171–180 of 276 posts
When I lived in Germany, in the 90s, I regularly sat in diesel Mercedes Benz taxis with over a million kms under the hood. Private drivers usually. Many had giant mileages. We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
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One of the big questions is going to be, can you still find the battery packs 15 year, 20, 30 years later. The problem is that rebuilding battery packs is not a joke (and expensive). Assuming the same cells can be found / are not some crap 3th party manufactured in the future. Lets also not forget that battery packs are full of electronics, BMS, and other items that may be less forgiving on a rebuild where batteries…
Whether or not suitable battery replacements exist in 10 years is probably a function of demand. If there's a large demand for replacements, the market will provide. It's probably worth buying a popular model if you plan on keeping your EV for 20 years. For example, you should probably stay away from the Fisker Ocean [1], but I bet Tesla Model 3s will be well supported 20 years from now. My metaquestion is: is it eve…
A new car has so much depreciation in the first couple of years that it's a terrible idea for most people. Buying used cars and either maintaining them or just driving them into the ground and then buying another used car is almost always cheaper.
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Even then, a EURO5 diesel still makes quite a stink. Of course, even an EU6+OPF gasoline car still puts out air akin to a dying dog's fart. ICE vehicles just can't go away quickly enough (and we should aggressively get stinky vehicles like everything pre-EU5 and loud vehicles like motorcycles and scooters off the road first). I'm not huge on regulation, but if anything MIV is underregulated. Even in the EU anything t…
> ICE vehicles just can't go away quickly enough We do have to either replace them with something else or stop owning personal vehicles. The end goal may be better, but that transition will be long and it will break plenty of things along the way.
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I didn't know Nissans were known for being unreliable; my first car was a hand-me-down Sentra that ran smoothly till I sold it at ~220k. I've owned three cars since, I think the worst was a used Elantra that I just put out to pasture at 198k. Persistent electronic issues and terribly uncomfortable on the passenger side. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was an asking price of 10k to repair a faulty airbag…
Car reliability can vary so much. Some vendors have a deserved reputation for overall quality (Toyota) where issues are usually the exception (accepting the fact that issues can always happen). Others used to have terrible reputations, but are much better now (most of the Korean brands). Some have varying QA issues, depending on model, shifting suppliers, factory, etc (GM, Stellantis). Some can mostly be reliable, bu…
Sometimes you can link the bad years of a generally reliable vendor to a new part e.g. the first year they might have introduced a 10-speed transmission.
These first years are scary.
Some vendors don’t seem to change major parts as often, which helps their reliability.
When I lived in Germany, in the 90s, I regularly sat in diesel Mercedes Benz taxis with over a million kms under the hood. Private drivers usually. Many had giant mileages. We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
Lexus? Subaru Outback?
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> With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. I doubt it. The components in modern cars are not made to last as long. Neither is the software. Ever tried a 15 year old Iphone? A Tesla won't feel much different. Everything is meant to be consumed nowadays, and eventually, sooner rather than later, replaced.
And you get the luxury of paying 50% more, for that privilege (vs a ICE engine). I said it before, give me that BYD (reverse) hybrid engine, that does 1080km on a single tank. Unfortunately, battery tech despite all the lab "super improvements" are not seeing any major gains in the field. And a lot of money has been going into that.
My dad's BWM E60 has a M47 2.0L Turbo Diesel, and with around 440,000km keeps going strong.
He probably will change it when it reach the half million due to being an old car, but the sad part here is how we won't probably be able to buy any brand new car that could reach that amount of miles without spending a lot of money on the way on repairs.
More than Otto. Wow. I have an 85 Vanagon Westfalia with a modest 450k km.