To a much lesser degree. An electric engine is a lot simpler, mechanically, than an ICE. To the point that, I think, major malfunctions will result in replacement of the engine instead of fixing engine components. Given good refurbishment logistics, this is much more efficient.
Ehhhh. I work with batteries and have worked with electric engines in the past. When an ICE vehicle breaks down, or doesn't work, or goes fast, or goes slow, we know why. With batteries and electric engines, when stuff doesn't work... nobody really knows why.
Copied from another comment I made on HN:
Nobody really understands lithium-ion batteries. One production run might have substantially higher or lower capacity. Some batteries might explode. Some batteries are high discharge and some are low discharge. The "explanation" for all of these things is 'heat'.
Imagine that happening to any other industry (for example the auto industry.)
- "Why did my car just explode!?" "Heat"
- "Why does this car last a tenth the lifetime of this car?" "Heat"
- "Why does this car go a thousand times faster than any others?" "Heat"
- "Why is this entire production run of cars not working?" "Heat"
People say "heat" for two reasons: 1) because nobody understands li-ion batteries and 2) because yes, the real answer does have something to do with heat.
Batteries are one of the most important industries and critical to every company on HN. But the state of the art of batteries is putting together random metals with a bunch of random chemicals and watching which ones don't explode.
Imagine talking to the CEO of Boeing: "We just did our millionth test, engines made of cheese and wings made of coconut shells. It crashed during takeoff, of course. We haven't had any improvements in over a decade, but we're sure we'll get there eventually - we've spent billions on research so far. Wanna come watch test 1,000,001? We're trying engines made of cheese and potato-chip wings next!"
The reasons you mentioned are precisely the reason why an ICE based car selling company can't suddenly wake up one day and build electric cars.
Engineering takes time, Tesla has spent a lot of time building and testing battery tech that works. And they are using it across multiple applications.
If you get reliable electronics in, then without frequent oil changes, and tubeless tire. A electric quite literally is a zero maintenance car.
Hmm. The battery stuff is hard, yes, but only one company has to figure it out. Battery companies sell to everyone. All the battery breakthroughs so far have benefited every EV player. The actual meat-and-potatoes of Tesla's battery tech is actually from Panasonic, who has no problems selling cells to whoever wants to buy.
And EVs are absolutely not zero maintenance, that's just a fantasy. Even in dream-world where we have tires that never need to be replaced and no oil changes, batteries are always going to be a large part of the car's cost and only last a few hundred charge cycles.
The basic premise of an electric "engine" is simpler than that of an ICE, but when you actually make the car, it's nowhere near as simple on paper. Just look at the issue people have had with getting Tesla's repaired... the "mechanics" don't even know that you have to keep the battery charged.
Also, don't ignore the fact that we have 100+ years of experience with ICE.
>>the "mechanics" don't even know that you have to keep the battery charged.
I've been through the CRT -> Flat screen television phase in India.
Arguments were typically like these. How will TV repairmen fix these new TV's which have move like plug and play internals. Therefore new flat screen TV's won't sell?
In the end it didn't work out well for TV repairmen. If its easier to identify and swap the malfunctioning part, you need lesser and lesser skilled professional to service these goods. You can dumb down the process to a point anybody can do it.
