The repairs cost over half the starting price for the Rivian EV. The owner said he'd expected it wouldn't be cheap, but it was a "shocking number."
A Rivian owner was in a fender bender. The repair bill was $42,000.::The repairs cost over half the starting price for the Rivian EV. The owner said he'd expected it wouldn't be cheap, but it was a "shocking number."
This is why my only electric vehicle is a bicycle lol, still waiting on prices to come down to something sane. In the meantime, I have my trusty old Honda and Subaru.
This is the exact wrong way of thinking. This has nothing to do with the fact vehicle is electric. This has everything to do with the fact Rivian is young company. People will often neglect the fact Toyota (and others) exist for decades and has been pouring time and money in figuring reliability and ease of repair. It's not an easy thing to achieve. It's decades and number of different models of improvement upon improvement that we take for granted today.
Of course Tesla's quality is going to suck ass, they've been around for far shorter, and have an idiot for owner who thinks he's the best thing. And not only Tesla, Rivian but all new manufacturers will struggle with issues like these. Some manufacturers are smarter than others and they will hire experienced people to help work and design. Musk is not one of those smart people as his tendency is to make sure smartest people leave in every company he buys.
Are they on par in terms of quality, price, and reliability as their traditional vehicles now? I'd been under the impression that they were still really expensive both to buy and to repair. I guess I haven't really researched it lately though.
As far as I understand (I’m in the market myself) the traditional makers have essentially caught up. You can expect the same build quality as other cars by the same makers.
(I’m specifically looking at Renault, Volvo and Mercedes, haven’t tried others)
This has nothing to do with EV, it has to do with extremely overcharing customers. A BMW fender could run you 5000 just for the part. My fiancee worked in the automotive sector so she has the gross prices: under 100 Euros.
I have nothing against EVs as a concept, but there are no good EVs that are reasonably priced and even the expensive ones can be shitty and ridiciulously expensive to maintain or repair. If there was a true electric equivalent to something like a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Closest thing I can think of would be a Prius but they're still pretty expensive.