They should be cheaper to repair since there are less parts. The added costs are related to design decisions.
When things are welded together instead of paneled, it’s more expensive. When battery packs have to be replaced in their entirety instead of individual packs or cells, it’s more expensive. Etc. Etc.
Exactly. Example: on the Tesla Model 3, many of the panels (such as the rear quarter panel) are glued on instead of bolted/clipped on. So if you graze a stationary object and damage that (it happens), you’re on the hook for a very expensive repair since you need a repair shop that specializes in how to deal with that (plus the actual time to do the repair, which is more complicated). Update the designs to make them more repair friendly and the cost of ownership comes way down.
What car has removable rear quarters? I can’t think of any that aren’t welded on to the C-pillar/roof/trunk.
Just because Tesla made a lot of bad choices, that doesn’t mean all EVs for all time will always be more expensive.
Time to standardize connectors, control panels, battery sizes, motors etc.
I’ll probably buy an electric car one day, but I’ll be paying a lot of attention to its repairability. We have to make sure brands understand that « programmed obsolescence » isn’t accepted by everyone!
Lawmakers should fix that. Nothing a consumer can do here. If you know up front you can avoid a brand, but with the OTA updates and stuff they can just pull a bait and switch.
You might want to take a look at Aptera. If we’re lucky they’ll sell their first cars in 1-5 years
Why do you think Aptera will be better on this issue? I was very disappointed by the decision not to paint their vehicles. It’s hard to see how that won’t lead to a substandard product.
It looks very modular, with company claiming a right to repair philosophy.
The painting seems to be aiming for a lower emissions vehicle, cheaper costs. Given that the body is not metal replacing panels should be easier if they get damaged.
Not to mention battery size doesn’t need to be as large, so replacing it should be viable.
I’m hopeful but still got see how everything shakes out.
Cheaper costs for sure. Not sure about the rest. I understand the environmental costs associated with paint but it’s an important part of weather proofing in the current production model. Vinyl wraps just aren’t going to perform as well or last as long, are shifting a big cost onto the consumer, and raise questions about the longevity of the product. This will also have large environmental cost due to shortened lifespan.
I’m glad they’ve mentioned right to repair but I’d like to see where that rhetoric is backed by action. Otherwise it’s just more capitalist spin.
This is what happens when you can DRM every piece of the car. Tesla is being taken as a model, and it’s extremely anti consumer
I don’t think theyre being used as an example at all. A lot of these first generation platforms are still just trying to figure stuff out, and unless they all glob onto an existing platform, they’ll never deviate from one another. Competition is good, especially to drive innovation in the early days of new fields of products like these. Most of the bigger companies have opened their platforms or pieces thereof, but that doesn’t need to mean open-source. We should rely on legislature and right to repair to reign some of the anti-competitive bullshit they all pull in though, I do agree with that.
Sorry but there just isn’t that much to figure out. Cars have had electric motors and batteries for as long as cars have had motors (literally - early cars didn’t have a combustion engine).
You take an ordinary car, bolt a big ass motor and battery to it somewhere, and you’re done. Nothing innovative needs to happen and there should be no repairability compromises. If anything they should be easier to repair.
Tesla’s obsession with complex body parts is inexcusable. I used to work in the car crash insurance industry - we put Tesla in the same category as Bugatti/McLaren/etc. They’re that expensive to repair… and unlike those supercars, nobody is going to be willing to spend the money get a Model 3 back to show room condition.
Get yourself in a minor fender bender like the one below and your insurance company is going to buy you a new car (the owner of this car was given a $45,000 repair quote):
With a conventional car, those panels would have likely been plastic (cheap to replace) or else metal but simple designs that can be bent back into shape by someone who knows how to use a panel beating hammer. What you don’t see on the photo is all the weld joints that have been stressed and failed on the Tesla. It can potentially be months of work to get that car fixed and the insurance company doesn’t want to provide a hire car for all that time - so they just pay out the value of the car and leave you to buy a new one.
They will never be cheaper. Just the costs of the battery, or they do shady bussiness tricks, like hooking you in cheap initial costs but horeandus repair/replacement bills.
An electric motor is SIGNIFICANTLY more simple to produce than an entire internal combustion engine. There are far fewer moving parts on an electric car than a gasoline one.
The battery is a significant cost, but not all cars need to have 300 miles of range. It is also possible that once the market is saturated (i.e. - several decades), that recycled battery packs will be cheaper to produce than batteries built from raw materials.
The major reason why electric cars are so expensive right now is because there are far fewer of them, and the ones that are being made have a target market of an upper-middle class household. They’re luxury/status symbols as much as anything else. Secondarily, there isn’t a large used electric car market yet.
There is a large potential for cost reductions. Assuming technology continues to improve, electric cars will drop below the price of gas and diesel for everyday driving. Internal combustion engines will most likely be reduced to specialty vehicles.
Also, as we realize that we don’t need 400+ miles of range in a commuter car, cheaper battery chemistries make a lot of sense, despite their shorter range per kg or lb
Most people want a car that can do everything they need a car to do. As otherwise they have to buy a SECOND car that can perform the jobs the first car can’t. At that point people look at their finances and wonder why they have the first car at all, that first car has a monthly payment, insurance, and repairs. It would be so much cheaper to ditch it and just have the car that performs all the functions.
In that case, why not just have no car at all and use a bike or public transit and rent a car when you really need one?
Car rentals are expensive and time consuming affairs. This ‘solution’ is worse for the vast majority of people who currently own cars. It’s why you don’t see people doing it.
Yeah, I’m not really sure what the path to the EV being cheaper to produce is. Every EV we have seen is more expensive than its ICE counterpart. And it isn’t like batteries are some new tech that manufacturers don’t know how to make well. No, these are being mass produced.
The higher repair costs come from the fact that while an EV pack is the single most expensive part of the car, and if it is damaged, you now have to replace the single most expensive part of the car.
Higher insurance costs flow from the higher purchase cost and the higher repair costs. So, those won’t come down either.
Edit: One thing that could bring down repair costs would be if the EV manufacturers would stop making it so damn hard to swap in your own replacement parts. A battery and electric motor isn’t complicated. But repairing either of these parts on an EV is complicated due to DRM and other anti-consumer design choices.
