[macinjosh]

One often over looked aspect of EVs are their relative fragility compared to a ICE vehicle. I see it as an analog/digital divide. You can get an ICE to temporarily run with all sorts of deficits, incorrect inputs, or hacks. It will still kinda work. EVs are way more digital. If one thing in the chain breaks the bit flips to false and you're done until the tow truck comes and an expert with special, secret knowledge and tools can disassemble it and flip the bit back to true so to speak.

[rootusrootus]

Yes and no. An old school ICEV, sure. But having had my pickup up and die going across an intersection due to a failed part of the fuel injection system, I don't think it's safe to say modern ICEVs are more reliable than EVs in that regard. There's lots of things to go wrong which will shut you down just as instantly as a big failure in an EV.

[tatersolid]

Concur. I just traded in a 2013 model year GMC on a new Acura after a lot of shopping. Everything is electronic on almost all new cars, even formerly mechanically simple things like gear shifts and turn signal stalks. It all feels so fragile, and I doubt my choice will last close to the ten years my last dumb hunk of American steel lasted.

It’s like Kubernetes has been applied to the auto industry… way more complexity than necessary, causing a massive loss of uptime and security.

[silverwasthere]

On the other hand, I feel my leaf shares only the reliable components with an ICE car. Battery. Electric motor. Hvac and whell bearings. All the stuff I can expect to go for 5 years at a time easily on an ICE.

No heat cycling rubber parts, solvents sloshing around, measuring flow of explosive mixtures, all the finicky bits of fuel injection and transmissions.

[thisarticle]

Ever have a fuel pump or starter go out?

[helf]

As someone who has literally cut and crimped fuel lines to cut off a cylinder, used JBWeld to temp seal heads and blocks, pulled injectors, disconnected spark plugs etc etc to get something to limp back home.. yep.

My main beef with EVs (and I own a Chevy Volt PHEV that I /adore/) is the fact they are rolling blackboxes. My Volt is the least shadetree mechanic friendly vehicle I have owned other than maybe my VehiCROSS I had for awhile. I know most people don't care, but it irks me. And I will not own a pure EV anytime soon for a host of reasons and that is a big part of it.

This desire manufacturers have of making their vehicles IAP Vehicle-as-a-Service (ICE and EVs) really pisses me off and I plan on driving my Volt (which has the OnStar modules entirely disabled so I have 0 analytics/metrics/tracking happening) forever. I miss my 100% analog 1981 VW Rabbit LS diesel. sniff.

[thisarticle]

You’re complaining about a car that has both ice and EV components. Of course it’s going to be a pain in the ass to work on.

[helf]

No shit? I even specified that? I wasn't complaining specifically about the volt but in general with the direction everyone has/is moving.