oil changes, and even dealers will do those for under $100. In 5 years I've spent less than $1500 in maintenance on my regular ass gas Outback, and that's doing work way ahead of schedule, not waiting until Subarus prescribed times. Maintenance costs are not that big of a concern for new gas cars.
What holds people back from EVs is range anxiety. A phev gives them exactly what they want.
I get the range anxiety problem and I’m all for burning less fossil fuels, but the cost to own a hybrid is as much as an ICE and an EV combined. People are better off getting an EV with enough range to drive around town (which isn’t much) and using charging stations if they roadtrip. At least that’s the best choice cost wise.