In China EV’s are now cheaper than ICE cars.
Beyond the more transparent levels of trade protection, Governments also manipulate the market in re-registration of second hand vehicles and other technical barriers to trade, at times masquerading as environmental or safety measures.
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My current engine is 24 years old and going strong. If we could educate people to look after their engines (and batteries), we’d have a lot less waste (it’s always perplexed me that at school we all had to do trigonometry and calculus, but never learnt about basic car maintenance).
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In Belgium, there was a car age limit of 2-3 years on the registration of around 3-5 years.
Additioally, there was a bias against PMVs from Asia , based on claims that they were more rust sensitive from the salt used to clear snow and ice on the roads.
Belgium was doing nicely as a manufacturer of components or assembly of the likes of Golf PMVs.
To be honest, it worries me a tad that I am told there is no maintenance on my Tesla. I find it hard to believe as there are a lot of moving parts, not as many as ICE but telling me that all I need to do is rotate the wheels seems hard to take after years of getting cars serviced regularly.
Tesla Australia is on a catch up on maintenance and repair. It headhunted a mechanic running that second hand PMV program near Tulla to set up systems in ANZ. Stressed out of his brain, constant travel to fix problems , recruiting and training competent staff.
Ball joints, shock absorbers and suspension rubbers will wear out eventually (probably not much to worry about before 150 000km). I guess in NSW, where there is a pink slip inspection every year, these things are more likely to be picked up, but in Victoria you could be driving a car for years without an inspection.
Tesla doesn’t view these as cars. It’s just an electric appliance to them. That’s fine if it’s a phone or something like that, but a piece of machinery like a vehicle needs to be treated not like a throwaway item. I wouldn’t take the risk.
It’ll be intriguing how these stats age
Not 100% a fair comparison now without accounting for age of vehicle.
(I’d be very sure older ICE cars were over represented in the fire stats, and EV have really only been a thing for a decade)
Old batteries, poorly maintained batteries… might be different, might not change a whole heap.
Theres actually sfa moving parts on a standard EV(like a Tesla).
Read some article on it and there are actually thousands in a typical ICE vehicle whereas in an EV the number is more like 200.
Was years back - it was when they first came out and mechanics were up in air worrying about their future.
Edit: its even more dramatic if this source is correct Electric car servicing explained: What do EVs cost to maintain?