this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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Buy it for Life
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I understand the sentiment... But... This is a terribly reasoned and researched article. We only need to look at the NASA to see how this is flawed.
Blown Capacitors/Resistors, Solder failing over time and through various conditions, failing RAM/ROM/NAND chips. Just because the technology has less "moving parts" doesn't mean its any less susceptible to environmental and age based degradation. And we only get around those challenges by necessity and really smart engineers.
The article uses an example of a 2014 Model S - but I don't think it's fair to conflate 2 Million Kilometers in the span of 10 years, vs the same distance in the span of the quoted 74 years. It's just not the same. Time brings seasonal changes which happen regardless if you drive the vehicle or not. Further, in many cases, the car computers never completely turn off, meaning that these computers are running 24/7/365. Not to mention how Tesla's in general have poor reliability as tracked by multiple third parties.
Perhaps if there was an easy-access panel that allowed replacement of 90% of the car's electronics through standardized cards, that would go a long way to realizing a "Buy it for Life" vehicle. Assuming that we can just build 80 year, "all-condition" capacitors, resistors, and other components isn't realistic or scalable.
Whats weird is that they seem to concede the repairability aspect at the end, without any thought whatsoever as to how that impacts reliability.
In Conclusion: A poor article, with a surface level view of reliability, using bad examples (One person's Tesla) to prop up a narrative that EVs - as they exist - could last forever if companies wanted.