Mechanic here. Most ev’s have oil. Check your owners manual when you should change it.
/TiredMechanic
Since I once again have to get serious after a shitpost, Most EVs definitely don’t, because most on the road are Teslas, and there is no oil to change in their regular service.
Uninformed speculation: they need oil changes, but aren’t in the regular service so it will break down, causing costly repairs or forcing you to buy a new one. The planned obsolescence is baked right in.
The motors are sealed and will last long beyond drivetrain warranty periods (which is 8 years, 120k miles on Model 3/Y). Battery packs do have a coolant that is intended to last the life of the vehicle, though I’ve heard of it being drained/replaced after maintenance where someone had failed valves in the coolant system.
ICE vehicles break down far faster, requiring loads more maintenance and parts replacement over their lives, even when properly maintained. More moving parts, more friction, more points of failure.
My bolt has oil for the reduction gear but it’s not part of the regular maintenance. Expected interval for that would probably be similar to a transmission fluid change.
It’s probably built so that the fluid lasts for the lifetime of the car, or whenever there’s any issues it’s able to be changed. Only thing is lifetime is different for everyone especially depending on driving conditions.
“Lifetime of the car” means different things to manufacturers vs drivers. VW would have you believe that their transmissions are maintenace free and will not need to be serviced for the life of the car. They neglect to mention that they only expect the car to do 100,000km. They’re not exactly wrong, in that when the transmission starts to fail you’re probably going to write it off rather than drop 5k on a replacement valve body, but if you had serviced it every 60,000km or so, there’s no reason that transmission shouldn’t be good for 300,000.
Way too many people get news and information through shit posts :/
Do you know how many people think because they have a hybrid they don’t have oil. I’d much rather be called a dumbass for not knowing make/model/year on a random “ev’s” than someone destroying their car. So yes, I will do this till I become the meme and the “ev’s don’t require any maintenance” meme dies.
It’s different from a normal car though because you don’t need to change it as often if you even need to change it at all
if you even need to change it at all
Every car oil needs to be changed eventually. Even “lifetime” transmission fluid really just means “it’ll last until it’s out of warranty and no longer our [the manufacturer’s] problem anymore.”
