You can make a simple electric motor at home with some copper wire, a nine-volt battery and a small piece of round wood. Simply wind the copper around the wood, leaving some ends to attach to the tips of the battery and, when you apply a current, the wound copper induces its own magnetic field which causes it to spin, turning whatever you’ve wound it around too. That’s, in its simplest form, how an electric motor works.
It’s how electric cars can claim to be so much less mechanically complex than a car with a combustion engine. A petrol or diesel engine has around 7,000 individual components, all of which take a series of petrol-vapour explosions, contain them in a metal shell, and use the power of those explosions to push pistons which turn a crankshaft, which turns an input shaft, which turns a gearbox, which turns propshafts, which finally turn your wheels.
An electric motor just spins, and it doesn’t even need a gearbox – just a single reduction gear so that it can drive the wheels almost directly. One moving part. No wonder the claimed maintenance costs are so much lower.
“This is something I really like to stress upon those considering the switch to EV. Yes, upfront cost for an EV can be higher than a petrol or diesel vehicle, but it’s crucial that customers consider the total cost of ownership,” says Mark Barrett, managing director of group franchises at Harris Group.
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“Over the lifespan of the vehicle, EV owners will have lower operating costs, including reduced fuel expenses and maintenance. This makes electric vehicles an economically viable choice. For commercial drivers and businesses in particular, transitioning to EV is crucial for future-proofing their fleet.”
It’s not that electric cars don’t need any maintenance. Obviously, they still have brakes, suspension, steering, electronic safety systems with sensors and software, and even simple things such as seat belts which should all be checked regularly. Indeed, while the mechanical bits are getting simpler, the work of the garage mechanic – or technician, as they prefer now to be called – is actually becoming more complex. All those cameras and sensors make, in the words of one industry expert, servicing a modern EV like servicing a 737.
Even so, the sheer mechanical simplicity means that there are huge potential savings.
“Electric cars have a big advantage when it comes to servicing and maintenance,” says Barrett. “Compared to diesel or petrol vehicles, EVs have far fewer moving parts, so, on average, EV drivers can expect about 75 per cent lower maintenance costs. Plus, regenerative braking helps reduce brake wear, which is another area where owners can save on upkeep.”
Battery maintenance is definitely something people think about, Barrett adds. At Maxus – Harris Group is the Irish importer for Maxus vehicles – “we have a few ways to make it more manageable”, he says.
“First, we can check the health of our batteries at the cell level, which means if something goes wrong, we can often replace just the affected modules instead of the whole battery. That’s much more cost-effective and helps extend the battery’s overall lifespan.
“Battery degradation is another real concern for some drivers thinking about making the switch to EV, but it really isn’t a problem over the lifetime of the vehicle. Real-world data from Geotab, the telematics software company, shows that the average EV battery loses around 2.3 per cent capacity per year – in other words, a 300km range EV will have lost just 34km in five years.
“It’s extremely rare that a battery will have to be replaced due to excessive degradation. At Maxus, to provide complete peace of mind, all our EVs come with an eight-year warranty on the vehicle’s high-voltage battery. So, drivers are well covered for any issues that might come up.”
One wear-and-tear item that electric cars can get through faster than a diesel or petrol car is tyres. EVs tend to be heavier and their motors have more torque – produced more quickly – than a petrol or diesel car, which puts more stress on the tyres. According to figures from Volkswagen, over the first four years of service, an EV model will go through 2.6 tyres, while a combustion car will go through 2.2 tyres. There’s also the higher cost of the tyres themselves – 75 per cent of EV tyres come from premium tyre brands, whereas that’s the case for only 30 per cent of combustion-engine models.
However, that cost is outweighed by the cost savings in general maintenance and servicing, and, equally, many car makers are now starting to include a tyre replacement package as an optional extra in the price of the car, meaning that you can spread the cost over your ownership of the EV.
Beyond that, tyre makers are developing new generations of tyres specifically designed for electric cars, which will cope better with the weight and torque, and which will therefore have longer lifespans and more robust construction. So, the short answer is – yes, an EV can save you a bundle when it comes to servicing and maintenance.
