Yes I think there's a real innovators' dilemma here for traditional automakers with dealer networks. Dealers make most of their money on servicing vehicles, not selling them. And EVs require almost no servicing.
I bought a used Audi etron a couple months ago. Agent was going to try to sell me a service plan and realized none of them apply to electric :) The downstream fanout of the auto industry is huge…
> There's still brakes, suspensions, tires, etc. to sell to EV buyers.
The brakes last a lot longer because of regen, everything else applies but is pretty marginal, although I had to pay BMW $500 to replace a tire on my i4 because of a nail. I could have shopped around for that I guess.
Yes, you are encouraged to slam on your brakes at least once a month to get the rust off. I live on the west coast (rain but low humidity and hardly any snow), so its less of an issue.
You'd think with all that electronics it would be smart enough to use real brakes every now and then. The plug in hybrid Prius runs the gas engine every 100 miles or so.
I don't think that is a good feel, you sort of get a feel for how fast you slow down with regenerative braking and throwing real brakes into the mix randomly sometimes would make for a horrible driving experience.
Better to have a reminder, surely the car could figure that one out.
Some cars do this. Audi and Porsche (if I recall correctly) use the disc brakes for the first couple stops each drive to knock off the rust if there's any build up. I think I remember reading that Ford uses the real brakes if you're under 5mph. I'm sure other manufacturers do something similar (other than Tesla which apparently doesn't do anything to help).
Yes, it's studied. Rust and metal have different frictional properties, and the rotors produce different torques when the brakes are applied. This results in a sort of uneven shuddering when you use the brakes if they're heavily corroded.
It's not immediately deadly, but your brakes are one of the most important safety systems on the vehicle. They should be in good working order.
Totally, I'm not thinking for a second that you are wrong there. I'm not saying rust on brakes isn't bad. What I'm questioning is whether rust buildup is an actual issue happening for most EV drivers right now.
I'm genuinely curious because, for no good reason, I take pride in the fact that most trips I don't even touch the brake pedal other than to come to a complete stop and only when parking, etc where you can't regen all the way to a stop.
If anything unsafe happens when you slam on your brakes, you need to get your car serviced. Just do it on a quiet street and check your rearview mirror for someone following too closely (a good habit any time you brake).
We recently got a tire at the dealer. My wife got a flat while she was trying to get to work. The car comes with roadside assistance, and the "easy path" was to let them tow it to the dealer.
We could've done the work to find a private shop to change the tire and redirect the tow truck there, but it takes effort, my wife gets intimidated by car stuff, and she was busy with some work meetings (which she took at the roadside).
In the end it cost us an extra $100, but probably saved us $1000 of marriage counseling :) That's ROI !
That looks alien to me. Here, in europe, the usual thing it's go to your car workshop of trust. And they know where and how pick the parts and service your vehicle. Some car workshops could be "oficial" for a car maker, and it's where you should go when your car is new and under warranty period.
The dynamics in the US are different for a reason: Car dealerships are independently owned due to laws preventing car manufacturers from directly selling cars to consumers.
This means multiple dealers (of the same car brand) compete with each other to sell you a car, thus driving their margin down. They try to make it back by selling you add-on packages and financing at the time of sale, ongoing service relationships, and handling warranty/recall issues (paid by the corporate brand).
Ford did try to make it up to them by offering a bevy of aftermarket add-ons for the Lightning that were sold through the dealerships. As a consumer, I wanted them to keep the EV and ICE versions as similar as possible, with the hope that parts would be cheaper and easier to find.
