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Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

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Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#91

Title could just be "Toyota has more than 1.2 km on it", as we already all know it would be a Toyota.

tbh I was guessing Volvo 240-series. I suspect cockroaches will be driving those battleships around after the bomb/climate collapse/asteroid/big crunch.

My dad had the station wagon for a while (in a Middle Eastern country). He would regularly get little notes asking if it was for sale.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#92

I wonder how many of the cars manufactured today are still here after million kilometers. My guess is none as they are impossible to fix yourself.

> I wonder how many of the cars manufactured today are still here after million kilometers

The overwhelming majority of 1980s Toyota Tercels do not make it to a million kilometers. This one didn’t, either. It has had every part replaced, many multiple times over.

The owner has 3 donor parts cars and there’s a photo of his piles of parts like alternators. The original car didn’t last a million kilometers. He’s just been replacing parts constantly.

> My guess is none as they are impossible to fix yourself.

No they’re not. I have a lot of car friends and we all do most of our own work. One of them has now opened a shop and services BMWs including engine rebuilds of modern engines.

This is a myth. Service manuals are available. Even the digital repair tools are widely pirated, but you can generally buy a short term license to use them yourself if you want.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#94
I suspect that it would have been less expensive to ditch it 600,000 km ago and just get a new one. And possibly about the same in terms of environmental cost.

Getting those parts used would be less expensive, and a win for the environment, but the labor cost is very high.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#95
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of mileage is unusual with cars but it's pretty normal for semis. But even with those, engines get overhauled and there's lots of cumulative maintenance over the years. There are still trucks build in the sixties in service in some places. With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cyc…

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…

> Recently people driving to holiday here in Europe had fun times... 15 a 25min wait times at charge stations

My last two holidays in Europe I drove an EV about 1000 km to a holiday destination, and back again. So far I have never had to queue to charge.

I did notice that it is not unusual for a rest stop with only 2 to 4 fast chargers to be fully occupied. But if you use an app like ABRP to plan ahead, then it will tend to guide you to larger charging sites (e.g. 20 to 30 fast chargers of a few different brands). These charge planning apps also have live data about how many chargers are currently in use, so they will not send you to a fully occupied site if there are alternatives.

YMMV and the situation will change every year of course, as more EVs are added. Norway is the most advanced in Europe when it comes to car electrification, so if there are issues I guess they will show up over there first.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#96
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of mileage is unusual with cars but it's pretty normal for semis. But even with those, engines get overhauled and there's lots of cumulative maintenance over the years. There are still trucks build in the sixties in service in some places. With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cyc…

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…

Battery degradation generally isn’t nearly as much of an issue with modern EVs. The active management systems they use are much more sophisticated and capable of keeping the battery in good condition than those of a smartphone. There are plenty of examples on the road with 200-300k miles still retaining 80-90% capacity.

Charging station wait times comes down to growing pains. Not enough stations combined with battery tech not yet having reached maturity. It’ll fix itself as more stations are installed and the technology continues to advance. The only bad thing to do would be to stop.

As far as antique cars go, I’m not too worried because both energy density in batteries and efficiency in motors has been increasing substantially over time. By the time these cars are old enough to be antiques, people will want to do full retrofits with modern batteries and motors anyway because what they came with will look primitive and clunky in comparison. The ceiling for potential on EV tech is much higher than it is for ICE based systems.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#97
post #57

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.

Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…

Yet W210, 211 etc. still sold millions of vehicles and are still on the road in numbers.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#98
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of mileage is unusual with cars but it's pretty normal for semis. But even with those, engines get overhauled and there's lots of cumulative maintenance over the years. There are still trucks build in the sixties in service in some places. With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cyc…

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…

I believe you are overthinking things. These aren't hard to overcome problems. Batteries are fundamentally very simple and they are designed to handle wide variations. Simple enough that there are already a bunch of shops that will rebuild and restore batteries using volt meters to yank (and sometimes replace) bad cells.

As for the factors affecting battery life, it's looking like age above everything else is the primary killer of batteries. Temp is a solved problem, all modern EVs have a cooling/heating system.

Cell phone batteries are also different from EV batteries. You won't find a cell phone with an LFP. that's because cell phones target energy density above all else.

As for travel charging, 15 to 25 waits are typical and charging past 80% is slow. A battery at 10% can accept 350kW of power. Batteries are 80% typically can't accept more than 80kW or less. The 80% to 100% time can take twice as long as the 0 to 80 time.

Waiting for a charger to be available is an infrastructure problem. I've had to wait on gas pumps to be available during busy times. Conversely, the most I've waited to charge has been 10 minutes (and I've traveled every thanksgiving for 7 years of EV ownership).

The 20 minute break is welcome after driving 2->3 hours.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#99
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that one single old car without functioning emission controls will stink up an entire block far more than that entire block full of ordinary, modern traffic, I would expect that the (non-CO2) air pollution from an old diesel is far higher than that from building and operating new diesel vehicles.

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…

I can’t wait for tiny engines like on things like weed eaters and leaf blowers to go extinct. Noisy, smelly as hell, generally awful.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#100
> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it.

A modern "ship of theseus" paradox.

It’s more impressive that this man has the fortitude and dedication to keep spare parts, constantly maintain it, and even have back up vehicles for all these years.

If the article mentioned the car had its original engine this entire time. I would have seen it as an anomaly and possibly a good testament to Toyota engineering and need to keep up with maintenance.

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