Tesla model Y 4680 battery pack not very serviceable!

[MT]

part2


part1

[cpuerror]

Its 2022. You can only subscribe to things and the few things you can own are designed to self destruct after a period of time.

[tom66]

Poor design.  Such an essential component that will eventually wear out should be serviceable, even if it increases weight and cost.  I'd also like to see EV manufacturers forced to offer a 15 year warranty on their batteries with 70% capacity remaining.

[nctnico]

Poor design.  Such an essential component that will eventually wear out should be serviceable, even if it increases weight and cost.  I'd also like to see EV manufacturers forced to offer a 15 year warranty on their batteries with 70% capacity remaining.

This is a pretty big fail from Tesla... AFAIK most (in not all) other BEV manufacturers do have battery packs that consist of serviceable cells / sub-modules that make a battery economically repairable and thus make a BEV retain its value better. But then again: Tesla is the Apple of cars; serviceability doesn't matter to their customers.

[SiliconWizard]

Well, uh... interesting point.

Maybe other manufacturers have more "serviceable" battery packs - although I personally have no proof of that.
But are any of those batteries actually serviced in reality? Has it ever happened? Has it not just because it's too early for any of them to have failed yet? And in this latter case, how do we actually know for sure manufacturers will service them instead of just binning them and having them recycled?

Yeah, just a thought. I have some doubts.

[bdunham7]

But are any of those batteries actually serviced in reality? Has it ever happened? Has it not just because it's too early for any of them to have failed yet? And in this latter case, how do we actually know for sure manufacturers will service them instead of just binning them and having them recycled?

Actually yes!  My 2014 Ford Focus Electric BEV just received a 'remanufactured' battery as a repair for an internal coolant leak.  Apparently the coolant leak is pretty much the main problem these batteries have--I had noticed only minor degradation after almost 50K miles.  In any case, they are sent back to some supplier where they repair, refurbish and test them.  From what I've seen in descriptions and teardowns, the battery units on these are completely serviceable and can be disassembled with normal tools.  The downside is that a 23kWh battery weighs ~600 lbs.  The newer ones are 33.5kWh at the same weight, so perhaps that isn't too terrible considering the serviceability. 

[tszaboo]

Poor design.  Such an essential component that will eventually wear out should be serviceable, even if it increases weight and cost.  I'd also like to see EV manufacturers forced to offer a 15 year warranty on their batteries with 70% capacity remaining.

This is a pretty big fail from Tesla... AFAIK most (in not all) other BEV manufacturers do have battery packs that consist of serviceable cells / sub-modules that make a battery economically repairable and thus make a BEV retain its value better. But then again: Tesla is the Apple of cars; serviceability doesn't matter to their customers.

Realistically, the battery lasts longer than the car. But then you get a failure in one, maybe two cell on the bathtub curve and you end up scrapping most of the car? For sure it's a total loss, repairing Teslas was always stupidly expensive.

[nctnico]

Well, uh... interesting point.

Maybe other manufacturers have more "serviceable" battery packs - although I personally have no proof of that.

If you Google around a bit you'll find many companies that refurbish BEV and hybrid batteries. This is a mature business!

[Coordonnée_chromatique]

Realistically, the battery lasts longer than the car.

Could you give some examples of reliable statistics please ?

[tszaboo]

Realistically, the battery lasts longer than the car.

Could you give some examples of reliable statistics please ?

Sure, but you could just google it yourself.

[SiliconWizard]

Over 90% after 250 000 km... yeah. Really?

[tom66]

Actually yes!  My 2014 Ford Focus Electric BEV just received a 'remanufactured' battery as a repair for an internal coolant leak.  Apparently the coolant leak is pretty much the main problem these batteries have--I had noticed only minor degradation after almost 50K miles.  In any case, they are sent back to some supplier where they repair, refurbish and test them.  From what I've seen in descriptions and teardowns, the battery units on these are completely serviceable and can be disassembled with normal tools.  The downside is that a 23kWh battery weighs ~600 lbs.  The newer ones are 33.5kWh at the same weight, so perhaps that isn't too terrible considering the serviceability.

Also from the VW camp my car had its battery pack replaced under warranty due to bad sealing, but many others have had just casing refurbished.  Growing pains as car manufacturers figure out how to make batteries properly.

Over 90% after 250 000 km... yeah. Really?

Why not?  At 80kWh capacity per charge and 5km/kWh 250,000 km is 625 cycles.  A good Li-Ion pack will do 1500 cycles easily, a very good Li-Ion pack can do 3000.

[jmelson]

Well, uh... interesting point.

Maybe other manufacturers have more "serviceable" battery packs - although I personally have no proof of that.
But are any of those batteries actually serviced in reality? Has it ever happened? Has it not just because it's too early for any of them to have failed yet? And in this latter case, how do we actually know for sure manufacturers will service them instead of just binning them and having them recycled?

I just got a rebuilt battery pack for my Hondas Civic hybrid.  Way smaller than this Tesla pack, of course, but it is built out of battery submodules, 10 cells/module.  The Honda pack is air cooled, so that is a big difference.
Jon

[MT]

Well, uh... interesting point.
Maybe other manufacturers have more "serviceable" battery packs - although I personally have no proof of that. But are any of those batteries actually serviced in reality? Has it ever happened? Has it not just because it's too early for any of them to have failed yet? And in this latter case, how do we actually know for sure manufacturers will service them instead of just binning them and having them recycled?

Yeah, just a thought. I have some doubts.

Rich Rebuilds Tesla wanted $16,000 to fix this NEW Model 3, we did it for $700! The importance of Right to REPAIR
From 4:57 and forward, 5000usd bat module change and coolant nipple fix etc.

[tautech]

Finnish remedy:
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/12/30/tesla-exploded-dynamite-repair-costs-22k-moos-pkg-vpx.cnn

[Psi]

Realistically, the battery lasts longer than the car.

Could you give some examples of reliable statistics please ?

Sure, but you could just google it yourself.
<IMAGE>

Over 90% after 250 000 km... yeah. Really?

Hm.. i'm not sure if that graph takes into account the cars that have software limited battery capacity.
I mean the cars that received a large battery pack but were sold as lower range cars with range software limited to match the model that was purchased.  I'm pretty sure those cars use the extra capacity to compensate for aging, so they appear to last forever because you don't notice any loss in range until the pack is like 60% deteriorated and it starts eating into your software usable range. Also those cars don't get their batteries charged/discharged to as wide of a voltage range so that helps a lot too.

[tom66]

Hm.. i'm not sure if that graph takes into account the cars that have software limited battery capacity.
I mean the cars that received a large battery pack but were sold as lower range cars with range software limited to match the model that was purchased.  I'm pretty sure those cars use the extra capacity to compensate for aging, so they appear to last forever because you don't notice any loss in range until the pack is like 60% deteriorated and it starts eating into your software usable range. Also those cars don't get their batteries charged/discharged to as wide of a voltage range so that helps a lot too.

Only the very early Teslas had software limited packs.  There are caps either side of the pack at like 3V/cell and 4.2V/cell but those are more 'anti-bricking' than any capacity reservation.

[nctnico]

Over 90% after 250 000 km... yeah. Really?

There are a whole bunch of outliers in the graph that show you can get seriously unlucky and buy a lemon battery pack. Also the amount of data for high mileage numbers is minimal.

[tom66]

There are a whole bunch of outliers in the graph that show you can get seriously unlucky and buy a lemon battery pack. Also the amount of data for high mileage numbers is minimal.

Boy, it sure is good that there's an entire field of statistics based on the idea of statistical distributions that allows you to infer data into the future. 

And of course, everyone knows lemon products are not seen in any other field other than electric cars. 

[nctnico]

There are a whole bunch of outliers in the graph that show you can get seriously unlucky and buy a lemon battery pack. Also the amount of data for high mileage numbers is minimal.

Boy, it sure is good that there's an entire field of statistics based on the idea of statistical distributions that allows you to infer data into the future. 

But you have to factor in the nature of the device you are deriving statistics from. At some point Li-ion batteries start to lose capacity exponentially. You can imagine a straight line going down gradually but that is a fantasy. So again: there is data missing to draw a definitive conclusion. The graph should have included error bars; that would show an entirely different picture.

And of course, everyone knows lemon products are not seen in any other field other than electric cars.

That is not the point    The point is that cars (or any item) can have defects. Some are more costly to fix than others based on construction. Looking at the graph the chance that you buy a Tesla with a bad battery is around 1 in 1000.

[tom66]

But you have to factor in the nature of the device you are deriving statistics from. At some point Li-ion batteries start to lose capacity exponentially. You can imagine a straight line going down gradually but that is a fantasy. So again: there is data missing to draw a definitive conclusion. The graph should have included error bars; that would show an entirely different picture.

Do they?   Why would cell degradation be exponential and not just linear?  The cause of Li-ion deterioration is contaminants building up at the SEI layer, which limits the amount of charge and discharge progressively.  You can model this with coloumbic inefficiency; Panasonic chemistries have a very low CI figure.  I see no reason this has to be an exponential failure, especially if the cell is kept within reasonable temperature ranges and has a stable chemistry.  Heck, even the shittiest Nissan batteries have near-linear degradation. (https://flipthefleet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/decay_comparison.png)

That is not the point    The point is that cars (or any item) can have defects. Some are more costly to fix than others based on construction. Looking at the graph the chance that you buy a Tesla with a bad battery is around 1 in 1000.

And I'm sure there's a 1 in 1000 chance of something bad happening with an ICE engine - owning a car is always a risk.  I know people with ICE cars, perfectly serviced, which have burned to the ground in the night for no good reason.  Or cars that randomly throw a rod just outside of warranty.  I do agree that Tesla needs to make their packs more serviceable but I don't think the chance of failure is so high that it can't be mitigated.  There will certainly be a good after-market for battery warranties, and battery service, once EVs become more dominant, just as there are gearbox/engine rebuild companies now.

[Someone]

There are a whole bunch of outliers in the graph that show you can get seriously unlucky and buy a lemon battery pack. Also the amount of data for high mileage numbers is minimal.

Boy, it sure is good that there's an entire field of statistics based on the idea of statistical distributions that allows you to infer data into the future. 

And of course, everyone knows lemon products are not seen in any other field other than electric cars.

Also, graph cutting off the y axis at 85% remaining capacity. Not 0%, still completely usable! Given things like fast charging are going to reduce capacity it is not surprising that there is spread. Given they are chemical batteries (without a significant opportunity for binning??) the spread is impressively small! Prius' with their more heavily cycled battery were getting 150,000 to beyond 300,000 km before requiring replacement.

[PeteH]

Some additional data here (Tesla Model 3, Long Range, 2018). DC fast charging (supercharging) about 6.7% of total kWh charged. Range at time of purchase was rated at ~499km.

Edit: added another 3rd party tool's data.

[tszaboo]

Realistically, the battery lasts longer than the car.

Could you give some examples of reliable statistics please ?

Sure, but you could just google it yourself.
<IMAGE>

Over 90% after 250 000 km... yeah. Really?

Hm.. i'm not sure if that graph takes into account the cars that have software limited battery capacity.
I mean the cars that received a large battery pack but were sold as lower range cars with range software limited to match the model that was purchased.  I'm pretty sure those cars use the extra capacity to compensate for aging, so they appear to last forever because you don't notice any loss in range until the pack is like 60% deteriorated and it starts eating into your software usable range. Also those cars don't get their batteries charged/discharged to as wide of a voltage range so that helps a lot too.

The toyota prius battery pack was microcycled for at test. They used the usual between 40-60% DoD that the car is using for it's ~2km range. They did as I remember over 100.000 cycles with it, which is like 200.000 km electric only.
Most EVs have better lithium batteries. And it's not like your cal becomes unusable with a 80% battery pack. Even Nissan Leafs which had badly designed batteries with insufficient cooling often have 80% left after 6-7 years.

[tom66]

My GTE battery is going on for 1200 cycles (25 miles range, 40000 miles but some on petrol so assume 30000 miles on EV) and still shows capacity of around 93.5% of original.  That pack is discharged up to 10C under hard acceleration and regen is ~5C peak.  It is however liquid cooled and uses Panasonic cells.  I am pretty sure even a PHEV pack could do 200k miles to 70% capacity although this might be a good reason not to get a PHEV over BEV - I would imagine the BEV battery will last longer (but the PHEV does have the engine as a backup)

[Miyuki]

Tesla is actively anti-repair, ever was, and they are just getting better at this as getting more experience.
And if they will go with it and people still buy it. It will be just an inspiration for other manufacturers.
It is a sad world.

[Psi]

Tesla is actively anti-repair, ever was, and they are just getting better at this as getting more experience.
And if they will go with it and people still buy it. It will be just an inspiration for other manufacturers.
It is a sad world.

I wouldn't say they are anti-repair, that is where the company does things for no reason other than to block repair.

But yeah, lots of issues with repair definitely

[Halcyon]

Over 90% after 250 000 km... yeah. Really?

Why not?  At 80kWh capacity per charge and 5km/kWh 250,000 km is 625 cycles.  A good Li-Ion pack will do 1500 cycles easily, a very good Li-Ion pack can do 3000.

Whilst these figures do sound reasonable, that graph alone doesn't give us enough information. Is that across all owners worldwide or within a specific region?

I'd love to see how long those batteries last in Australian summer temperatures. Nissan's claim of 80% usable battery life after 5 years didn't apply to the Australian market where there are reports of batteries losing up to 20% capacity within 12 months (granted it was probably based on the old battery design). Nevertheless, it's not unusual in parts of Australia to experience daytime temperatures of 40 degrees C and above. The average January temperature in western Sydney is over 31 degrees.

[tom66]

Nissans battery had absolutely no cooling, not even a fan to blow air over the cells.  It's no wonder when parked in a country that regularly exceed 40C that the cells deteriorated.  A secondary issue is that the cell chemistry is very poor.  Like, it's one of the worst chemistries you could have used for EVs.  It's baffling to me that they used it for so long - and even the 40/62kWh packs use a very similar, slightly tweaked chemistry (still not cooled, mind).

That Tesla graph is from the Netherlands, so could be under-reporting high temperature degradation.  This graph is from the US:


I'd roughly estimate 80,000 miles = 4% degradation but the data is more limited.  That does put the car at worst case ~12% degradation by 200k miles, making a linear interpolation.  More data needed to make a solid conclusion.

[tszaboo]

Tesla is actively anti-repair, ever was, and they are just getting better at this as getting more experience.
And if they will go with it and people still buy it. It will be just an inspiration for other manufacturers.
It is a sad world.

I wouldn't say they are anti-repair, that is where the company does things for no reason other than to block repair.

But yeah, lots of issues with repair definitely

They used aluminium welding in the Model 3, which 95% of reapir shops have no equipment to repair.
They offer no replacement parts to be ordered by third parties.
Flash memory is broken and you need to replace everything in your dash for 1500 or whatever it was.
Recently my bosses Model S tripped the circuit breaker 2x, each time it was 5K to fix the internal charger of the car, because it was out of the 2 year warranty. I had to ask this twice, because I got used to 6-10 year warranty on Japanese cars.

[Siwastaja]

Nissans battery had absolutely no cooling, not even a fan to blow air over the cells.  It's no wonder when parked in a country that regularly exceed 40C that the cells deteriorated.  A secondary issue is that the cell chemistry is very poor. 

Yeah, and LMO could be acceptable when temperature is under good control - but the combination of no cooling and LMO is a really crappy one.

[Neilm]

Tesla is actively anti-repair, ever was, and they are just getting better at this as getting more experience.
And if they will go with it and people still buy it. It will be just an inspiration for other manufacturers.
It is a sad world.

I wouldn't say they are anti-repair, that is where the company does things for no reason other than to block repair.

But yeah, lots of issues with repair definitely

Every "How to design stuff" course I have been on have all emphasised ease of assembly over ease of repair. If Tesla have designed it such as they have a very low failure rate and a method for recyling the battery easily they could just have said "Swap the pack and recycle the old one"

Then again, as Tesla know what that foam is they may have the solvent to get rid of it. Munro don't and haven't so have to do it the hard way. Given the energy involved in that pack it is one way of preventing unauthorised tampering.

[MT]

Every "How to design stuff" course I have been on have all emphasised ease of assembly over ease of repair. If Tesla have designed it such as they have a very low failure rate and a method for recyling the battery easily they could just have said "Swap the pack and recycle the old one"

Then again, as Tesla know what that foam is they may have the solvent to get rid of it. Munro don't and haven't so have to do it the hard way. Given the energy involved in that pack it is one way of preventing unauthorised tampering.

Recall Munro mentions "polyeurethane" several times in 3 different videos. Munro himself claims in an older vid that model Y batteries are intended to be grounded down
to a pulpy mess and then metals extracted out, how he newer detail as in his world everything is solved and Elon Musk is a saint. Now, metal separation are still cumbersome
to do (read expensive) and its just cheaper to buy the various ingredients new from the supplier.

[james_s]

Yeah, I'm pretty annoyed by the ignorance of the babyboomers in my family buying electric vehicles because the media propaganda told them so.

The people I know who bought them did so because they are fun to drive and because they are so cheap to run. The Tesla Y my dad had would do 0-60 in about 3 seconds, that's supercar territory in a modestly priced SUV and 300 miles of range cost about $10 in electricity. I'd buy one myself if I drove enough for it to matter, I don't watch TV so it's not propaganda, I've driven one and personally observed how superior the driving experience is.

[thm_w]

Recall Munro mentions "polyeurethane" several times in 3 different videos. Munro himself claims in an older vid that model Y batteries are intended to be grounded down
to a pulpy mess and then metals extracted out, how he newer detail as in his world everything is solved and Elon Musk is a saint. Now, metal separation are still cumbersome
to do (read expensive) and its just cheaper to buy the various ingredients new from the supplier.

DMF or DMSO dissolve polyurethane, but currently they just melt the batteries so the plastics would get burned off.

https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28

[Psi]

Tesla is actively anti-repair, ever was, and they are just getting better at this as getting more experience.
And if they will go with it and people still buy it. It will be just an inspiration for other manufacturers.
It is a sad world.

I wouldn't say they are anti-repair, that is where the company does things for no reason other than to block repair.

But yeah, lots of issues with repair definitely

They used aluminium welding in the Model 3, which 95% of reapir shops have no equipment to repair.

But did they do that as a "Screw you" to repair shops or because it made the car lighter and boosted range, or because it more sense on their production line?

They offer no replacement parts to be ordered by third parties.

That has not been true for a while. You can order spare parts for your Tesla now.  They don't have absolutely everything for sale but you can order most things. The time to get them is pretty terrible though.

Flash memory is broken and you need to replace everything in your dash for 1500 or whatever it was.

The reason that happened is well known, someone at Tesla accidently left debug mode enabled on the logging system and it was logging everything to flash. It was a simple mistake and not a malicious act to force people to replace their dash console.

I just don't see any obvious anti-repair practices by Tesla. Not saying there are none, just that they don't seem to doing things just to screw with 3rd party repair.  There was that one thing where they would disable supercharging when a car was written off which caused problems for DIY repair of written off cars, but then they started a program where you can get your repaired car checked over by tesla and supercharging reinstated.

Now, on the other hand the following car companies are behind "The Coalition for Safe and Secure Data" which ran TV ads in Massachusetts to try and convince everyone in the state to vote "no" to an automotive right to repair law by saying you would get raped in a parking lot if the bill passes.
GM, Toyota, Ford, Honda, Nissan, FCA, Kia, Hyundai, Subaru, VW/Audi, Mazda, BMW, Daimler, Mitsubishi, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo

Not saying Tesla is perfect, just that the others are blatantly anti-repair

[Siwastaja]

They used aluminium welding in the Model 3, which 95% of reapir shops have no equipment to repair.

But did they do that as a "Screw you" to repair shops or because it made the car lighter and boosted range, or because it more sense on their production line?

Of course to make a better product.

Ignoring poor people in least developed countries (which is fair because they would not buy Teslas), 99.9% of people never have their car welded. Heck, it's quite difficult to even find a repair shop who actually do body repair / welding, 99% of repair is replacing spare parts.

This is the usual "boohoo manufacturers don't make their product repairable", when no one repairs those "repairable" products anyway. From the environmental perspective, if making something better repairable increases the environmental impact by even 1%, it is going to be a net loss!

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

Tesla's battery is a good example. Cell-level fixes are difficult, iffy and dangerous anyway. These are hacks that are rarely done. If by impregnating the battery pack in some goo Tesla can make it more safe and reliable, then it obviously needs to go this way. The right thing to do is to keep increasing reliability and lowering cost, and to improve battery recycling, not supporting third party cell swaps.

[tszaboo]

They used aluminium welding in the Model 3, which 95% of reapir shops have no equipment to repair.

But did they do that as a "Screw you" to repair shops or because it made the car lighter and boosted range, or because it more sense on their production line?

Of course to make a better product.

Ignoring poor people in least developed countries (which is fair because they would not buy Teslas), 99.9% of people never have their car welded. Heck, it's quite difficult to even find a repair shop who actually do body repair / welding, 99% of repair is replacing spare parts.

This is the usual "boohoo manufacturers don't make their product repairable", when no one repairs those "repairable" products anyway. From the environmental perspective, if making something better repairable increases the environmental impact by even 1%, it is going to be a net loss!

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

Tesla's battery is a good example. Cell-level fixes are difficult, iffy and dangerous anyway. These are hacks that are rarely done. If by impregnating the battery pack in some goo Tesla can make it more safe and reliable, then it obviously needs to go this way. The right thing to do is to keep increasing reliability and lowering cost, and to improve battery recycling, not supporting third party cell swaps.

Except, Teslas have notoriously bad reliability.
Cell level repair has been dont on early hybrids very often. Taxi drivers have perfected this, and there are services replacing the battery for as low as 100 EUR.

But did they do that as a "Screw you" to repair shops or because it made the car lighter and boosted range, or because it more sense on their production line?

No, I think they did it because they are just not very good at making cars. Just look at one car from close, and see if the panel gaps are symmetrical on the car or not. And the car was already 2.5 tons, so instead of removing the completely useless features, like motors moving the doors, or the 8000 horsepower engines (hyperbole), they had to save weight on the bodywork.
We are already getting better electric cars from others luckily.

[thm_w]

Yeah their overall reliability is not good: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CR-reliability-2019.png 2021 bit better.

But what we are discussing here is batteries, and I don't think anyone has Tesla battery reliability numbers posted publicly?

[bdunham7]

99.9% of people never have their car welded. Heck, it's quite difficult to even find a repair shop who actually do body repair / welding, 99% of repair is replacing spare parts.

Perhaps things are different in Finland, but here in the US every serious body shop and even most backyard bob types have welding capability, usually spot, MIG and torch, along with the relevant flanging tools, etc.  Even after you strip off all the parts that bolt on, you are left with a of sheet metal, usually at least the rear quarter panels, the roof, A/B/C pillars, rocker panels, etc.  You can buy repair sections, but you have to cut/flange/grind/weld them in place. Body shops that do repairs on aluminum cars will have TIG welding capability and so on.  For major frame straightening, they special order rented jigs for each particular model.  Body repair is not 99% bolt-ons, it's almost the opposite.  YMMV.

Tesla's battery is a good example. Cell-level fixes are difficult, iffy and dangerous anyway. These are hacks that are rarely done. If by impregnating the battery pack in some goo Tesla can make it more safe and reliable, then it obviously needs to go this way. The right thing to do is to keep increasing reliability and lowering cost, and to improve battery recycling, not supporting third party cell swaps.

I'm going to have to go  2 for 2 on disagreeing with you today.  My BEV just got a replacement battery that was 'remanufactured' due to the old one leaking.  The particular car and battery that it belongs to  (Ford) have no issues with safety or fire, yet they can be disassembled and repaired as needed.  There's no reason a battery built like this can't be properly repaired at the cell level (although I'm sure they can be improperly repaired as well).   It is already an industry for hybrids and one of the largest aftermarket parts suppliers has remanufactured aftermarket batteries available, along with a number of smaller specialist outfits that have popped up.  Mostly NiMH for hybrids because they've been out longer, but I'm sure they're looking at BEV batteries as well.  Nissan also offers a remanufactured battery as well, so that's at least two OEM's that are clearly in the 'fixable' camp.

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/find/dorman-car-batteries

https://www.aftermarketnews.com/dorman-products-announces-acquisition-of-re-involt-technologies-and-launch-of-new-oe-solutions-hybrid-drive-battery-program/

https://www.greentecauto.com/

[Miyuki]

99.9% of people never have their car welded. Heck, it's quite difficult to even find a repair shop who actually do body repair / welding, 99% of repair is replacing spare parts.

Perhaps things are different in Finland, but here in the US every serious body shop and even most backyard bob types have welding capability, usually spot, MIG and torch, along with the relevant flanging tools, etc.  Even after you strip off all the parts that bolt on, you are left with a of sheet metal, usually at least the rear quarter panels, the roof, A/B/C pillars, rocker panels, etc.  You can buy repair sections, but you have to cut/flange/grind/weld them in place. Body shops that do repairs on aluminum cars will have TIG welding capability and so on.  For major frame straightening, they special order rented jigs for each particular model.  Body repair is not 99% bolt-ons, it's almost the opposite.  YMMV.

Tesla's battery is a good example. Cell-level fixes are difficult, iffy and dangerous anyway. These are hacks that are rarely done. If by impregnating the battery pack in some goo Tesla can make it more safe and reliable, then it obviously needs to go this way. The right thing to do is to keep increasing reliability and lowering cost, and to improve battery recycling, not supporting third party cell swaps.

I'm going to have to go  2 for 2 on disagreeing with you today.  My BEV just got a replacement battery that was 'remanufactured' due to the old one leaking.  The particular car and battery that it belongs to  (Ford) have no issues with safety or fire, yet they can be disassembled and repaired as needed.  There's no reason a battery built like this can't be properly repaired at the cell level (although I'm sure they can be improperly repaired as well).   It is already an industry for hybrids and one of the largest aftermarket parts suppliers has remanufactured aftermarket batteries available, along with a number of smaller specialist outfits that have popped up.  Mostly NiMH for hybrids because they've been out longer, but I'm sure they're looking at BEV batteries as well.  Nissan also offers a remanufactured battery as well, so that's at least two OEM's that are clearly in the 'fixable' camp.

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/find/dorman-car-batteries

https://www.aftermarketnews.com/dorman-products-announces-acquisition-of-re-involt-technologies-and-launch-of-new-oe-solutions-hybrid-drive-battery-program/

https://www.greentecauto.com/

Previous Tesla models used 5kWh or similar modules that theoretically can be changed easily, but it was banned by Tesla for no other reason than selling you whole battery packs.
And also suitable for usage for solar storage when no longer good for EVs.
Scrapping and trying to recycle the whole 80kWh pack for some minor issues is not a good way to design
It is good for the business as the old cars just die and have no way to repair.
And I wonder what percentage of cars had the battery replaced in 10 year period. (Either under warranty and in cases not covered)
This is a big issue as a car body can easily last 20+ years.

[nctnico]

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

No. Products should be repairable AND reliable AND economic at the same time. Economic and reliable counter eachother though. You can make a super reliable battery but that will cost a fortune making it a commercial non-starter. In the real world reliable is relative to the price but by being repairable at low cost, you still get an end product with a low TCO. In the end you'll always be competing based on TCO.

[HighVoltage]

It is not only the battery pack.
Try to get any other part for a Tesla as a replacement part. At the end you get it, but what a hassle.

We have a family member with a Tesla and he needed a new bumper.
Any other car manufacturer has a parts department but not for this one.
It took him a few weeks to get a new bumper.
And don't ask about the cost!

[tszaboo]

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

No. Products should be repairable AND reliable AND economic at the same time. Economic and reliable counter eachother though. You can make a super reliable battery but that will cost a fortune making it a commercial non-starter. In the real world reliable is relative to the price but by being repairable at low cost, you still get an end product with a low TCO. In the end you'll always be competing based on TCO.

For example VW's MEB platform. They make battery modules, one type, which the ID3 gets 6 or 8 depending on range variant, the ID 4 gets 2 more and so on (example). One BOM material, one production line for the modules. If better cell chemistry comes along, you can replace it with that, without redesigning the car. They can be replaced, shipped to be serviced, and so on.
Or the Toyota e-TNGA platform. Or the Hyundai platform.
VW launched 12 different car models on the same platform in 3 years. We got the memetruck from Tesla in the meantime.

[Psi]

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

I don't agree, making something repairable doesn't make it unreliable or give it less lifespan.
Can you give an example of where you think that is true?

The only downside to making a product more repairable is cost.
The initial design/RnD cost a little more to make it easy to take apart and production costs are a little
higher for screws instead of glue etc..
But the cost isn't much, maybe 10-20% at most.  But that makes the product last significantly longer because it's easy/cheap to 'keep it going' instead of buying a new one.

The reason we don't have repairable products is that manufactures have an incentive to make them as cheap as possible and make them fail as soon as possible.  And the reason they have that incentive is because the general public do not shop for products based on total cost of ownership, they shop based on purchase price.

To fix the problem we need education and perhaps a standard system that shows the total cost of ownership for every product to the purchaser or maybe its expected lifespan based on quality and reparability.  eg, this product costs $100 but is built to last 1 year vs this other product that cost $150 is built to last 5 years.

Once you educate the public and gamify the system then manufactures will compete to make products that lasts the longest in order to capture the market for people who always purchase the products with the highest lifespan.

Ya just have to change the narrative from
"Cheaper products  = more sales and more profit"
"Longer lasting products = more sales and more profit"

[james_s]

The only downside to making a product more repairable is cost.
The initial design/RnD cost a little more to make it easy to take apart and production costs are a little
higher for screws instead of glue etc.

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

[Miyuki]

The only downside to making a product more repairable is cost.
The initial design/RnD cost a little more to make it easy to take apart and production costs are a little
higher for screws instead of glue etc.

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

It is a complicated problem and really depends on the type of product
Say you manufacture an automotive dashboard and switch from fasteners to glue and plastic welds
It makes it significantly cheaper but makes it unserviceable
And it starts to have issues after 10 years
Manufacturer and customers are happy because both saved a buck and the buyer does not want to hold this car longer than 10 years
But then we have an issue. The majority of the people do not use a new car, but a car over 10 years of age

It is significantly different for things like cellphones or home electronics.
For appliances like fridges, washers, and stoves it is somewhat mixed. It depends significantly on country wages as it affects the cost of repair vs buying new.

It makes a huge difference if service personnel takes 200, 20 of just 2 $ per hour

[Ice-Tea]

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

I don't agree, making something repairable doesn't make it unreliable or give it less lifespan.
Can you give an example of where you think that is true?

Funny thing is that Munroe kinda gives an answer to that. He harps on the unreliability of fasteners in an automotive environment in pretty much all of his videos. So, in come the plastic snaps and glue ;-)

[Siwastaja]

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

I don't agree, making something repairable doesn't make it unreliable or give it less lifespan. Can you give an example of where you think that is true?

Example: modular design to allow repairs by replacing modules: now there are connectors which not only increase cost, but also can fail. Also each module is now more complex, may need their own power supplies etc. Given products have some price target, savings on the connectors alone would enable buying better quality electrolytic capacitors, and size savings due to better integration would improve cooling.

I do design electronics and I always try to go for maximized integration. It is significant improvement for reliability, performance and cost, but indeed hinders "repairability".

But the cost isn't much, maybe 10-20% at most.

It is quite revealing you don't think 10-20% is a lot. Given that <1% of repairable products are repaired anyway, 10-20% cost increase is a 10-20x net loss.

"Longer lasting products = more sales and more profit"

I agree with this, but repairability is not the key, good original design is. As you say, longer lasting products. But WITHOUT having to repair it, because people want convenience, not extra costs during the product lifetime.

The problem with repairs is, it is very inefficient. To repair a $100 gadget, you need to basically spend $100, unless it's a really trivial fix. Further, because there must be some reason why the device failed in the first place, the "repair" (not being a redesign) does not fix that, and chances are really high the repair is worse than the product when new.

Being someone who actually designs electronics, and does failure analysis and repair-for-education of devices designed by others, repairing properly is difficult and expensive. Understanding of the original design, possibly beyond the level of the original designer, is needed.

The proof is in the fact basically no one repairs anything. You can blame the manufacturers until cows come home, but you are wrong. Whatever they do to make repairs easy, still 99% do not repair. It is wasted effort.

Instead, the same effort needs to be directed to make things high quality and reliable. I'm not even against regulating it; say mandate companies to give 5-year guarantees or whatever is needed to get the quality up. Sanction poor quality shit. Whatever.

Yet some people seem to think the key is in repairability and requiring companies to make product repairable. It's not, even if they managed to mandate this, still <1% gets repaired, because it is expensive, inefficient, and inconvenient. It is much much easier to just design products that rarely fail to begin with.

[tom66]

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

I don't think it's as low as 0.1% of all products.

Even here you can get say £20 for a broken smartphone at a high street shop, which suggests that this is worth buying for someone to repair or at least extract parts from to repair others. 

Cars will be worth repairing until they're not - but for many this would be 15-20 year lifespans in countries which do not use road salt, maybe 10-15 years is ones that do.  (Incidentally, there are a few places trying a mix of brine and beet juice instead of just salt, to reduce corrosion, so cars may begin to last even longer.)

[Miyuki]

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

I don't think it's as low as 0.1% of all products.

Even here you can get say £20 for a broken smartphone at a high street shop, which suggests that this is worth buying for someone to repair or at least extract parts from to repair others. 

Cars will be worth repairing until they're not - but for many this would be 15-20 year lifespans in countries which do not use road salt, maybe 10-15 years is ones that do.  (Incidentally, there are a few places trying a mix of brine and beet juice instead of just salt, to reduce corrosion, so cars may begin to last even longer.)

Modern cars (at least European brands) tend to have outstanding corrosion protection.
This year I put to scrap my Renault manufactured in 2001 and it just started to get some cosmetic rust, not structural issues yet. So I can imagine in a climate without salt it would last almost forever structurally.
It was scrapped because in the last service they forget to put some kind of Loctite on bolts holding in the engine. So it just fell off during a ride due to vibration. 

[nctnico]

The only downside to making a product more repairable is cost.
The initial design/RnD cost a little more to make it easy to take apart and production costs are a little
higher for screws instead of glue etc.

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

I disagree here. I assume you have read news stories about BEV batteries costing more than the car is worth to replace. First of all this is bad for publicity for the brand and BEVs in general, secondly it makes buying a BEV a gamble. 99.9% means that 1 in 1000 batteries will fail which is quite a lot. Nobody will complain about a repair of $800 but people will complain about needing a  $8000 repair.

@tom66: corrosion is something from the 70's and 80's. Rust protection has improved a lot. It is not a problem at all. Not even after 30 years for cars made in the EU. We have had several cars until they where 18-20 years old without any rust issues.

[tom66]

In any case, good maintenance will reduce the impact of salt.  If I take my car out in winter and salt has been used, I give the underside a quick spray with the jet wash once a week or so, just getting any leftover salt obviously off exposed surfaces.  But yes, VW sold my car with a 12 year anti-perforation warranty, so they must be fairly confident that very few claims will be made in that time. And that warranty doesn't exclude countries that use salt for 3 months out of the year, like Norway.

[tszaboo]

Modern cars (at least European brands) tend to have outstanding corrosion protection.

Hey, Italy is also in Europe, ok?

[nctnico]

Modern cars (at least European brands) tend to have outstanding corrosion protection.

Hey, Italy is also in Europe, ok?

Italian cars don't make it long enough for rust to have a significant impact on the car 

[bdunham7]

The proof is in the fact basically no one repairs anything. You can blame the manufacturers until cows come home, but you are wrong. Whatever they do to make repairs easy, still 99% do not repair. It is wasted effort.

Instead, the same effort needs to be directed to make things high quality and reliable. I'm not even against regulating it; say mandate companies to give 5-year guarantees or whatever is needed to get the quality up. Sanction poor quality shit. Whatever.

Yet some people seem to think the key is in repairability and requiring companies to make product repairable. It's not, even if they managed to mandate this, still <1% gets repaired, because it is expensive, inefficient, and inconvenient. It is much much easier to just design products that rarely fail to begin with.

It really depends on what product you are talking about.  A power brick?  Yeah, I fix mine but I'd accept your assertion that I'm in the 0.1%.  But a 5-year warranty won't improve the product as they'll just hand you another cheap turd.  But (here in the US--YMMV) repairs on things over a few hundred dollars like phones and TVs are still commonly done.  The typical repair person doesn't have 'designer-level' knowledge, they are more opportunistic, applying known fixes where they can and giving up easily if it gets too difficult.  Things like computers and expensive appliances are routinely repaired during their lifetime and that is actually a fairly big business.  Cars are another level up, the common expectation is that almost any fault should be economically repairable over a 15-20 year span.  Consumers will have little tolerance for replacing a $20K battery that has suffered a failure well within its expected lifetime but is unrepairable due to its design. 

[coppercone2]

Honestly what the hell, it looks like a cheap early version low price consumer transistorized radio.

[thm_w]

It really depends on what product you are talking about.  A power brick?  Yeah, I fix mine but I'd accept your assertion that I'm in the 0.1%. But a 5-year warranty won't improve the product as they'll just hand you another cheap turd.  But (here in the US--YMMV) repairs on things over a few hundred dollars like phones and TVs are still commonly done.  The typical repair person doesn't have 'designer-level' knowledge, they are more opportunistic, applying known fixes where they can and giving up easily if it gets too difficult.  Things like computers and expensive appliances are routinely repaired during their lifetime and that is actually a fairly big business.  Cars are another level up, the common expectation is that almost any fault should be economically repairable over a 15-20 year span.  Consumers will have little tolerance for replacing a $20K battery that has suffered a failure well within its expected lifetime but is unrepairable due to its design.

Disagree, they'll go out of business if their failure rate is too high. It could only work if they have a huge margin, or they are a fly by night company.
Warranty is a big incentive to get things right. Reasonable mandated warranties (say for large appliances, cars, etc.) is a good thing IMO.

https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/12/2/245/1918480?login=false

[james_s]

I disagree here. I assume you have read news stories about BEV batteries costing more than the car is worth to replace. First of all this is bad for publicity for the brand and BEVs in general, secondly it makes buying a BEV a gamble. 99.9% means that 1 in 1000 batteries will fail which is quite a lot. Nobody will complain about a repair of $800 but people will complain about needing a  $8000 repair.

Sure, and I've also heard stories about engines costing more than a car is worth to replace, and they do fail occasionally too. Buying any car is a gamble, but at least in the USA I think all BEVs have to have at least a 8 year warranty on the battery, I keep my cars longer than that but most people don't.

I'm not too worried, there will be more and more 3rd parties springing up offering rebuilt batter packs just as has happened for hybrids. People will figure out techniques to repair them.

[james_s]

Modern cars (at least European brands) tend to have outstanding corrosion protection.
This year I put to scrap my Renault manufactured in 2001 and it just started to get some cosmetic rust, not structural issues yet. So I can imagine in a climate without salt it would last almost forever structurally.
It was scrapped because in the last service they forget to put some kind of Loctite on bolts holding in the engine. So it just fell off during a ride due to vibration. 

When I visited Chicago I was struck by the fact that you don't see ANY cars older than about 15-20 years and even many that are only around 15 years old are badly rusted. Out here rust-free cars that are 20+ years old are very common. Salt is nasty, horrible stuff and I wish they would outlaw using it on roads.

[nctnico]

I disagree here. I assume you have read news stories about BEV batteries costing more than the car is worth to replace. First of all this is bad for publicity for the brand and BEVs in general, secondly it makes buying a BEV a gamble. 99.9% means that 1 in 1000 batteries will fail which is quite a lot. Nobody will complain about a repair of $800 but people will complain about needing a  $8000 repair.

Sure, and I've also heard stories about engines costing more than a car is worth to replace, and they do fail occasionally too.

Typically such engine failures are covered by extended warranties as well. In many cases the manufacturer will compensate the owner for such a premature failure.

I'm not too worried, there will be more and more 3rd parties springing up offering rebuilt batter packs just as has happened for hybrids. People will figure out techniques to repair them.

The latter is most certainly true. But I do hope you can agree that such parties can work cheaper and do a better job (as in the repair being reliable) with a battery pack that is easy to service.

[james_s]

Typically such engine failures are covered by extended warranties as well. In many cases the manufacturer will compensate the owner for such a premature failure.

Who has those though? Maybe it's different in other parts of the world, but here extended warranties are widely seen as a sort of scam, which they often are. Certainly I've never purchased one. Often when an engine fails prematurely it isn't the fault of the manufacture, people run them out of oil, overheat them or don't maintain them properly.

[nctnico]

Typically such engine failures are covered by extended warranties as well. In many cases the manufacturer will compensate the owner for such a premature failure.

Who has those though? Maybe it's different in other parts of the world, but here extended warranties are widely seen as a sort of scam, which they often are. Certainly I've never purchased one. Often when an engine fails prematurely it isn't the fault of the manufacture, people run them out of oil, overheat them or don't maintain them properly.

I don't mean the extended warranties you buy (*) but typically manufacturers will help out customers with premature engine failures to preserve goodwill. How much compensation is being paid depends on the type of damage / known problems / amount of complaining from the customer. Ofcourse the car will need a full service history from a dealer.

* BTW: I never buy a used car with warranty. Whatever is wrong with it, I want it to be fixed right and not bodged so I take it to a garage where I have been a satisfied customer for about 20 years already. My trust in car sales people can not be expressed in any way -there is none-.

[bdunham7]

Who has those though? Maybe it's different in other parts of the world, but here extended warranties are widely seen as a sort of scam, which they often are. Certainly I've never purchased one. Often when an engine fails prematurely it isn't the fault of the manufacture, people run them out of oil, overheat them or don't maintain them properly.

Some brands have 10 year powertrain warranties, but not all.  Engine replacement or major repair is a viable business over a certain window, starting with when the warranty effectively expires and ending when the cost of the engine replacement is too much compared to the value of the car.  For most ICE cars, the window is fairly long and the costs are reasonable provided the car is in otherwise good condition.  There were some notable exceptions where the repair costs and difficulty was exceptionally high--early V8 Jaguars and the Audi A8 and Allroad come to mind--or the value of the car plummets very rapidly like the old Isuzu Rodeo.  That one had an 18-month window, barely enough time to get the job figured out.  The window for aftermarket battery replacement or repair starts at 8 years, but a $20K repair on a 9 year old car that sold new for $50K is probably not going to be a hit with consumers.  They'll probably head to the scrapyard just like those Jags and Audis did. 

My BEV's new battery (warranty) was supposedly $13K.  We paid <$16K for the car after tax credits, $26K before.  If that battery fails out of warranty in someone else's car, it would be a no-sale and a consumer with a negative attitude toward electric cars.  An unrepairable glued-together battery pack is not the same show as ICE engine replacement.

[tom66]

Typically such engine failures are covered by extended warranties as well. In many cases the manufacturer will compensate the owner for such a premature failure.

Are they?  My hybrid had a regular 3 year bumper-to-bumper warranty, but the battery has 8 year warranty.

I think I tried to claim on an engine failure much past that 3 year point I'd be out of luck.  I could try using consumer rights processes, but that's a long and arduous process.

[Psi]

But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

I don't agree, making something repairable doesn't make it unreliable or give it less lifespan. Can you give an example of where you think that is true?

Example: modular design to allow repairs by replacing modules: now there are connectors which not only increase cost, but also can fail. Also each module is now more complex, may need their own power supplies etc. Given products have some price target, savings on the connectors alone would enable buying better quality electrolytic capacitors, and size savings due to better integration would improve cooling.

Making something repairable doesn't mean it has to be modularized so anyone on minimum wage and no skill can do it by replacing modules.

I think it maybe a terminality interpretation issue.
The right to repair isn't really about forcing manufactures to make drastic or costly changes to their products just to make them repairable. It's more about manufacturers acknowledging that repair is something that exists and being mindful not to make things unduly hard to repair when they don't need to be.

Everything is and always will be 'repairable' it's just a matter of time, skills needed and cost.

The issue I have is when products are intentionally made uneconomical to repair for no reason other than to make them uneconomical to repair. Or maybe where they have been made uneconomical to repair for a stupid reason that would have been trivial to not do when the device was designed/manufactured.

It's understandable that choices need to be made when designing a product and some of those choices will make the product less repairable. But those choices should have a valid reason.

[nctnico]

Typically such engine failures are covered by extended warranties as well. In many cases the manufacturer will compensate the owner for such a premature failure.

Are they?  My hybrid had a regular 3 year bumper-to-bumper warranty, but the battery has 8 year warranty.

I think I tried to claim on an engine failure much past that 3 year point I'd be out of luck.  I could try using consumer rights processes, but that's a long and arduous process.

I have been on car-fixing fora for decades and have read stories about people that got partly or full compensation for engines failures outside warranty. Car manufacturers know there is a small percentage of failures due to production errors and they don't want that to tarnisch their brand reputation. Also, it is cheaper to provide a longer warranty out of leniency rather than improving the yield of the production process.

It's understandable that choices need to be made when designing a product and some of those choices will make the product less repairable. But those choices should have a valid reason.

Regulation can also help with that. For example: since 2009 the EU has a law that headlights from cars must be easy to replace. This law came into existence because for some cars it was no longer possible to change the headlight along the road; you'd need to take half the front of the car apart on some models. In 2024 it will be required by EU law that batteries in portable devices and small vehicles (e-bikes, mopeds, etc) are easy to replace.

[MT]

Part3

[thm_w]

TLDR:
- Large bus bars directly welded to the battery cells
- Less fasteners (16)

So maybe they think the cells are reliable enough now? This site says no internal fusing at all: https://www.batterydesign.net/tesla-4680-cell/ (100Wh/cell, 276Wh/kg.)
There were 4 BMS boards but wasn't clear what sort of switching was on them.

[Black Phoenix]

Regulation can also help with that. For example: since 2009 the EU has a law that headlights from cars must be easy to replace. This law came into existence because for some cars it was no longer possible to change the headlight along the road; you'd need to take half the front of the car apart on some models. In 2024 it will be required by EU law that batteries in portable devices and small vehicles (e-bikes, mopeds, etc) are easy to replace.

True. Previous owner of a Renault Clio III, Phase 1 (launch year 2007). The only lights able to be changed are the turn indicators and the low beans on the left side. And both fog lights.

All the others you have to spend 45 min removing the front bumper (plus the wheel arcs front half to get to the last 2 screws inside) to be able to get to the last screw who holds the headlight assembly (two on the top and one in the middle down). At total is 18 self tapping screws and 8 plastic clamps (that break easily when removed so have spares to replace).

In the 10 years I used the car (my mom now is the one with it since I'm in Shenzhen, China and the car is in Portugal) I changed twice all the lamps since it was easier to change all when one failed because of the work involved.

The Phase 2 model (design refresh that some brands do - launch date 2009) came with a different front bumper and headlights and didn't had such problem, although the headlight assembly still needed to be removed from the car for the high beams.

[tom66]

I'm pretty sure my old Peugeot 206 was built around the air conditioning compressor.  They just progressively bolted the rest of the car to that.  Certainly, it was easy enough to change the passenger side headlamp, but the driver's side lamp requires a contortionist due to the location of the compressor.

[james_s]

I can accept some parts being difficult to replace, but to have to disassemble things to replace light bulbs is ridiculous, they are a consumable, and one that usually fails without notice and may need replacement in a parking lot.

[nctnico]

OTOH... On my car (Ford Focus) I do have to take the entire headlamp out. But it is only 1 screw (with both Torx and flathead) that sits on top and the unit is easy to pull out. With the headlamp unit out, replacing the bulb is a piece of cake. I'd say it is easier than popping the lid open on the back of a headlamp unit that stays in place.

[MT]

part4

[JPortici]

Modern cars (at least European brands) tend to have outstanding corrosion protection.

Hey, Italy is also in Europe, ok?

Italian cars don't make it long enough for rust to have a significant impact on the car 

And yet i see many fiat from the early 2000 and even from earlier, every day. And being in the northeast, we use salt all winter. I scrapped the old grande punto some years ago because after an accident it came out the head lamps i had to replace were worth more than the car itself, it also had suffered lots of damage from hail over the years and the mileage was high so it was not really worth restoring. It was worth repairing though, could have lasted me until at least this year.