Ya. Especially when you consider the recharge/discharge rates based on the miles per year and the German autobahn.
Tesla at 1.2M miles, only took 14 motors & 4 batteries.
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LOL.. Put that car on the German autobahn over some of those 100k miles and then we'll talk.
I think this one case is an outlier. They must have done lots of fast charging, and discharging, which is not the typical user case. I also wonder if they drove hard and if that was not a factor in short motor life too.
At the moment it seems most EV's are in the performance category, and thus are hard on tires. There are some lesser(?) EV's that are probably easier on tires--and to some large degree, tire wear is due to the user. Accelerate and deaccelerate hard, and corner hard, and it won't matter what vehicle you are driving, tires will wear faster. [Heck I do none of the above, and mine are at 4/32's after 40k--I live in a twisty area apparently. I've had OEM tires on new cars wear out in 30k.]
2 seems like a lot to me. I can see the bearings going out, but that would mean replacing a motor bearing, not an entire motor.
Because with the wonky maths some people do, they think the solar electric is free. But I count the installation cost amortised over the warranty period and such and then it's far from free electric.
This seems to be an early model so probably free charging for the life of the vehicle. That would have saved a bit of money.
He's on the 4th battery in 1.2 million miles. The actual distances traveled on 2 of the batteries were 670,000 and 505,000 km. Two replacement batteries were rebuilds. The 4th battery is new and was recently installed. The batteries were changed under a lifetime battery warranty. Battery life is actually quite good.
Fourteen motors is beyond terrible. But this is early production and a Model S besides which still have a bad repair record. It was a used customer care vehicle with 30,000 km on the clock when he got it so we don't know if it still had the original factory motor. He talks about getting 780,000 kms on one of the motors which he thinks was new. Which also makes the miles covered by the other motors even worse. Miles on rebuilt motor are less informative. Most of these motors seem to have been "rebuilt by a guy in Croatia". I hope he's getting a volume discount. Fourteen motors is still terrible.
He's on the 4th battery in 1.2 million miles. The actual distances traveled on 2 of the batteries were 670,000 and 505,000 km. Two replacement batteries were rebuilds. The 4th battery is new and was recently installed. The batteries were changed under a lifetime battery warranty. Battery life is actually quite good.
Fourteen motors is beyond terrible. But this is early production and a Model S besides which still have a bad repair record. It was a used customer care vehicle with 30,000 km on the clock when he got it so we don't know if it still had the original factory motor. He talks about getting 780,000 kms on one of the motors which he thinks was new. Which also makes the miles covered by the other motors even worse. Miles on rebuilt motor are less informative. Most of these motors seem to have been "rebuilt by a guy in Croatia". I hope he's getting a volume discount. Fourteen motors is still terrible.
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I'd love to read @Trav take on that. He lived in Germany for quite a while.
With model S batteries in the $25-$35k price per battery pack that's 100-140k. Plus whatever a motor costs times 14. That easily exceeded the price of a new one.
I think it's way more than you assume, especially if you exclude rust belt cars from the equation. The average age of a car in the United States is 12.5 year old and the average driver drives 14.5k miles per year. That's going to put the average number of miles on a vehicle in the USA well over 150k. These numbers are skewed downward by the rust belt, BTW, so average ages are even higher in the South and Western states.
Most cars are not scrapped due to engine failure and a huge number of old cars are never scrapped at all (at least here). The USA exports about a million used cars a year (not including the stolen car export market).
The owner says two of the batteries were replaced under warranty. The one he just installed is a new one though and it's not clear whether it was done under warranty and if not, why not. The car is supposed to have a lifetime battery warranty. Maybe Tesla said a million miles is far enough.
What do you suppose "that guy in Croatia" charges to rebuild a motor? Probably not a lot. Some of the replacements could have been done under the Tesla warranty and some under sort of warranty from "that guy in Croatia." Or maybe the Tesla owner just needs a reason to go to Croatia - again. He seems awfully sanguine about replacing all those motors.
I think he would have been better off buying new motors (there is probably 1 in the front and 1 in the back) rather than a series of refurbished ones, but that's just me.
Yeap, would be very interesting to know how much it was to get thru those 14 motors and 4 batteries.
Pretty unique case, an outlier in statistics speak.
Wonder what kills the electric motor, was it the coil? bearing? electronics?
I bet he could have put the same number of miles on a Prius with half the overall cost and a tiny fraction of the downtime.
The Autobahn is not really as big an engine killer as what many people would think, the oils used are made for that sort of use and the cars are geared for higher speeds. The oil and coolant temps remain stable as do the other fluids. I worked on many high mile engines, some with 400-500K on them, my wifes Toyota 1.6 GTI had over 300K on it and saw lots of high speed use, the engine was perfect.
The difference in RPM between a German spec Audi 80 and a US spec Audi 4000 back in the day at 150kmh was huge, the US model was quicker 0-100kmh.
The difference in RPM between a German spec Audi 80 and a US spec Audi 4000 back in the day at 150kmh was huge, the US model was quicker 0-100kmh.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/heres-a-million-mile-tesla-model-s-owners-advice-for-ev-reliability/
The youtube interview is interesting, and the car has free supercharging, so he's had many megawatts of free energy!
It doesn't seem that dual motor tesla's can't drive on one motor, which would be handy when he was replacing so many motors, but now they are lasting longer.
The youtube interview is interesting, and the car has free supercharging, so he's had many megawatts of free energy!
It doesn't seem that dual motor tesla's can't drive on one motor, which would be handy when he was replacing so many motors, but now they are lasting longer.
Is the supercharging really free if it wears out battery packs faster?
The owner of the Model S says he doesn't drive very fast. As I recall he mentions 100 km/h (62 MPH) as his typical speed.
JHZR2
Staff member
Wait, nothing ever has to be replaced on EVs. They’re service free. They have zero parts…
Oh wait…
Oh wait…
Hybrids also have ev motors that can break. The issue is Teslas quality. Not the fact that it has an electric motor(s).
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