Are you driving an alfa romeo? An engine is just a part of a car that needs service and there are ICE cars with 500kkm on them that only had their oil and maybe a timing belt replaced. Neither is an expensive thing.
The electric cars also have suspension, brakes, comfort systems etc. And those need fixes or maintenance just as often if not more often then the engine (especially with more electronics and smarts these days).
The electric propulsion system also isn’t a simple thing and I bet with enough time there are going to be brands or models to avoid because of expensive battery/drive train component failures.
That being said an electric brushless motor has much less mechanical complexity than an ICE. But saying that EVs are going to require significantly less maintenance needs to wait till we see twenty year old electric cars with hundreds of thousands kilometers on the odometers.
…And emissions valves, vacuum hoses, evap canisters, fuel cap/seals, possibly a valve cover gasket, serpentine belt, tensioner, and idlers, fuel filter, possibly the fuel pump. 500,000 kilometers is 310,685 miles for all the Yanks and Brits in the audience, and if you manage to drive a combustion car that far without needing all of those things, let alone any selection of them, I will eat my distributor cap.
I’ve driven a diesel Renault for 12 years (loke 300k km) and didn’t need to replace any of those. The only big unplanned cost I had was a faulty EGR valve, which happened at 600km and wasn’t warranty for some reason.
That said regular oil change for clutch and brakes were mildly expensive, but I guess even for EV you’d want the brake hydraulics replaced the same way.
Edit : just spotted filters. Yeah I replaced every filter every service, but with how grimy they look, even in EV I’d argue for replacing them.
Funnily enough I heard mechanic friends say that EVs need the brake rotors replaced more often than combustion cars, because the EVs use the brakes so infrequently that the rotor just rusts so badly it needs replacing.
Are you driving an alfa romeo? An engine is just a part of a car that needs service and there are ICE cars with 500kkm on them that only had their oil and maybe a timing belt replaced. Neither is an expensive thing.
The electric cars also have suspension, brakes, comfort systems etc. And those need fixes or maintenance just as often if not more often then the engine (especially with more electronics and smarts these days). The electric propulsion system also isn’t a simple thing and I bet with enough time there are going to be brands or models to avoid because of expensive battery/drive train component failures.
That being said an electric brushless motor has much less mechanical complexity than an ICE. But saying that EVs are going to require significantly less maintenance needs to wait till we see twenty year old electric cars with hundreds of thousands kilometers on the odometers.
There’s no way you’re driving 500,000km in an ICE without replacing stuff like spark plugs, clutch, alternator, filters, sensors.
…And emissions valves, vacuum hoses, evap canisters, fuel cap/seals, possibly a valve cover gasket, serpentine belt, tensioner, and idlers, fuel filter, possibly the fuel pump. 500,000 kilometers is 310,685 miles for all the Yanks and Brits in the audience, and if you manage to drive a combustion car that far without needing all of those things, let alone any selection of them, I will eat my distributor cap.
I’ve driven a diesel Renault for 12 years (loke 300k km) and didn’t need to replace any of those. The only big unplanned cost I had was a faulty EGR valve, which happened at 600km and wasn’t warranty for some reason.
That said regular oil change for clutch and brakes were mildly expensive, but I guess even for EV you’d want the brake hydraulics replaced the same way.
Edit : just spotted filters. Yeah I replaced every filter every service, but with how grimy they look, even in EV I’d argue for replacing them.
Replacing brakes on an EV should be much less frequent, since regenerative braking doesn’t use the brakes
Funnily enough I heard mechanic friends say that EVs need the brake rotors replaced more often than combustion cars, because the EVs use the brakes so infrequently that the rotor just rusts so badly it needs replacing.