The Righteous EV Owners Who Won't Let Their Broken Cars Die

2/24/2026 at 1:16:05 PM

> What he found was less an amateur car club than a volunteer-run multinational automotive company in the making. As many owners saw it, Fisker had built a flawed vehicle and then abandoned them when they needed help. If the company wouldn’t be making good on years of software updates and replacement parts, then they would push the code and source the parts themselves. This was about more than an electric car, or a hobby, or even a community. It was about taking back control of an economy run by rent-seeking tech companies that will jack up prices until the day they drop you.

https://archive.ph/2026.02.24-110624/https://www.wired.com/s...

by mitchbob

2/24/2026 at 1:03:34 PM

This the thing I do not understand about modern EVs. Based upon articles I read, maintenance of EVs are far more expensive that fossil fuel vehicles. Maintenance is a big part of cost of ownership .

100+ years ago, Electric Vehicles back the were correctly touted as having far less maintenance that fossil fuel vehicles.

Here is the thing, Items EVs do not have/need:

1. No Transmission

2. Oil Changes

3. No radiator

4. No exhaust or catalytic converter.

5. There are other things not in EVs that need regular maintenance.

So to me, maintenance should be much less for EVs, 100+ years ago the only drawback was range, and that has been solved with modern EVs.

by jmclnx

2/24/2026 at 1:46:04 PM

I think it's just lack of ecosystem of the underlying parts and the inability of manufacturers to design for such an ecosystem. I have an EV and I can't even change the 12V battery on my own because it's some weird proprietary L-shaped thing.

by georgeburdell

2/24/2026 at 3:03:48 PM

The elephant in the room when talking about EV repair costs is Tesla's gigapress that they use for the Model 3/Y.

It's excellent and cheap (at least it is now after thousands of customers have been used as guinea pigs and sold cars with wildly defective underpinnings) but it does mean that virtually any damage to the casting will total the car since it's not practical to replace or repair it.

Given that the majority of EVs on the road in the US are one of those two models, it really does spike average EV repair costs.

by SR2Z

2/24/2026 at 3:21:01 PM

Damaging structural parts on any modern car is likely to total it, just because of the labour costs involved.

by rangestransform

2/24/2026 at 1:58:38 PM

The number of maintenance items are fewer.

The cost of those remaining maintenance items are the issue. That said, it's a reasonable hypothesis to say that this is an economies of scale issue.

(Also, as I understand it, tires are used up more quickly on EVs still, but tire companies are learning to adapt to EVs so that may not be as true today.)

by ebiester

2/24/2026 at 2:56:09 PM

It's an issue of planned obsolescence. Manufacturers and dealers benefit from more expensive repairs.

by whatevaa

2/24/2026 at 4:09:32 PM

All of this is basically still there in another form.

1. If you count drive gearing, it has a transmission. Teeth will experience wear if not properly maintained.

2. Almost all modern EVs now are oil cooled. There are a few exceptions. See above.

3. All have a radiator for cooling. See above.

4. The 'exhaust system' is 100% gone. Heat the only waste product.

5. There is plenty of rubber and plastic hoses and gaskets in EVs that will break during the lifetime of the vehicle, just like they do in ICE.

I totally agree that the service is much less of a burden to the owner. About an order of magnitude less 'work' for them.

by 1970-01-01

2/25/2026 at 9:49:44 AM

During my Hyundai Kona's service last year the tech kicked the tyres, shone a flashlight underneath and checked all the fluid levels. Then they washed it and told me to come back next year.

I paid like €120 for it.

Not sure where your "ev services are expensive" rhetoric comes from.

by beAbU

2/25/2026 at 9:50:24 AM

> No radiator

Almost all EVs come with a radiator and cooling loop these days.

by beAbU

2/24/2026 at 11:28:15 PM

Maintenance is almost free. You can lease Tesla for 3 years and only change tires. Suspension will clap out but older 3s were so harsh to begin with you wouldnt really notice driving with torn/disintegrated bushings.

Its damage repair where the problems start. Labor is expensive in US, skilled labor (electricians, welding aluminum, panel beating) double so.

by rasz

2/24/2026 at 3:10:24 PM

What articles have said that ev maintenance is more expensive? I’m a former mechanic and have owned only EVs for 6+ years and have spent much less time/money on my EVs than on previous ICE vehicles, so I’m interested in what costs they had for the EVs.

by cherry_tree

2/24/2026 at 12:26:37 PM

Paywall site purposefully trying to crash browser tabs of adblock users.

by nofunsir

2/24/2026 at 2:23:46 PM

it's not on purpose,I run a browser with no java scriot, cookies, or dom, and it loads perfectly, but encounter many sites that will doom loop if they encounter partial permissions, for which I have another browser version, and if that does not work, I teather my phone to a computer and use a browser there. I can state that there are many sites that just load for me, and for which I am making no active attempt to bypass any "paywall", which I only become aware of through comments such as yours, though I will add that the way some sites render under the settings I have, makes me strongly suspect that some clever person is having fun at my expense.

by metalman