but the non-tesla electric cars also had more severe (though fewer) claims. Part of that is probably that an electric car is just plain more expensive than it's ICE counterpart right now, and my experience is that repair cost of a vehicle scales with the capital cost of a vehicle.
Routine maintenance on EVs does tend to be less, but non-routine damage tends to be much more expensive. That leads to insurance being 40% higher than comparably priced ICE cars. Essentially the median cost is a little lower but the mean cost is much higher.
>costs less for the maintenance and repairs that are required
What are you basing this on? What does it cost to repair an electric motor?
I also think you overestimate the maintenance costs of ICE cars. I've owned nothing but new vehciles (relatively cheap ones) for the past 10 years. Outside of oil changes, which the Tesla doesn't need, I paid very little for routine maintenance. I had one kind of "major" problem, warranty covered. For one vehicle, my oil changes were paid for.
So much speculation, but it seems to me that people around these parts think all ICE vehicle are "junk", or close, when in reality they're incredibly efficient, reliable and pretty cheap to operate.
Yeah, all other things being equal I would not expect EVs to be more expensive to repair unless batteries are failing at an unexpected rate. But since the majority of EVs on the road today are Teslas, I think it's still relevant to consumers.
I don't think it's Tesla specific, seems more like at least for me EV's in general are significantly more expensive to insure. Mr. Rumor Mill is that part of it is just because of higher rates of cars being written off due to damage to the battery packs. Of course, we all know how trust worthy Mr. Mill is so take it for what it's worth.
I haven't owned an EV, so it sounds like you would know better than I would. It was my understanding that (1) liability coverage is cheaper for Teslas but comp/collision is substantially more expensive due to the high cost of replacement parts, and (2) maintenance/repairs for Teslas are infrequent but any repairs involving the battery are extremely costly.
I can’t remember if it was just for fires (comparing ICE to electric), but I believe the rates are much closer when you compare to newer cars. Tesla’s are obviously newer and the report does not take this into consideration.
> Servicing and repairing electric cars is not going to be in demand as much as repairing ICE cars ever was.
Let's test this theory with some data.
From 2016[1]:
"Last year, according to a Reuters analysis of data provided in the company’s annual report, Tesla spent $1,043 per vehicle on actual repairs and set aside $2,036 in warranty accruals to cover future repairs on the vehicles it sold in 2015. It trimmed warranty expenses by 17 percent from 2014 and cut warranty accruals by 34 percent.
Meanwhile, GM spent just $400 last year for every vehicle it sold on warranty repairs and set aside $332 for future work. Ford spent $429 per vehicle and set aside $308. Daimler spent $970 per vehicle and set aside $1,294."
Let's fast forward to 2020[2]:
" in 2020, GM accrued just over $3.4 billion and sold just over 6.8 million vehicles, so its accrual per vehicle was just under $500[...] in 2020, Tesla accrued only 1.3 times as much per vehicle as Ford, and only 2.5 as much as GM. It's still in third place, but remember, this metric is based on what a company believes will happen."
So Tesla is certainly setting aside more for warranty repairs than what would be needed for topping up fluids.
Now what could possibly require a repair in an EV, given that the drivetrain is so much simpler?
Here's Car and Driver's road test[3]:
"One of the pitches we hear often on the switch to EV ownership is that electric vehicles are cheaper to maintain. But, as we close in on 40,000 miles in a Tesla Model 3, the actual savings in service costs is turning out to be quite minimal."[3]
And loading the car up with complex electronics also creates repair pain points:
"Tesla has been ordered to recall roughly 159,000 vehicles to fix a problem in the Media Control Unit.[...] Many vehicle controls in a Tesla are accessed via touch screen, and the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) began an investigation after over 500 complaints were filed about the issue.[...] Once its onboard NAND fails, the touch screen stops working, freezing the end-user out of climate controls and from using the rear backup camera. It also is said to impact “audible chimes related to ADAS, Autopilot, and turn signals.”[4]
I have a suspicion that that is true primarily for Teslas.
I have a Toyota plug-in hybrid, which theoretically is an EVs as well as an ICE car, and its repair/maintainance is similar to that of an ICE.
The high cost of Tesla repair is due to their vertical integration, perhaps limited capacity devoted to spares and monopoly over who repairs (max rent selling from repair). EVs should be cheaper to repair and maintain.
It might be less expensive due to the electrical powerplant. It will take a while before there is enough of a track record to know for sure. But, for example, electric cars are much lower maintenance than gas cars, as Tesloop as shown.
ok, then I'm getting reamed on my wife's 10 year old Subaru because, with 3000mi/yr, it's only a few bucks less than our brand new "expensive to repair" Model 3 with 15k miles/year.
Yes, data is not the plural of anecdote, and I want to agree with the source that Tesla repairs are more expensive (repairing anything aluminum is expensive; see: Audi A8), but I am just not seeing these high costs reflected in ANYONE's bills.
I often see less maintenance listed as a benefit of EVs. But according to Hertz at least, who have real world experience running large fleets of EVs and ICE cars, EVs end up being more expensive to operate due to lower residual values and higher repair costs. [1]
No more so than any other car of the same price, in my experience. I mean, yes, Teslas are expensive so collision coverage is expensive. But no, they're not particularly expensive to repair in context.
Can someone present evidence that Teslas are more expensive to insured than other comparable vehicles? Along with evidence that the difference is because of safety rather than cost of repairs?
I'd take that 10% number with a large mouthful of salt as it's a basic projection at this point in time. Of the few who have pushed their teslas to 200k they've documented very low costs as compared to ice.
More moving parts simply means more failure costs over time.
But at this point in time, we do not have hard data to compare ice with ev.
Also, simply incorrect on breaks. Regenerative breaks means rotors and pads have a much much longer service interval.
I can't get the link to work at the moment so I was wondering: are the stats being covered here including or excluding EVs? I've read elsewhere that EV repair costs are artificially high due to various other factors surrounding the manufacture and distribution of their parts versus ICE vehicles, not only but especially the batteries being SO expensive that it borderline out-prices a new car.
Actually, yes, I have a Tesla and use it as my only car. I am intimately familiar with the repair costs. An ICE car is about three times more expensive to maintain and repair.
Tesla's service centers are on average overwhelmed with work, the vast majority of which is warranty work (therefore unpaid) simply because there is almost no required routine maintenance, and most Teslas on the road are newer than the four years that it takes for the warranty to expire. They are incentivized to build good cars in order to reduce the service burden on their service centers.
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