But our son drives his late grandfathers 1997 Buick. Still runs well and looks good, but he maintains it himself. Not sure if it would be cost effective to pay to have the work done. He recently replaced all the brake lines and the master cylinder. A year or so back, it was the ignition electronics. IIRC the position sensor was a real dog to replace. Before that, it was the AC...
He likes the car, and it is his back up ride.
batteries in those cars seem to have a 22-year life span.
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Seem to, mmmmmm, yeah, well I’ll get an electric car when I see them last 22 years.
The obvious result would be a market in used batteries.
Our older car is a 2002 Toyota Sienna. It’s starting to show it’s wear body wise, but otherwise keeps on moving along. It’s likely not worth anything for trade in so we plan to keep it till it naturally expires.
I wonder if the battery could be adapted for home use as an emergency backup.
Yeah? Well ICE engines also outlast the car by the same 10-12 years.
“Been some time since I’ve kept a car 20+ years. Very few keep them that long.”
Well we do. I have a 1963 Corvette Coupe that I purchased from the original owner in 1964, until recently, I had a 1987 Corvette Coupe which I gave to my oldest grandson, a 1999 Corvette Coupe and a 1999 BMW 323i Convertible. We replaced our 2003 Chevrolet Avalanche in 2013 with one of the last year’s Avalanches which now has just over 100,000 miles on it (the original one left us with 170k miles). If you give modern cars their required maintenance you can drive them for years! Of course California’s benign weather helps a great deal with keeping them all rust-free! Also keeping them in a garage when you aren’t using them helps too.
LOL
My son owned a Leaf - got it @ 2 years old - for $13K, about 1/3 of the new price.
He traded it in on a BMW electric. The beemer has a ‘range extender’ a 650cc gas engine driving an alternator....
A couple of yrs ago one of my auto gnomes went to a rubber chicken diner with John Mclroy (Autoline Detroit TV show) as the speaker. The news then was battery life was something like either 2x or 4x > excpected with prices coming down dramatically via the driver of the industry at the time being Tesla. With that as a background I am not surprised with battery longevity.
Your son is quite a mechanic. Does he get that from you?
I don’t have that skill or aptitude at all.
Some of my friends do. From what I’ve observed, it takes a great deal of PATIENCE to be a good mechanic. I don’t have that quality of patience.
I’m driving a 1995 Honda Odyssey with 330,000 miles.
It still runs good but some parts are unobtainable now.
That car got absolutely savaged on Top Gear.
The newer model years have better batteries -- the oldest models had really bad fade, such that Nissan had a replacement program for the batteries where the range shrank from the already low original range to below 70 miles.
My car is a 1986 Volvo 740. Daily driver, 36 MPG.
Fully packaged; $30k-$42.5k. No good. Until they bring them down to around $15k; they will be a toy or second car for local driving for the well off or rich. Same with Tesla.
I see no reason for them to not last 30+ years. More if well taken care of. There’s not a lot of maintenance with e-cars. Tires, wipers, brake pads, keeping it clean inside and out; the basics. Maybe wheel bearings from time to time and of course any electronic gizmo that goes bad along the way. Mechanics will have to be electronic technicians in the future. Any good shop will likely have two types of service techs. The classic mechanic and the electronic whiz. It will likely be limited to dealerships with proprietary equipment to “read” the system just like the “Digital Wrench” is currently used by some manufacturers.
Looking much farther into the future I don’t see flying cars to go mainstream. Just too many bad drivers now to let them fly. Plus the cost will likely stay very high with special licenses required; including a special pilots license. Maybe if they are autonomous but not if everyday people can fly them.
It would be great if some kind of magnetic drive is developed that negates tires so the car can ride 3”- 2’ off the roadways. This would eventually make road repairs unnecessary. No more pot holes and speed bumps. Yay! The ride would be like driving on glass. By then auto-pilot should be perfected so we not even want to own a car. Just order one 5-10 minutes before you’re ready to leave. Grocery stores will have them lined up to take you and your bags home with an auto-pay like with Uber. No drivers to tip.
The future’s so bright; I gotta wear shades. -Timbuk3 (1986)
Good batteries despot car.
This seems to be a little bit of a misleading headline, since batteries decline gradually and by 15 years the batteries may be at 10% power.