Possible future brake problems with Hybrids/EV's

Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2006
Posts
23,304
EV's have been around for a long time now. Most of the concerns about them have not been realised.

5-10 years isn't a long time. Many ICE cars will go 100,000s of miles and last decades when maintained. Even then it's rust which usually kills old ones.

But we just don't know what issues are going to pop up with EVs yet really. Obviously electrical problems are a prediction...
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
1 Jul 2003
Posts
6,231
Location
There's a voice that keeps on calling me.
I doubt you'll get 2 decades out of many cars nowadays, how many R or S reg cars do you really see around. Current cars are nowhere near as reliable, and finance is cheap so rather than spend mega bucks keeping an old run of the mill car going, most will just 'rent' another car.

Only special cars will have money thrown at them to keep them going.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2003
Posts
15,875
Location
Norwich
Servicing a Tesla is optional. They’ll still honour the warranty if you decide not to bother. Ever. I don’t know a single ICE car with the same warranty conditions.

Owners only really have to service them if they have the car on finance as the conditions of the agreement usually require It.
Including the first year differential oil change?

I'd imagine that manufacturers will spec the brakes accordingly and adjust their operation to suit either at development or subsequently through software updates.

I noticed that one of the reasons for the wheel design on the Honda e-prototype was to minimise the brake disc exposure to the elements for this very reason.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Feb 2003
Posts
2,813
Location
Sheffield
I doubt you'll get 2 decades out of many cars nowadays, how many R or S reg cars do you really see around. Current cars are nowhere near as reliable, and finance is cheap so rather than spend mega bucks keeping an old run of the mill car going, most will just 'rent' another car.

Only special cars will have money thrown at them to keep them going.

Ha, off-topic but I have to agree. My S4 has just turned 20 and I'm currently ploughing quite a few bucks into it refreshing the suspension and other perishable items. If it were a regular shopping car I would have traded it in long ago.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
Posts
19,205
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
Somebody I know has recently purchased a PHEV.

Now he hasn't actually had it that long and it already has some 8000 miles on it, so it gets plenty of use.

However, despite this, the disks are already showing signs of quite noticeable surface pitting and corrosion.

To my mind, they simply are not getting enough actual use to keep them clean since the car uses regenerative braking most of the time and only uses the disks/pads when braking hard.

The problem here, and I have seen this many times over the years on cars that only get light use, sooner or later he is going to get those bands of heavy corrosion creeping in from the edges of the sweaped surface until the disks and pads are going to need to be replaced not because of wear but simply because of unacceptable levels of corrosion.

Now, in this case, the vehicle in question is an Audi Q8. A new set of disks/pads all round is probabally going to cost as much as a small car! :eek:

But even on less expensive models I am wondering whether this is going to become a routine issue in the future on EV's and hybrids that are designed to use regenerative braking for anything other than emergency stops.

It would be a bit daft if the fuel savings made on one side of the balance were eaten up by higher servicing costs on the other...! :/

I’m VERY interested in the Q8 hybrid - where are you in the world?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,320
Location
Birmingham
Including the first year differential oil change?

I'd imagine that manufacturers will spec the brakes accordingly and adjust their operation to suit either at development or subsequently through software updates.

Don’t quote me on this as I don’t own one but I think I read somewhere that they’ve removed the diff oil change from the service schedule.

There’s very very little they do at the service.

I do 30k miles a year. My last car was in for a service every 4months or so, very annoying. My i3 only requires a service once every 2 years, no mileage requirement. All they do is change the brake fluid and cabin filter. It’s saving me a fortune in servicing and it’s way less hassle. It’ll have 60k on the clock by the time it sees a garage for the first time!
 
Caporegime
Joined
21 Jun 2006
Posts
38,372
Somebody I know has recently purchased a PHEV.

Now he hasn't actually had it that long and it already has some 8000 miles on it, so it gets plenty of use.

However, despite this, the disks are already showing signs of quite noticeable surface pitting and corrosion.

To my mind, they simply are not getting enough actual use to keep them clean since the car uses regenerative braking most of the time and only uses the disks/pads when braking hard.

The problem here, and I have seen this many times over the years on cars that only get light use, sooner or later he is going to get those bands of heavy corrosion creeping in from the edges of the sweaped surface until the disks and pads are going to need to be replaced not because of wear but simply because of unacceptable levels of corrosion.

Now, in this case, the vehicle in question is an Audi Q8. A new set of disks/pads all round is probabally going to cost as much as a small car! :eek:

But even on less expensive models I am wondering whether this is going to become a routine issue in the future on EV's and hybrids that are designed to use regenerative braking for anything other than emergency stops.

It would be a bit daft if the fuel savings made on one side of the balance were eaten up by higher servicing costs on the other...! :/

clearly the car isn't getting enough usage. a heavy car like that should be using the brakes often and i mean the proper brakes not the regen ones only.

brakes are used on hybrids but partially which means they last longer so less servicing costs not more.
 
Back
Top Bottom