I understand the sentiment… But… This is a terribly reasoned and researched article. We only need to look at the NASA to see how this is flawed.
Blown Capacitors/Resistors, Solder failing over time and through various conditions, failing RAM/ROM/NAND chips. Just because the technology has less “moving parts” doesn’t mean its any less susceptible to environmental and age based degradation. And we only get around those challenges by necessity and really smart engineers.
The article uses an example of a 2014 Model S - but I don’t think it’s fair to conflate 2 Million Kilometers in the span of 10 years, vs the same distance in the span of the quoted 74 years. It’s just not the same. Time brings seasonal changes which happen regardless if you drive the vehicle or not. Further, in many cases, the car computers never completely turn off, meaning that these computers are running 24/7/365. Not to mention how Tesla’s in general have poor reliability as tracked by multiple third parties.
Perhaps if there was an easy-access panel that allowed replacement of 90% of the car’s electronics through standardized cards, that would go a long way to realizing a “Buy it for Life” vehicle. Assuming that we can just build 80 year, “all-condition” capacitors, resistors, and other components isn’t realistic or scalable.
Whats weird is that they seem to concede the repairability aspect at the end, without any thought whatsoever as to how that impacts reliability.
In Conclusion: A poor article, with a surface level view of reliability, using bad examples (One person’s Tesla) to prop up a narrative that EVs - as they exist - could last forever if companies wanted.
Oh we could certainly build an electric vehicle that lasted almost 100 years.
How many millions do you have to buy each unit? We’ll need all of them.
There’s plenty of gas and diesel cars that can also last pretty much forever if we apply the same logic of “having to replace parts doesn’t count”…
More that “at no time do enough parts start failing often enough that repair ceases being cost-effective”
Does diesels with over a million miles count?
Maybe. Depends on how often engine is overhauled, what it’s operating environment is and why the vehicle was kept operating for so long.
Car of theseus?
“The car has had its share of repairs, including several battery and motor replacements”
…wtf are we taking about then now.
The EV of Theseus
Id rather get a vehicle/parts that will fail reliably than one that is bolted on everything and you cant repair anything.
You mean welded or riveted? Bolted means it is easy to repair individual parts
I belive that was his intent.
Uh I guess most things could last nearly forever if in a ship of Theseus scenario .
Swappable battery packs and open source design so repair parts can be manufactured by people as well as providing parts for people who want to purchase
If the motor mount is hackable with reasonable effort, and the motor controller’s interfaces are open, then in principle… yes.
Yet in reality, companies build extremely complicated cars where premature failure of multiple components can successfully sabotage the whole. :(
I’ve once needed to repair a Mitsubishi EV motor controller. It took 2 days to dismantle. Schematics were far beyond my skill of reading electronics, and I build model planes as an everyday hobby, so I’ve seen electronics. Replacement of the high voltage comparator was impossible as nobody was selling it separately. The repair shop wanted to replace the entire motor controller (5000 €). Some guy from Sweden had figured out a fix: a 50 cent resistor. But installing it and putting things back was not fun at all. It wasn’t designed to be repaired.
Needless to say, replacing a headlight bulb on the same car requires removing the front plastic cover, starting from the wheel wells, undoing six bolts, taking out the front lantern, and then you can replace the bulb. I curse them. :P
But it drives. Hopefully long enough so I can get my own car built from scratch.
