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Electric motors can last a really long time, assuming no defects, they should outlast the battery by a Longshot.
That leaves the battery, and an LFP battery should also last a hell of a long time, probably a decent way into a million km before you have degraded to about 80%.
If you got those key items lasting, then it just depends on how well the rest of the car holds up, but replacing small parts while the motors and battery works is probably always going to be more cost effective.
The problem is the battery is a wildcard still.
We know how long those LFP batteries should last in a car, but they’re also pretty are in cars and we don’t have that real world data yet.
I also fear that OEMs will still gouge us on replacement batteries 15 - 20 years from now when costs are even lower and replacing the battery shouldn’t be so expensive.
There’s an old expression: Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.
If a car has a warranty of 10 years, it will last 11 years.
But battery cells don’t just fail after a specific time. Maybe a component in the battery will like a switch or gasket though.
Motors are highly resilient as well.
I’m not as sure about the motors, but I really am optimistic on the LFP batteries.
The battery doesn’t have to fail for the car to be useless. One of those circuit boards that holds it all together goes and it’s “whoops, we don’t make that any more”.
So just like a regular car.
Indeed just like a regular car.
If cars lasted forever, they’d all go out of business within 20 years.
Sounds like we might need some new regulations around parts availability & stocking up before subcomponents go obsolete.
At some point it becomes an environmental thing just as much as a consumer protection thing.
Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.
Oof.
In the defense of engineers, they are usually trying to optimize around a few more variables than ability to stand. Cost is a big one.
If a car has a warranty of 10 years, it will last 11 years.
…If it’s well engineered.
You don’t need to defend the engineers.
The expression is saying that engineers build bridges that are efficient and cost effective.
Although I do believe the full quote ends with “bridge that almost collapses”, which would make it more clear.
I had already read of the first teslas model S getting to 1M km with ordinary maintenance alone, so it should be pretty easy to achieve. Of course it won’t be done as it wouldn’t be profitable.
1 of the 👍 points that were brought up was artificial gatekeeping. Many techies know it but I guess many non-techies don’t know it. Phone makers intentionally not putting the newest features on the old phones to boost the newest phones’ sales should be widely known. I wonder what the public opinion will be.
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Sometimes I think people don’t understand how capitalism works…
Friend of mine bought an EV. Didn’t even last a month. He landed in a tree.
Goddamn planned obsolescence.
*planted obsolescence
Sad to see an i5 in that condition :(
damn wild trees crossing street
Lemmy: Capitalism caused this.
In a socialist system cars would be tree proof.
What was the issue? Do you know?
Lost consciousness for a bit. Unknown why.
Not really the fault of the EV then tho :D
No, but it’s still a factor why they may not last forever XD never underestimate human error.
My car wouldn’t have done that. Had I fallen unconscious it would either follow the road or stop
But that’s also not because it’s electric.
There were no stripes on the road so the line assist didn’t work. He was unconscious for just a sec, he remembered seeing the slight turn, then to wake up while flying into the trees.
Handing out driving licences like they were sweets instead of actually testing people’s ability to drive, maybe?
This is often the issue. Not in this case though. He had his license for 24 years, while driving from the south of Germany to the Netherlands back and forth twice a month. He never had an accident before.
I stand corrected!
It can’t possibly be that. We have to abolish trees - that’s the real answer!
We’re working on it.
Probably turned off traction control and floored it. EVs have some pretty solid acceleration and weight a bit more than their ICE counterparts.
Nope, he drove 80km/h with traction control, but lost consciousness somehow. No lines on the road (out in the German countryside) so no line assist. Car went straight when there was a very mild turn, so he drove off the road, into some uphill ridge whi h launched him, woke up when flying through the air after which he landed in a bunch of trees. This is where he landed. He luckily only had 4 broken ribs.
Jeez, he’s lucky to be alive at all.
Daaaamn crazy story. Scary you can just tap out like that. Good on him he didn’t get injured too much
That sucks I hope he’s good.
I think the tree didn’t give way when it should have and damaged it a bit, hard to tell though
I’m sure if we spend enough time working on it, we can figure out how this is all OPEC’s fault. /s (jeeze tho I hope your friend was okay!)
He luckily only has 4 broken ribs.
“landed”?
Yeah, got launched when drifting off the road
Then the wheels just fell off. Stupid woke EVs are built to fail.
Usually they build them so the wheels don’t fall off.
Pretty sure they’re being facetious
Ah yes, classic
Then explain that pic 😤
forever cars no make profit line go up
I haven’t even read the article yet, and my cynical ass came to the same conclusion based on the headline. 😣
Makes sense. That is why all those Japanese carmakers went bankrupt and diesal hasn’t been a thing since the 1950s.
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Competition, in theory, should combat this. It does, but it should.
Cars do have failure modes other than rust, like crashes. Having not yet read the article, I expect crashes still destroy cars.
Edit: having read the article, it was not a dense technical work and was disappointing on specifics.
Having worked on and had every major brand (and some obscure ones) in my family, there’s a reason Japanese cars are considered the most durable.
We’ve driven numerous Toyotas and Hondas 300k+. Some we still have, 30 years old or more.
Working on Toyota and Honda is generally much easier and far less frequent than other brands.
You can see how American car companies enshittify things when there’s a joint platform (Ford/Mazda, GM/Toyota, Chrysler/Mitsubishi). Invariably the American version is inferior, and even the Japanese company version often suffers with some of the same shitty design/engineering choices.
I refuse to ever again own an American vehicle, or even one of the joint platforms. I’ve had both - they suck to work on, require more frequent repairs, sometimes to things that just never fail on Japanese cars (especially electronics and control systems… Looking at *you" Jeep/Chrysler).
Time to make a billion dollars on something else, then start up a car company designed to fail. No investors, design a car for a 60-70k buying price, few bells and whistles, but built to last indefinitely with basic maintenance. Start the company planning to practically close it down just after the last preorder customer has their car delivered and become a maintenance company with a few employees to make replacement parts and install them. If demand rises, redesign for the new times, ramp up and do it all again.
Who wants an infinite lifespan car anyway? Everything else would be getting safer and more fuel efficient. Might as well get around on horse and buggy.
For one most engines are pretty much at their peak efficiency, for two practical safety features reached peak between the mid 90s to the early 00s. Most modern safety features are ironically enough not all that safe, for example lane assist makes people pay less attention or it tries to assist in the lane and overcorrects. I see the latter rather frequently in my area since windy roads, usually the damned things are trying to avoid the white lines of the shoulder and overcorrect over the yellow.
I think modern safety standards alone would cost a few hundred million in research, or make it necessary to start from an existing donar car to make the type of thing I’m dreaming of.
I doubt a modern manufacturer would want to partner with a company designed to make basic but everlasting vehicles, so the imaginary billionaire would probably need to buy up whatever car the engineers want to start from in bulk.
“Why do you hate freedom? And America? And puppies? And apple pie?” -Republicans, probably
Can confirm. Use a fridge from 1974. 2 years ago thermostat failed. Replaced with digital one for $15. Now have a nice digital readout of the temps. Thing uses
180W100W when running, less than bigger newer ones.
It’s even more ecological to keep it running since it still has the nasty ozone layer killing coolant that would partly evaporate when trashing it.EDIT: 100W just checked the type plate.
Luckily I’m pretty sure we are at least on an up trend when it comes to the ozone layer so even when eventually it kicks the can you don’t need to worry too much about that anymore. Now we just gotta fix carbon emissions.
My grandparents had one of those old locking fridges from the 50s or so. It weighed like a metric ton, but that fucker NEVER broke.
Will use 4x as much electricity though, ugh.
https://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/your-old-refrigerator-energy-hog
Anyone know of any refrigerators today that are as durable as older ones and have today’s efficiencies, but without the smart features and other junk?
Average refrigerator today still lasts 13 years though, and while they’re made cheaply they also are cheaper (at least as a portion percentage of the average paycheck).
https://reviewed.usatoday.com/dishwashers/features/ask-the-experts-why-dont-new-home-appliances-last
I don’t know for the US market but for French/European market there is a database of the reliability and reparability of appliances brands.
We have a refrigerator from the '80s that runs like a champ.
Solved the energy problem by putting solar panels on the roof.
Buy a chest freezer and convert it
Or buy a fancier chest freezer that can swap to a fridge with a button press
Got mine for Xmas 2 years ago, cost like 800 bucks? Bigger than a normal fridge, uses $2.78/month in electricity in freezer mode here in expensive electricity land
Downside: you have to dig for you shit. Upside: in the summer, good
Sub Zero, Thermador… High end refrigerators, just look at the price, we decided to forget the idea because of that.
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I’ve heard that in the US fridges are generally different, with stuff like active fans and nonsense like that. Is that true?
Because every fridge I’ve seen in Europe is mechanically extremely basic and I’ve literally never seen or even heard of one breaking. In my experience fridges are one of the only things that have remained phenomenally simple in design and extremely unlikely to break.
If someone told me their fridge broke, I’d genuinely assume they were lying. That’s how reliable they are.
Every LG and Samsung major appliance I’ve had has broken within 5 years.
Refrigerators, washing machines, and dryers.
Prior, I only ever had 80s era American tank energy hogs. Switched back to American brands in the last few years, so too soon to tell if they’ll work out better…
Here’s to hoping.
Oh, and having dealt with LG warranty for both electronics and major appliances, I’ll never buy another LG product that isn’t a monitor.
LG monitors are the only higher end LG product’s I’ve owned that have survived well past the warranty date.
Samsungs don’t just fail; they are incredibly precisely engineered to fail on purpose not too long after the warranty ends.
I had a Samsung front-load washing machine that failed after maybe six years or so: the drum quit turning and it started making a terrible banging noise instead. I decided to take it apart to see what went wrong. Every single part in it was pristine and in perfect working order – electronic parts, mechanical parts, rubber parts, plastic parts, even the stainless-steel parts exposed to the water and detergent all that time – everything looked brand-new.
That is, except for the “spider arm,” which is the large bracket that connects the axle to the drum. That one single part was made out of a completely different kind of metal and had corroded completely through. It was blatantly designed not to stand up to water and detergent. The excellent condition of the metal in the rest of the machine showed that they were perfectly capable of choosing the right material for the job, but deliberately chose not to. It was the most brazen, shameless instance of planned obsolescence I’ve ever heard of before or since.
(Not my pic, but it looked pretty much like this – except mine was in three wholly separate pieces! And, as I mentioned, the axle and drum were shiny and brushed, respectively, with zero rust or residue of any kind at all.)
Wtf?
Think I’d be making an aluminum or stainless plate to put on there and use through-bolts to mount it with some silicone to seal them.
It’s true. I fixed a Samsung LED TV that wouldn’t turn on. They used a tiny resistor that I thought was a fuse.
That resistor was chosen so that it always ran hot and failed after about 3 years of normal use. I put in a bigger one with the same resistance that stays cold and now have the TV for 5 years.
First mistake was to not look at what repairman recommend because none of them will tell you to buy either brands, they’ll tell you to buy from the Whirlpool family if you’re going for “low cost” brands (vs brands like Bosch, Sub Zero, Miele…)
I bought an expensive Samsung microwave thinking it would outlast the cheaper ones. The thing actually started to rust in the first few months something not even the cheapest microwaves have done on me.
Last Samsung appliance I’ll ever buy luckily I’m in the UK and got my money back.
I think Samsung is generally considered trash now. I certainly will never buy any of their “smart” objects either, especially not an ad-ridden TV.
My dad bought me a ridiculously expensive (like $400) Samsung vacuum that I loved. It was strong, it came apart in really cool ways to make it versatile, etc.
It failed in less than a year.
The $60 Walmart special Bissell that I went and bought to replace it lasted for 8.5 years before the motor burned out (I screwed up and it got too much pet hair in it). I bought the same one again and it’s going on 5+ years with no issues.
Samsung certainly seem very aware of return window timing. 8.5 years is much better!
I wish some of this stuff was more standardized. In an ideal world one should be able to just replace a motor and keep on going. (Like without needing to learn any wiring and so on.)
I’m gonna offer some contrary evidence: I have a Samsung from 2013 that’s still working perfectly. It did have an issue with the icemaker seizing up, but they have a program where they send a tech out to repair it for free, which I took advantage of. The newer appliances can last a long time in some cases.
There’s also many old fridges that did die, including multiple of mine growing up in the 80s. You just see the ones that happened to survive.
I can confirm Samsung appliances are complete trash. Every single one I’ve owned has either died or had a non-replaceable part fail within a couple years. We had a Samsung fridge at one point and one of the door switches failed. No big deal right, easy to replace? No, apparently Samsung used some kind of custom switch instead of the bog standard cherry contact switch that basically everything and everyone has used for decades, and it’s no longer being manufactured.
Even those can have duds. My very first ultrawide was an LG, paid more money for it than any other monitor in my life because I’ve never had a montitor fail.
Died after 1.5 years and the warranty was only a year. I was so pissed.
That is extremely unlucky but also sucks that the us won’t enforce bigger warranty windows for products meant to last much longer than a year.
For washing machines, buy used Speed Queen commercial units.
They cost as much as new consumer high end units, but they’re designed to be repaired, plenty of parts available, and they don’t break in the first place.
The Speed Queen small washers at my local laundromat are about $2500 on the used market (in good running condition, with known hours on them). They’re quiet, and don’t shake for any reason.
Well there are evaporator fans in modern refrigerators in the US. They serve an important role though helping with defrosting, improving cooling efficiency, and evenness of cooling throughout the fridge.
https://refrigeratorguide.net/maximize-cooling-efficiency-best-refrigerator-evaporator/
Usually only very small refrigerators are without them now.
It is another point of failure though, but should be pretty easily repairable. I mean it’ll still be able to cool without the fan, but it’ll be running much more to try and compensate and keep things cool though.
If you know the YouTube channel technology connections, here’s a fun video of him messing around with a fanless style refrigerator:
I mean there’s so many different fridges you can buy but I’ve only heard of two dying. One was a compressor issue but that’s all I know about it. The other one was a valve or something went bad but with the help of youtube my brother was able to diagnose it and replace the part. Apparently that’s the most common failed part on at least that brand of fridges
After some decades they just become so incredibly gross no one without a hazmat suit would try cleaning it again, so they’re replaced.
The only durable ones are industrial refrigerators like they have at restaurants. Other than that, at least in the US, avoid Samsung and LG (have compressor issues) and buy American made (better build quality). But you’re looking at 10-15 years regardless. Some other notes:
- ice machines should be in the freezer, if you have one
- the fewer the features, the more reliable it is
- Maytag and Whirlpool are pretty reliable
I haven’t looked at the statistical data on this myself, but there’s something to be said for survivorship bias.
Not to mention those old fridges are Horribly inefficient on energy
What about it’s batteries?
They are still chemical so they wouldn’t last forever.
Yes, the batteries would need to be replaced but that means designing them to be replaced.
Unlike the Tesla model Y which built the battery into the frame and filled it with foam so that it absolutely cannot get replaced. Musk said the way to replace the battery is to send the entire car to the scrap yard and recover the lithium from the shredder.
That’s patently false, according to https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/tesla-battery-replacement-cost-explained/#:~:text=Absolutely.,will likely also be similar.
My 2013 Model S has 235,000 miles on it and still l drives like it’s brand new. I haven’t yet had to replace the battery pack but when that day comes, it will almost certainly be worth the cost.
Says it’s true
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/B_HMpJ4REyE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is the link where Sandy Munroe determined the Model Y pack is non repairable and it includes Elon Musk’s reply tweet saying the pack should be seen as “high grade ore”.
That says you cannot replace individual broken cells in a Tesla pack. That doesn’t say you can’t replace the pack
Aren’t all the cells worn in a ten year old battery?
That…can’t be true.
Another reason on my list why to never buy a Tesla.
Batteries can be replaced. An EV that could run 1 million miles would still need maintenance - I think the point is that they could be designed to last.
Planned obsolescence is so wide spread we don’t even notice it, but lots of products are designed to fail either through cheaper components or deliberately flawed design. That means we have to go and buy a replacement. It is also generally cheaper.
So we either have cheap products that will break or seemingly expensive products but they last for a very long time. But in the long run the cheap products generally cost you more to buy than one expensive product.
I don’t think the wider population would accept the compromises necessary for a million miles vehicle. There is always a balance between component longevity, cost, performance, features, and safety.
They can exist but I don’t forsee wide adoption due to it being wildly expensive and/or bare bones in terms of contemporary features.
I think the big part with cars is people want the new shiny thing.
The only people I’ve ever met who didn’t trade in a for shiny and new were my fellow cheap bastardin’ mechanin’ types who just don’t care.
Plus, too many people think cars must be serviced at “stealerships”, and I’ve seen what those lying bastards tell people their cars need. Like a 2 year old Toyota with 25,000 miles needing $4000 of engine leak repairs. On an engine that Toyota has manufactured since the 80’s…they don’t leak, they don’t even die. Hell, they still use a timing chain rather than a belt, so that’s maintenance it’ll never need.
Csrs don’t need replacing anywhere near as often as most people replace them. As I said elsewhere - my current daily driver is 18 years old, everything still works. It’s required very little regular maintenance over its life. Transmission was replaced at 200,000 only because a cooling line leaked into the transmission, which destroys the clutches eventually (it went 50,000 miles after the line failure, even towed stuff at max load).
Batteries will be very expensive, however. The battery company is still quite greedy, eyeing for 5~10x growth in the near future - and that requires raising battery prices by at least twice.
Car manufacturers:
This is basically like saying combustion vehicles could last nearly forever if you replaced the engine every now and then
If they’re easy enough to work on, and the parts market is maintained, yes.
Nothing lasts forever without something going wrong, but we can make it easier to fix. It’s a little more true of EVs, because they’re mechanically simpler than ICE cars. You added an electric motor (which lasts forever if designed well), batteries (life dependent on the chemistry involved), and some electronics to drive that (caps in there go bad, much of the rest will last forever if not abused). You took away an ICE, an intake system, an exhaust system, perhaps some forced induction, a coolant system (which you might have on EVs, but not to the same level), an ignition system, a shitload of sensors (O2 sensors having particularly short life, relatively speaking), and a fuel pump.
If designed to be worked on, the EV is far, far easier.
I mean…they can, you just refresh the motor. Tons of ICE vehicles out there with 400-500k miles on them. Hell most semi trucks have millions of miles on them.
A rebuild every x00,000 miles on a Toyota sounds nicer than paying the price of a new pilot every 100,000 miles tbh. Computers don’t last though and emissions have made it a huge pain to fix on older cars. Nothing against emissions it’s a necessary evil.
New pilot? I dunno what any of this means
Honda pilot. I don’t know how to answer vague questions.😅
I am thinking of doing that when my civic should be legally declared dead. With the insanity that is new car prices and insurance for new cars plus the vanished used car market it just isn’t worth it. I want an EV but things have to go back to normal before that happens
It’s easy to do, and engines don’t cost much on ebay.
Fortunately Honda makes vehicles that are very durable, so it’s not like everything dies at the same age of the engine.
Here a link to bypass the paywall:
Bad drivers like me can fix that by applying wear to bodywork. Normal driving wears the tires and all the gears, gaskets, and bearings in the system. But it can probably last 20 years.
Spoiler: They won’t.
They will if they are forced by regulation : 10y mandatory warrantee, right to repair, standardized swappable batteries, spare parts production for 20y…
but we need politics who set up such regulations
I bet smartphones could last 3 or 4 years even if companies let them 😏
Wait, are you saying my phone should last less time than it does?
My current phone is from 2017.
iPhones tend to last 5 or so years for me…
What are you even doing, throwing your phone on the ground? How does your phone not last that long
I don’t get how people are replacing their phones so damn often. I buy used flagships that are usually a year or two old and rock them for another 4 years. Note 10+ here, and I’ve had it for around 3 years now, probably won’t upgrade for another 2 years, as it’s perfectly fine still.
My current phone is almost 3.5 years old and I have no intention on upgrading anytime soon, but in the past I did tend to have to replace a phone about every two years. Mostly because POGO (and my being rough with them). Ports being damaged (and me not knowing how to repair them myself and others wanting to charge the cost of a new phone to repair it), being dropped, etc.
I had a Sony Xperia something for years, no case. Then I upgraded to a Samsung and gave my Sony to my mum. She cracked the back of it almost immediately lol
I will say the back of my note10+ is shattered, even with a case, glass backs are the dumbest thing ever.
Trade in value drops very rapidly for non-iphones after a year or two. You can often get 50% back on the purchase by trading in a functional phone.
If you buy a new phone every 2 years or every 4 years, it’s often about the same total out of pocket cost (with a lot of exceptions)
I’ve never paid more than $150 for a phone, and that’s recently for a 2 year old pixel.
I can keep multiple spares around for the price of a new phone.
I buy used, why would you pay 1k+ for a phone… that’s insanity.
I just got a new phone despite my previous one being totally fine because it’s no longer getting security updates. I’ve had it for ~4 years with no issues, so I got a Pixel for longer security updates.
So yeah, they totally could last longer if they kept supporting them.
I’m still using my OnePlus 8t. Phones lifespans are fine. If you can’t keep your phone working for 4 years, that’s on you.
I see no reason to upgrade until support is dropped.
My Samsung a70 doesn’t get major software updates anymore. I’m OK with it. I’ll use this as long as possible.
For security reasons, don’t do that. Don’t use things older than the supported android version. It’s fucking Linux. It gets vulnerabilities.
I used my 6t for 4 years but it started bootlooping and I needed it for 2fa codes every login on some applications for work. I bought a 10t after a couple of days. Funny enough now the 6t appears stable again, oh well it’s the household backup if any others spontaneously die
They don’t?
Imagine being able to opt into an long term support branch when you feel your phone starting to lag, unlocked bootloader’s, and have user replaceable batteries.
Still mad about accidentally installing the newer version of iOS on my iPad pro. Such a meaningful feature to have security patches without slowdown from newer versions.
Imagine being able to opt into an long term support branch when you feel your phone starting to lag
That’s kind of what LineageOS does.
I wish more bootloader’s came unlocked these days. I got a Google pixel for that, the seven years of promised updates, and parts.
Though I think it would be cheaper to buy a used pixel 8 from eBay and the adhesive from ifixit if I end up braking the screen in a few years I’m more interested in being able to get a fresh battery without guessing if it was salvaged from a heavily used phone.
Edit: phones should be more like the laptops from the early 2000s damnit. I don’t care if my phone is a little thicker than a pencil at least it’ll hide the camera bump.
I am very anxious even with normal maintenance - heating adhesive up is not something I am capable of now. So was looking at new last-gen Pixels instead, and 7a is $300 :( People I know who have it say it’s good hardware, but that’s still an insane sum to spend on a phone.
Tbh it’s not a bad price looking at what other phones are out at that price. Your looking at a great screen, awesome camera, ok battery life, and snappy enough performance for everyday stuff.
At the end of the day it’s what you can afford and what you need. If you have a small repair shop nearby it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try, see how expensive the repair might bee. If your current phone is fine then keep using it, if you need a phone on a budget I’d go used, anything new under $200 will most likely be worse than anything you can get used, and if you want something new that pixel 7a wouldn’t be half bad tbh.
