JasonA said:
cwerdna said:
FWIW, I'm not a Tesla troll. The Rav4 EV clearly has far superior range due to its battery capacity over the Leaf, but good luck w/the drive units and other Tesla supplied components (e.g. heater and DC to DC converter). It's unfortunate the Rav4 EV is such an unreliable vehicle, which isn't typical of Toyotas.
REALLY??? :roll:
Good luck with it huh?? My Rav (SupaRav) has had ZERO issues, been the beta test platform for Tony's CHAdeMO unit (I still have the beta unit on there) :lol: and have had zero issues except a noisy motor and replacement... which they did with no issues.
You're making it sound like the car is a junker... "Unreliable Vehicle" ?? Really??
Let's compare it to an i3/BMW EV :lol:
Look. I'm not a troll, but I used to hang out enough on myrav4ev.com to see a litany of drive unit replacements, mostly due to noise. And, the Model S has plenty of DU problems of its own, also mainly for noise. I don't have much time for "TMC" anymore, but the worst I can remember is https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/drive-unit-replacement-poll.29834/page-27#post-1653580 on his 8th DU on his Model S. Edmunds had 3 replacements within 30K miles (noise, complete failure, then noise again, poiners at http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/wrap-up.html). Many folks have had at least 1 DU replacement, some multiple, just like Rav4 EV folks.
Don't just look at me, look at others like http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21490#p21490 for the other common problem areas. The heater failing often takes out the DC to DC converter in the process. Take a look at http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/search.php?search_id=active_topics but selecting 3 months. http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=338 was another infamous problem.
I know what pretty reliable looks like since I used to hang out on Priuschat and saw what new and relatively new Gen 2 Priuses would experience in addition to Gen 3 (2010-2015) model year, Prius c, Prius v wagon and PiP (all began w/model year 2012, IIRC). And, I've seen what Leafs would typically experience here. And, I've seen Consumer Reports reliability ratings for these The Rav4 EV is clearly inferior in reliability to all of these.
For context, http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/04/reliability-histories/index.htm has a table of average problem rates by system for a given model year over a 12 month period (less for the latest model year). Priuses do well (almost always doing better than average if not well above average). 1st model year of Prius c even got http://www.autoblog.com/2012/11/01/consumer-reports-says-prius-c-most-reliable/.
I doubt many Rav4 EVs will hold up as well at these: http://prius.wikia.com/wiki/Lifespan/Operating_costs. I suspect once Rav4 EV powertrain warranties and their extended warranties expire (if any), once the flawed Tesla-supplied DUs get noisy, the owner will only be able to tolerate it to a certain point before either ponying up big bucks for another short-lived (staying quiet) replacement or dumping the vehicle.
As for the BMW i3, yes the i3 REx is also very unreliable.