Those who already have EVs, how have repairs been? I think my major hesitation at this point is, can the local auto shop in walking distance to my house work on it? Or will I be stuck waiting hours in a dealership farther from home every time I need an annual inspection or minor repair? Currently car repairs aren't that much of a hassle, I just arrange to WFH that day, drop it off in the morning, walk home, and work my normal hours until it's ready to pick up. Having to drive further away to a dealership or specialist, wait while they're working, and pay dealer prices for every repair would be a big dent in my week.
Charging I'm sure we could figure out, it's not like we roadtrip across rural areas or camp in national parks, and range is becoming less of a concern as well, but I worry about repairs. Tesla in particular I've not heard good things, but maybe others are better.
I remember seeing a study (I think it was Consumer Reports, but I don't remember for sure) that annual maintenance on an EV is roughly half of what you pay for an ICE vehicle. This seems reasonable based on my Tesla experience.
But maintenance and repairs is a bit different. There's nothing in the drive train to fail or need maintenance barring a manufacturing defect. No oil changes. No transmission fluid. Even your brakes will likely last 100k miles using regenerative braking. Although you probably will go through tires faster because the
go pedal is a lot more fun.
The common maintenance issues are things like the small motors that control the door handles or damaged/defective trim pieces. You end up overpaying for these, as you pretty much have to take it to the Tesla service center. Although many of these failures are covered by warranty, and seem pretty rare. Body work can be more expensive too, as there's only a subset of shops that can do Tesla body work and parts are marked up.
But for the vast majority of people, maintenance is nearly zero. You just have to add windshield washer fluid and rotate the tires.
My only real complaint is the lack of a spare tire.
My maintenance has been effectively zero. My wife had a flat tire that turned into a tow due to the lack of a spare (and we didn't have time to deal with it as she was prepping for surgery at the time). We're also going to have some minor bodywork because an idiot backed into us in a parking lot. Price TBD.
I'd say to use 50% of your ICE repair budget for EV planning purposes. But it's not unlikely that your repair costs will be nearly $0.
I think the complaints about Tesla are vastly overstated, but it doesn't mean they aren't real. I know zero people IRL that have the Tesla issues talked about online. Look up how far away the nearest Tesla Service Center is from you. That may be relevant. They also send out mobile service vehicles for some issues, although I've never had to use that.
I would do a vetting on non-Tesla EV dealers. A lot of these dealers may have a shop, but only have one (if any) technician certified to work on EV platforms. You'd also likely be stuck using the dealer service on non-Tesla EV's for the time being. I suspect that Tesla service might be slightly more reliable than the non-Tesla EV market, unless you find a dealer that has a number of technicians with EV expertise.
Bottom line, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You'll absolutely spend a lot less time dealing with routine maintenance, and likely spend very little time dealing with broken stuff. You just have to beware that you're locked into a proprietary service network regardless of which brand you choose.
