Tires, brakes, and windshield washer fluid are the only regularly replaceable parts on an EV. My last ICE car, also that age, required oil, tires, coolant flush (100k miles), transmission (100k miles), water pump, thermostat, timing belt, and tensioners. And lots and lots of filters.

So, either you were really lucky with ICE or extremely unlucky with EVs.

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Marsymars a day ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, my ICE required those things, but not including tires, those other things were only like 1/3 of the total maintenance costs. The ICE components ran under 5 cents per km and the non-ICE components ran over 9 cents per km.

I don't see that I was especially lucky with the ICE components, I did all the scheduled maintenance plus some other misc things (water pump x2, bad transmission bushing, etc.) (Oil and filters just don't add up to all that much - I followed the maintenance schedule using high mileage synthetic and high-mileage filters and the total cost was under $100/year at a dealership.)

I also don't see that I was especially unlucky with the non-ICE components, I've got a 13-year sample size of steady, unremarkable maintenance to tires, paint, brakes (these always corroded from salt before they wore down, so no real EV savings to be had on brakes), misc trim pieces, etc. Looking at my Excel sheet of maintenance, I'd expect these costs to be higher on nearly any EV, just because the ICE was a cheap econobox with cheap parts (e.g. tires were small, TPMS sensors were cheap, only 4 lug nuts, etc.), and any newer vehicle is going to have more parts that need replacement/repair, and those parts are going to be more expensive.

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jader201 a day ago | parent [-]

1. Parent included brakes, but I think brakes should be on the “ICE only” list. EVs maybe use brakes 5% of the time. Maybe less. (And I don’t buy corrosion from salt causing more wear than friction.)

2. The only thing left are tires and washer fluid. I’m not convinced that these make up 2/3 maintenance costs. All of the fluids — oil, coolant, transmission — plus components that wear down/need replacing (alternator, transmission) — there’s no way these are only 1/3 of all maintenance.

	▲	Marsymars 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		1. As I said, both time I needed to replace the brakes on my ICE it was due to corrosion, I’d have been in the same scenario with an EV. 2. Oil/coolant/transmission just don’t add up to much. Oil was $100/year, there was like one other fluid-related and one transmission related service over 13 years. There are many things other than tires and washer fluids (though tires are a fairly large line item) checking my spreadsheet for non-ICE-specific costs, there’s paint maintenance, general cleaning costs, a seatbelt receptacle, a cruise control buttons, roof exterior rubber trim, a headrest, a window switch, washer fluid spray nozzles, lug nuts, wiper blades, shocks, struts, door weather stripping, rivets holding the front plastic splashguard on, headlight bulbs, headlight buffing, washer fluid reservoir cap, replacement speaker, turn signal switch, windshield repair, backup light switch. My costs lines up with much of the available data, e.g. see https://www.motortrend.com/news/government-ev-ice-maintenanc... “According to the office, internal-combustion-engine-powered (ICE) vehicles cost $0.101 per mile to maintain. [..] Full battery electric vehicles, on the other hand, are much, much less expensive to run and maintain, coming in at just $0.061 per mile.” That lines up fairly closely to my experience - their EVs still have about 60% of the maintenance costs of ICE vehicles.

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dilyevsky 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Brakes are almost never used on most EVs, you're likely not going to need a single replacement before the battery dies. I've only ever change tires and cabin filters.

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rconti 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hasn't even crossed my mind to check brake wear on my 115,000mi Model 3.

In my somewhat limited experience, Japanese cars often need brakes around the 40k mark, and German cars go more like 60k.

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edgineer a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wiper blades, cabin air filter(s), 12V battery, refrigerant dryer, suspension. Arguably drive unit oil. Very good idea to lubricate moving parts, hinges, apply protection to weather stripping, exposed steel on underbody.

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rootusrootus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Some EVs do have maintenance items beyond tires/brakes/washer fluid. The maintenance schedule for my Lightning, for example, has the first real maintenance at 125K -- for flushing the battery coolant. Fortunately it's the same standard coolant they use for all their cars, and trivial to flush.