The repairability is a much bigger concern for me than reliability. When even opening the motor housing is grounds for warranty termination in most EVs, it’s easy to understand why so many people are still buying ICEs
EV only vehicle manufacturers are not doing a great job on the servicing side of the business with months wait times. Robison is up to 6 mo right now. That’s unacceptable when your AC fails. This is where the large manufacturers have the upper hand, if they can ever get it together and make 1) vehicles that aren’t a 2nd mortgage and 2) cheaper to repair.
A rear quarter panel on a Rivian R1S is $20K+ as the entire side of the vehicle has to come off to get to it. Rivian only sells the quarter panel with the entire side. You can’t just get the rear quarter panel. Absolutely insane engineering.
They’re following the model of the tech industry, which makes sense because there’s a lot of crossover there
I fixed an acer laptop yesterday. It was a gaming one, like a $700 laptop. Wouldn’t turn on. Acer said the motherboard had to be replaced. When I got it I found a blown capacitor shorting the main power rail, replaced it, and it works fine now. A part that costs like 3 cents in bulk. Repair was roughly 45 minutes including diagnosis.
For this one a motherboard swap isn’t the end of the world but the additional point is that for many of modern laptops and for all phones this results in a superior repair. This laptop in particular had removable nvme storage but tons of laptops have the ssd soldered directly to the motherboard so swapping the motherboard means you lose all your data. No one ever has backups lmao
But acer, apple, Lenovo, hp, etc all do this. It’s much easier to train their techs to just do board swaps, it’s much more lucrative to make repairs a several hundred dollar endeavor instead of the pennys it would cost to replace passives or basic ics, etc. they then send the “junk” boards off to the manufacturing depot in sea to actually get fixed and then sell them again as refurbished
Rivian only sells the quarter panel with the entire side. You can’t just get the rear quarter panel.
Volkswagen did this with the Fox in the 80s. The whole side from the A pillar to the taillight, roof to rocker, was one piece. And to add insult to injury, they shipped them bare. 100% of them required repair by the body shop before putting on the car.
Well, the range part of the equation isn’t. A fuel tank doesn’t get smaller over time, and you can replace one fairly easily. Batteries die over time, and can’t be replaced easily.
They aren’t that hard, just no one wants to actually do it. Harder than a fuel tank and requires actual training, for sure, but it isn’t that hard for a trained person. I’ve seen reports of batteries actually doing fairly well, although I suspect that’s brand dependant, the Nissan leaf got a pretty bad rep for being hot trash. Literally, I think the issue was a passive cooled battery just degrading it at absurd rates.
You drain it, unbolt 2 straps, pull the pump, and then put the pump in the new tank, and replace the tank. You might even get lucky and not have to undo any fuel hoses.
With skateboard designs, like all Teslas, you have to remove the entire interior.
Doesn’t fuel efficiency go down, though? I’d say that’s roughly equivalent to the battery losing effectiveness. And generally requires fixing or outright replacing key components to get back to par.
That doesn’t say they are unreliable, just that the tech that isn’t the basic car function is utter garbage a lot of the time. Can’t really disagree with that, fuck off with screens bigger than my laptop and give me my damn buttons back.
I wish evs were just as reliable and repairable as gasoline/diesel cars are on average.
The repairability is a much bigger concern for me than reliability. When even opening the motor housing is grounds for warranty termination in most EVs, it’s easy to understand why so many people are still buying ICEs
EV only vehicle manufacturers are not doing a great job on the servicing side of the business with months wait times. Robison is up to 6 mo right now. That’s unacceptable when your AC fails. This is where the large manufacturers have the upper hand, if they can ever get it together and make 1) vehicles that aren’t a 2nd mortgage and 2) cheaper to repair.
A rear quarter panel on a Rivian R1S is $20K+ as the entire side of the vehicle has to come off to get to it. Rivian only sells the quarter panel with the entire side. You can’t just get the rear quarter panel. Absolutely insane engineering.
They’re following the model of the tech industry, which makes sense because there’s a lot of crossover there
I fixed an acer laptop yesterday. It was a gaming one, like a $700 laptop. Wouldn’t turn on. Acer said the motherboard had to be replaced. When I got it I found a blown capacitor shorting the main power rail, replaced it, and it works fine now. A part that costs like 3 cents in bulk. Repair was roughly 45 minutes including diagnosis.
For this one a motherboard swap isn’t the end of the world but the additional point is that for many of modern laptops and for all phones this results in a superior repair. This laptop in particular had removable nvme storage but tons of laptops have the ssd soldered directly to the motherboard so swapping the motherboard means you lose all your data. No one ever has backups lmao
But acer, apple, Lenovo, hp, etc all do this. It’s much easier to train their techs to just do board swaps, it’s much more lucrative to make repairs a several hundred dollar endeavor instead of the pennys it would cost to replace passives or basic ics, etc. they then send the “junk” boards off to the manufacturing depot in sea to actually get fixed and then sell them again as refurbished
It shouldn’t be up to manufacturers to monopolize servicing their products in the first place!
Volkswagen did this with the Fox in the 80s. The whole side from the A pillar to the taillight, roof to rocker, was one piece. And to add insult to injury, they shipped them bare. 100% of them required repair by the body shop before putting on the car.
The Magnuson-Moss Act has entered the chat.
Are they not as reliable?
Well, the range part of the equation isn’t. A fuel tank doesn’t get smaller over time, and you can replace one fairly easily. Batteries die over time, and can’t be replaced easily.
They aren’t that hard, just no one wants to actually do it. Harder than a fuel tank and requires actual training, for sure, but it isn’t that hard for a trained person. I’ve seen reports of batteries actually doing fairly well, although I suspect that’s brand dependant, the Nissan leaf got a pretty bad rep for being hot trash. Literally, I think the issue was a passive cooled battery just degrading it at absurd rates.
You drain it, unbolt 2 straps, pull the pump, and then put the pump in the new tank, and replace the tank. You might even get lucky and not have to undo any fuel hoses.
With skateboard designs, like all Teslas, you have to remove the entire interior.
Doesn’t fuel efficiency go down, though? I’d say that’s roughly equivalent to the battery losing effectiveness. And generally requires fixing or outright replacing key components to get back to par.
Not to 80% in a few years
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That doesn’t say they are unreliable, just that the tech that isn’t the basic car function is utter garbage a lot of the time. Can’t really disagree with that, fuck off with screens bigger than my laptop and give me my damn buttons back.