Tesla model Y 4680 battery pack not very serviceable!

[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.