His whole point was that the battery pack would randomly completely fail and they’d be unpredictably out a bunch of money. That doesn’t happen. Or at least, doesn’t happen more than ICE engines randomly die.
No his point was that there could be a cost to replacement that would be extremely expensive and that put his wife off. It would puts most people off.
It doesn't matter what the rates are compared to Petrol/Diesel cars, it is an unknown and large potential cost with an expensive initial purchase especially compared to a second hand vehicle that would fulfil the exact same function.
My ice car _could_ spontaneously catch fire and be totaled, that would be an unknown large expense. But people (rightfully) don’t factor that into buying cars because it’s an infrequent fault. Same with this fear of spontaneous battery failure.
Saying that actually makes me wonder - surely insurance would cover a random battery failure fault, in the same way as an engine fire? I dont know if it does but it feels intuitively like it should.
You example wasn't really what is being discussed. The person was talking about potential cost of replacing the battery that would need to happen sometime in the future. This would most likely be uneconomical.
It is something that I do not need to worry about with my current vehicle, in fact most Petrol/Diesel vehicles will last a very long time with basic servicing.
I don't understand why people on have such a hard time understanding potentially expensive unknowns are not an attractive proposition.
> Most EVs batteries will outlast the lifetime of the car, with some acceptable loss of capacity. Some small number won’t, and that will be expensive
As far as most people are concerned that is just a claim that is made as they have no idea whether it is true. I am specifically talking about what is the perception.
Therefore it is seen as risky and for something like a car which most people see as a way to get from A to B, they don't want potential headaches.
> It’s the same thing.
No because one is already known and the other isn't as far as most people are concerned.
They also talk about whether these things are any good. They normally talk about the issues that other people have had. Any issue that seems like a PITA, will put them off when the existing vehicles typically don't have many of these issues.
I think we are still in the Early Adopter Stage for EVs and I don't know whether we will get out of it.
So, it is the same thing… but people have vibes and perception that it’s not? Data says otherwise, but people have feelings? I don’t really know what to do with that argument.
Even if it’s true that people have a “perception”, it won’t matter in the medium term, these folk are going to learn pretty quick that EVs are more reliable than ice cars. Much simpler, much less to go wrong. And soon cheaper, at least everywhere but the US. We’ll be into majority EV soon enough (not in the US, for reasons)
> So, it is the same thing… but people have vibes and perception that it’s not? Data says otherwise, but people have feelings? I don’t really know what to do with that argument.
The original poster does a much better job than I explaining the issue.
> Even if it’s true that people have a “perception”, it won’t matter in the medium term, these folk are going to learn pretty quick that EVs are more reliable than ice cars. Much simpler, much less to go wrong.
When people make this claim I know they have never had to work on a vehicle. What you think is simpler (which I suspect is less moving parts) actually isn't. Mechanical systems can be diagnosed by simply prodding / wiggling them much of the time or a visual inspection.
EVs for the most part have a huge amount of electronics and computer software. Computer software is incredibly complex in its own right and I shouldn't need to spell that here.
Electronics can fail with moisture and dirt. Electronics are the most difficult thing to solve when repairing a vehicle and this includes working on older vehicles. Issues are difficult to diagnose and intermittent.
So while is mechanically it is simpler, that is dwarfed complex electronics and computer software which is many of orders of magnitude more complex.
Almost all ICE cars sold in the last 5+ years have as much or more electronics and software, including massively complex software engine control. For better or worse, that’s all cars now. The days of simple engines you can fix with a wrench are in the past.
> Almost all ICE cars sold in the last 5+ years have as much or more electronics and software, including massively complex software engine control.
It massively depends on the manufacturer, model and country. So it not entirely true.
Even if it was true it doesn't make EV simple or simpler which was your claim as they are completely reliant on a huge amount of electronics.
There is no such requirement really for Petrol/Diesel vehicles as I drive a vehicle with no ECU and no digital electronics.
> For better or worse, that’s all cars now.
It is obviously worse. Things are less reliable, less repairable and more proprietary.
> The days of simple engines you can fix with a wrench are in the past.
No quite true either.
You can still do a huge number of jobs with basic tools. You may need some sort of code reader to help diagnose. You can still physically inspect things, and prod things etc. The fundamentals of how the vehicle works hasn't changed.
I don’t think there is a single new car for sale in the US that doesn’t have an ECU, and a huge amount of digital electronics. Hell, my friends petrol jeep was bricked a few years ago by an overnight software update and had to be towed to a dealership. If they are available without this, new, where you live, feels like that’s on borrowed time. This is the world we live in now
And in that world, where every car is software. EVs are fundamentally simpler, they have less moving parts and no complicated things like engines or transmissions. Less parts, less complexity, less to go wrong.
For the benefit of others still arguing one the basis of specs, checkboxes, links to technical data, etc., here's my response in another branch that addresses the fact that some commenters are completely missing the point:
