[lazyjones]

Their i3 isn't even an electric car, it's a hybrid with a petrol engine (range extender).

The title claims the content is somehow about electric cars in general, but it's just one datapoint about one model and one owner. FWIW, my maintenance costs for almost 3 years with a Tesla S90D were so far: €290 for changing and storing winter tires. No repairs, no breakdowns so far, despite some abuse on italian country roads. Yearly cost for insurance and (0) tax was half as much as the 530xd I owned previously.

[bluGill]

Your costs for a ICE car wouldn't be much more. There were be a few oil changes in there, but they are not expensive.

[Finnucane]

After 20 years, I'd expect it to be different. We have a '99 Honda CRV, and a significant chunk of the money we've paid for maintenance in the 12 yrs we've had it has been for the exhaust system. Over time, on any car, brakes will eventually need replacing, electrical bits will fail and need replacing, bits of your suspension will need replacing, and so on.

[randcraw]

You expect owning an electric car to be different, yet Teslas also have the very systems you mention will wear out -- brakes, electric bits, etc -- making them comparably consumable to any ICE or hybrid, especially after 20 years of daily driving (like your CRV).

I would imagine any car heavily dependent on advanced sensors and electronics to cost more to maintain than traditional cars, especially after the first few years. And those parts will likely cost more than a muffler.

[693471]

Tesla brakes are rarely used because the majority of your braking is regenerative. They're rated to about 150k miles before needing service for the Model 3.

[Finnucane]

Yeah, but these days, _every_ car is coming along with complex electronic systems that will be expensive to maintain. Which is one of the reasons we keep our old Honda running.

The real question is: how are we going to maintain the geopolitical/industrial system necessary to keep gas flowing ? And why should we?

[dsfyu404ed]

After 10-15yr the Tesla (or any EV) will probably need a battery. After 20yr it is basically a certainty.

[geggam]

yet my 2001 tahoe ICE gas guzzler has required only oil changes, brakes and tires.

260k miles and it still goes strong, diesels easily get to 500k miles

An interesting twist would be using a hydrogen fuel in an ICE.

[dsfyu404ed]

The 4l60 in that Tahoe is on borrowed time. That's on the same order of cost magnitude as a battery.

For people who have to pay other people to do maintenance (i.e. most people) whether or not you buy a POS that eats suspension wear items for breakfast and how anal you are about getting every little scratch fixed will dominate long term cost. A couple grand for a battery or transmission spread out over more than a decade really isn't that much. Shelling out a grand every time your vehicle gets humped by a shopping cart will add up quick.

[geggam]

You can get a new tesla battery for 1400 ? granted most folks cant replace one but I can. I cant work on or replace a tesla battery. I have also rebuilt transmissions and that gets you a fraction of the cost because the clutch packs are typically the only wear out part... that and seals.

https://www.transdepot.net/Stage-1-4L60E-98-05_p_215.html

[mikestew]

diesels easily get to 500k miles

They also cost on the order of five figures extra over gas engines.

[geggam]

I see usually 4 figures over and the standard saying goes it takes 5 years to see the cost equalized. Owning a diesel will save you money but buying or leasing wont.

[gambiting]

For comparison - also a small city car, VW Polo 2016, 1.2L TSI - so far(3 years in), we only paid for a single service(two initial ones were free) - £159, plus £20/year in tax. So a total cost of ownership(except for petrol of course) in those three years is barely over £200. We didn't even buy winter tyres for it, which I normally do for my other cars.

[ChuckNorris89]

Don't know where you live but a regular yearly service with oil and cabin filter change is around €200 for a basic ICE car at a dealership in Austria. €290 for a Tesla would definitely be cheaper here.

[bluGill]

YMMV. I change my own oil - it takes me less time because I can get the parts as part of a different errand, and I can do something else while waiting for the oil to drain out. If I go to the dealer I spend an hour in their waiting room with nothing to do, plus travel time for a special trip.

You can do a lot better than dealer prices for oil changes if you don't do your own maintenance.

[gwbas1c]

You don't understand the difference.

Just look at the cost of brakes. An ICE car will need them every 30-60k miles depending on various factors, but an electric car will need them every 100-200k miles.

[Traster]

People do understand the difference, my household drives around 3000 miles per year, so telling me that a brake change once every 10 years is important is kind of ridiculous.

It gets down almost entirely to personal behaviour.

[jbarberu]

Agreed. I just replaced my wife's brakes, rotors and pads, at a grand total of $350. The old pads probably had about 50% left after 50k miles.

If you don't tailgate and slam your brakes all the time, they last a long time, even on an ICE.

[majewsky]

So your ICE car doesn't need any gas?

[bluGill]

Gas is cheap. Unless you are driving a lot of miles (at which point electric cars don't have the range you need) this is really significant compared to the initial cost of the car.

[glogla]

Gas is cheap when you don't count the externalities like fucking up the planet or the whole military-industrial complex and wars to guarantee oil supply.

[brohee]

The lastest version has a bigger battery and doesn't offer the range extender IIRC.

[lazyjones]

Yes, they stopped selling the REX. The i3 is still not a very attractive car for me and despite the good crash test results, it doesn't look safe to me. Here's the aftermath of a frontal crash vs. an old Cadillac that happened recently - both drivers dead: https://image.kurier.at/images/cfs_landscape_1864w_1049h/372...

[pintxo]

This [1] seems to be the report including photos you are talking about. Not sure which image you linked here. Totally different story.

[1] https://insideevs.com/news/328403/bmw-i3-vs-cadillac-cts-imp...

[lazyjones]

> This [1] seems to be the report including photos you are talking about.

No, you guessed wrong. The crash I mentioned happened 2 days ago: https://kurier.at/chronik/niederoesterreich/zwei-tote-in-moe...

I don't know why you bring up an old rear-ending when I mention a frontal crash...

[pintxo]

Sorry, bad google foo on my part.

[bitexploder]

I expect costs on my Tesla to be about one set of tires / 2 years. I am hard on them and they cost about 400/tire installed. When you consider they is essentially the only ongoing cost to a daily driven car that performs like a legitimate super car in a straight line it is pretty amazing though. I change to winter tires in the winter though. Still I wear down one set of tires per year approximately.

[MrFantastic]

Your cost should also include the price to set up a charging station at home. That costs $1500+ in the USA.

[lazyjones]

Why? There are plenty of public chargers here and at my house I have a 380V 3-phase plug so I can charge at 11W.

[thrill]

There is no need for a charging station with the i3.

[davidwitt415]

Their i3 isn't even an electric car, it's a hybrid with a petrol engine (range extender).

Not true, there are two models, one with range extender, one pure EV. It's fair to assume he had the pure EV since he didn't include any ICE costs such as oil changes.

[bryanlarsen]

He did have a fuel cost and explicitly mentioned the range extender.