What's the Slate's maintenance like?

[brian10x]

Plus power steering fluid if I understand correctly.

Will there be refrigerant?

My son, there is ALWAYS refrigerant!

 

[Trace26]

Plus power steering fluid if I understand correctly.

Will there be refrigerant?

Oh yes, it's shared with the AC system, cools the cabin and the battery.

 

[KJRaven]

Are EV drivetrains completely maintenance-free? For how long? A decade and a half, and 250,000 miles, for example?

Can an electric motor make billions of revolutions over many years and never need any service whatsoever?

Doesn't seem likely.

Wouldn't the motor's bearings need to be serviced or something like that?

Aren't there gears involved? Not the differential gears, but the the simple single-speed gear reducer that's in lieu of the transmission in an ICE vehicle. Are those going to be Super Gears that just keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny with zero maintenance for years to come?

nothing is maintenance free. but the service intervals are drastically increased. for instance, here is the maintenance recomendations from ford for the Lightning...

I suspect that the slate will be similar. tires, cabin filter, washer fluid, wipers, and just inspections for the first few years, then change the coolant and gearbox oil.

You will notice that most items are inspections until you get to 150,000 miles, then you change the transaxle fluid and filter (Front and Rear Motor), coolant changes are the next bit maintenance item, and it isat 200,000 miles...

 

[KJRaven]

Plus power steering fluid if I understand correctly.

Will there be refrigerant?

No power steering fluid...
The slate will have an electric steering gearbox, you can see it in the video with Sandy. so there will be no maintenance here.

lots of refridgerant, for the battery and cabin cooling system, no maintenance other than cleaning the condenser, the systems are sealed and with no moving parts they should be resistant against leaks compared to a belt driven compressor on an ICE motor.

The Slate will be a very simple to maintain vehicle.

 

[brian10x]

REFRIGERANT. Forum spelling NAZI on duty here!

 

[AZFox]

 

[KJRaven]

An EV cooling/heating system has a whole bunch of moving parts. Multiple electric liquid pumps/compressors and diverter valves. Thermal expansion and contraction (i.e. movement) of connectors and seals and hoses, and plain old thermal cycling of static parts cause wear. Moving electrons around causes heat, lots of heat depending upon the system and use case.

Yes, EVs have moving parts, and thermal considerations. but a comperable ICE counterpart will 10-20 times the amount of moving parts most of them require expensive fluids and filters to be changed several times per year if you plan to keep them moving.

The EV motor in the Slate will probably have 4-6 beefy bearings that experience little to no heat variation compared to the 2.0L turbo engine (in the Maverick) 20-30 that I can think of off the top of my head, before I even consider the transmission's 40-50 bearings.

 

[Letas]

I mean the real answer is simple. It will depend on how well it is built and how good the Slate Warranty is.

Things are going to break. We don't know what yet. Maybe the Frunk latch will be bad. Maybe the DeDion suspension will blow up.

I would be happy to put any money on the fact that this car will NOT be perfect off the line in the first two years. Same as every other new car, from legacy or startup alike.

 

[AZFox]

Okay, but really how often do such moving parts actually fail?

More frequently than "never".

Not even having the parts is a Never-Fail Method of assuring they won't fail.

Put the comparison equation in your calculator and you'll get a divide-by-zero error.

 

[OldGoat]

I'm pretty new to looking into EVs. Why do they tend to go through tires faster?

Maybe-possibly due in part to many EV's, like my Mustang, are really fast and corner better than any performance ICE car I've owned. So there is a tendency to drive the vehicle harder (whee!) If you read other EV forums, you'll see this pointed out. But I think the Slate will be driven less aggressively and not eat tires like you might be reading. And several Mach E owners are now passing 100K with seriously reduced service costs over ICE. Fact. I won't go into the math but my juice cost for my EV is running half what my ICE vehicle fuel cost mile on mile. I charge at home at off-peak rates while sleeping. BTW-my 10K checkup on my Mustang was $100 and included tire rotation, cabin filter, full computer scan and update service along with all the safety checklist stuff. I could have saved $ by replacing cabin filter myself which I'll do from here on out.

 

[KJRaven]

Okay, but really how often do such moving parts actually fail? Modern automobiles are so well engineered and manufactured the moving parts rarely break. I've driven 1.6M total miles in my life spread over eight (8) cars, of four that have gone over 400,000 miles, 256,000 miles, 230,000 miles, and 200,000 miles. Others easily hit 100,000+ miles before I sold them or they were damaged beyond economical repair. Never have I lost and engine or transmission. Hell, my 400,000 mile BMW had a lifetime oil change average of 12,300 miles, with eight changes over 17,000 miles between. The maintenance is not that expensive. Just because the parts move doesn't mean they are any more prone to failure than other non-moving parts of an EV. I'll point to the Ford Mustang Mach E HVB junction box (well the moving contactors fail in it...). Sure, an electric motor drive unit has less rotating parts, it still is subject to heat and thermal expansion and requires proper lubrication (it has an oil pump and gears) and can fail.

The bearings in an automobile that really take shock, and are prone to heat and dirt infiltration damage are wheel bearings, which EVs have. All EVs have axleshafts just like ICEV. Modern ICEV automatic transmissions have oil change requirements between 60,000 and 100,000 miles. The moving parts that really wear on an ICEV are the axles, suspension bushings and struts/shocks, same components an EV has.

I would say that moving parts fail quite often, but i am probably biased since I am in the auto repair business and have been for my entire career... Modern cars are value enginered to be as reliable as possibe until the warranty ends.

Just recently GM recalled over 600,000 vehicles due to manufacturing defects that caused catastrophic engine failures because of, wait for it... bearing failure!
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2025/0...heres-how-many-engines-gm-expects-to-replace/

Time will tell if the Slate is a reliable vehicle, but it is at least looking like one on paper.

Maintenance is cheap depending on the vehicle, and if done right you can expect a vehicle to last a long time.
But just an oil change is going to run you $50-$100, every 3-5,000 miles (yes, you can stretch that out, but the risk of failure goes up if you do). Over 10 years (10k/year) that is $1k-$2k, plus you consumed about 50 gallons of oil that has to be dealt with. You will not have to bear with an EV. that combined with fuel savings makes EV's compelling for a total cost of ownership standpoint.

 

[AZFox]

I'm going with 400,000 miles as "never".

Reasonable enough, but 400K with zero failures is the exception, not the rule.

 

[Trace26]

Okay, but really how often do such moving parts actually fail? Modern automobiles are so well engineered and manufactured the moving parts rarely break. I've driven 1.6M total miles in my life spread over eight (8) cars, of four that have gone over 400,000 miles, 256,000 miles, 230,000 miles, and 200,000 miles. Others easily hit 100,000+ miles before I sold them or they were damaged beyond economical repair. Never have I lost and engine or transmission. Hell, my 400,000 mile BMW had a lifetime oil change average of 12,300 miles, with eight changes over 17,000 miles between. The maintenance is not that expensive. Just because the parts move doesn't mean they are any more prone to failure than other non-moving parts of an EV. I'll point to the Ford Mustang Mach E HVB junction box (well the moving contactors fail in it...). Sure, an electric motor drive unit has less rotating parts, it still is subject to heat and thermal expansion and requires proper lubrication (it has an oil pump and gears) and can fail.

The bearings in an automobile that really take shock, and are prone to heat and dirt infiltration damage are wheel bearings, which EVs have. All EVs have axleshafts just like ICEV. Modern ICEV automatic transmissions have oil change requirements between 60,000 and 100,000 miles. The moving parts that really wear on an ICEV are the axles, suspension bushings and struts/shocks, same components an EV has.

Engines run between 230 to 270 deg. F. Steel and aluminum melt at temperatures 5x to 10X higher than that. Sure, the plain bearings get hot, but they are engineered to get hot and they last for millions of duty cycles.

I think the biggest difference with the reliability of an ICE vs EV is the maintenance. You can get the same reliability from an ICE vehicle with proper maintenance and it may not be that expensive if you perform the maintenance yourself.
But if you did zero maintenance on both, the EV could be perfectly fine for more than 100,000, but the ICE engine will probably seize up after 30,000miles.
The average person doesn't do proper maintenance and not having to do much, if any, is a plus.

 

[KJRaven]

That's a manufacturing defect that should have been picked up by statistical process control, not an intrinsic attribute of the moving part. Build an EV battery incorrectly and it catches on fire.

Discounting manufacturing defects is no different than discounting improperly maintained vehicles. The point is that if there is something that can go wrong it will go wrong. The amount of things that can fail in an EV are drastically less than the amount that can fail in an ICE vehicle. There will be failures though.

ICE vehicles have had over 100 years to develop, EVs are in their infancy comparitivly, and are already proving that they just as reliable if not more reliable than their counterparts. The future is bright, and not because of the inevitable EV fires /s

 

[AZFox]

I'm just saying ICEV have a very good track record despite the massive amount of "moving parts".

I understand what you're saying. I think the reason you are getting such good results is because you're on the ball about maintenance. You're exceptionally (pun intended) good at making cars last.

The average person doesn't do proper maintenance and not having to do much, if any, is a plus.

This.