Category Archives: Technology

EVs are likely to be shorter-lived cars, this being a function of the fact that they are electronic cars. And because of that, they are even more expensive cars than they cost to buy.

Here’s why:

While it is true that an electric motor, as such, is a very simple thing (and one of the things often touted as an advantage electric cars have vs. a car with an engine, which has many moving parts) the electronics that control the motor (in an EV) are not simple. It is a foundational mistake to equate the electric motor in an electric car with the electric motor that spins a small appliance, such as a power drill. The latter has simple electronics; a speed controller – and that’s about all, besides the motor. An EV’s motor requires a computer controller which governs a myriad of operating parameters as well as the overall operation of the car, itself – and all of its myriad electronically controlled related and secondary systems, such as the drive-by-wire system, battery cooling (and heating) system as well as its charging system.

Modern combustion-engined cars have similar electronic systems, of course, that govern their myriad systems. But that is precisely why modern combustion-engined cars have become less reliable over time than the less-electronicized cars of the past and more disposable, as they age, because of the cost of replacing critical electronic controls without which the vehicle or vital systems will not operate relative to the depreciating value of the vehicle, itself.

EVs double down on that problem – by electronicizing everything. Even the heater (for the people).

And then there is the EV’s electric battery, itself – a hugely complex thing made of hundreds/thousands of individual cells, all of them a potential failure point (and fire source) and the whole thing certain to degrade in function over time the more it is used and thus the faster it will wear out, in term of its capacity to receive and retain full charge.