The biggest fear when it comes to buy an electric carespecially of second handis what will happen to your traction battery. It is the most expensive element of the car (costing tens of thousands of euros) and a degraded battery further limits the car’s range. However, in practice, the battery is not the most problematic element of an electric car. In fact, they usually last longer than the car itself.
Most failures experienced by high mileage electric vehicles have more to do with the electric motor, charger or inverter. The traction battery only comes in fourth place among the most common failures, according to the experience of EV Clinican important workshop specialized in the repair of electric cars.
Don’t worry about the battery, but about the motor
The specialized company EV Clinic from Zagreb (Croatia) specializes in the repair of electric cars and their high-voltage components. The specialists of this company have been working since 2010 and have helped hundreds of customers get their electric cars back on track.
They describe themselves as a “reverse engineering” company. That is, the components are disassembled, analyzed and, when possible, repair instead of replacing the entire component at a high cost, as would happen in the workshop of an official dealer of a brand.
This immense experience of the Croatians, and of the 20 collaborating workshops dedicated to the repair of electric cars around the world, allows us to glimpse which are the elements that fail the most in an electric car and, in addition, has now given rise to a list of company recommendations on which electric cars are especially reliable. And which ones are better to avoid.
To begin with, EV Clinic considers that the traction battery should not be an object of concern in the majority of the models that they have been able to analyze. Although the battery may be in perfect condition, that does not prevent it from degrading with use. Luckily, there are affordable methods to know the state of health of the battery, the SoH (State of Health) and thus determine how much capacity you have left.
In any case, EV Clinic lists four areas most likely to cause problems in an electric car. The element that can cause the most problems is the motorfollowed by the on-board charger, the inverter and, last but not least, the traction battery.
For the traction battery, experts point to an average life of at least ten years before major problems occur. On the other hand, the motors seem to be the weak point of many electric models, as is the case in the Stellantis group cars.
Most of the group’s electric cars, from Citroën to Peugeot to DS, Opel or Fiat, use basically the same components. The engine of these cars “due to its poor construction, They can fail after 12,000 km”say the EV Clinic technicians.
In the case of the first Tesla Model 3, the rear motor appears to be more fragile than expected, with failures starting at 50,000 km. In subsequent generations and other models of the brand, the engines seem to be much longer lived.
Although at EV Clinic they have more experience with Tesla models, after all they are the best-selling electric vehicles, they have worked with models from almost all brands. EV Clinic has summarized its extensive experience with hundreds of electric cars repaired in a very detailed, searchable list on your websiteof the advantages and disadvantages of each model.
As an example, in addition to the Tesla, the Volkswagen e-Golf, the BMW i3 and the Volkswagen group trio that are the SEAT Mii, Volkswagen e-Up and Skoda Citygo are considered to be the most reliable electric vehicles.
On the other hand, the Nissan Leaf, both first and second generation, as well as the Stellantis and Mercedes models are models to avoid. In the case of the Leaf, the lack of liquid cooling in its battery makes it prone to serious failures.
From EV Clinic’s experience, it seems that manufacturers have looked for suppliers that would guarantee them the best batteries against the fear of failure and having to change them under warranty.
In that sense, it can be said that they have fulfilled their mission, but it is still ironic that some brands that have built their century-long history in the manufacture of engines – internal combustion, certainly – have finally neglected the engine, even if it is electric. , of their cars.
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Source: www.motorpasion.com
