How To Build A Non-Disposable EV

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Last Updated on: 15th May 2025, 08:30 am

I know many EV fans have heard this before, and most of us roll our eyes at it. Some older guy is telling us why “they don’t make them like they used to”, and tells us that his old car or truck is better than a new EV any day. There’s also the argument that newer cars are “disposable”, with manufacturers intentionally building them poorly to achieve planned obsolescence. This, in turn, makes an old truck that gets 10 MPG better for the environment, they say.

Here’s a sample of this argument (largely applied to a hybrid) that I recently came across:

While there are certainly some things really wrong with this argument, there are some things that are correct, and we do need to push the industry to do better. In this article, I want to talk about how they can make an EV that can last 30+ years.

But First, Let’s Talk About Those Rolling Eyes

I can already hear it now. “Teslas are about as simple and durable as cars come!” some of you are preparing to type into the comments. “They have million-mile batteries, and so few moving parts. The interiors are simpler than any old car, so there’s practically nothing to break!”

This makes a great starting point in the discussion because it shows us why manufacturers do what they do. As Hanlon’s razor states: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

Let’s start with Tesla’s simple interiors. Sure, there aren’t a bunch of buttons that can break, and in newer vehicles, even the direction air flows out of the HVAC system is controlled by a touchscreen. Some cars don’t have turn signal stalks or even a shifter that can break. Surely such an interior would be highly durable, right?

But, anyone who has had a mode or mix actuator fail in an older vehicle knows that electric motors don’t immunize you from mechanical failures. Often, the stepper motor in these parts will last for decades, but the circuit boards controlling them go out. Sometimes, you have to tear your whole dash apart to get to one and replace it. I know this from experience with three vehicles.

So, on the surface, a Tesla might seem simple, but the more of these actuators you put in to replace a manually-operated part, the more chances there are for failure as the vehicles age. Older vehicles with cable-actuated HVAC controls, as crude as that technology is, don’t suffer from these problems. At all.

At the end of the day, getting decades of longevity out of a mechanical system isn’t about having the appearance or aesthetic of simplicity. It’s about having actual mechanical simplicity. In some ways, EVs naturally have that simplicity in ways ICE vehicles never, ever will. But, in other ways, today’s EVs are monstrously complex and won’t stand up to the test of time as well as we’d like.

The Tip Of The Iceberg

While Tesla is the best example, other automakers are making similar mistakes with EVs. The desire to appear high tech and put everything under touchscreen control means more moving parts that will be a pain in the ass for owners in 15-20 years (and that could be YOU if you keep the car that long!).

There are many other decisions EV makers (especially Tesla) are making that compromise durability and repairability for the future. “Gigacasting” and other cast frame/structure building is a great example of a technology that sounds good in the boardroom, but fails on the road. Deleting essential physical controls and replacing them with capacitive buttons that will eventually fail is another. Gluing battery cells into place inside packs instead of bolting them together means that future owners won’t be able to have an independent shop easily break the pack open to replace failing cells.

Other bad decisions include replacing nuts and bolts with glue or snap-together construction, replacing metal parts with plastic ones that won’t last, using push-pins and panel pops over screws (Loctite is a thing, guys), and skipping or reducing rust protection.

The bottom line of the problem is this: car companies are doing things that will work out OK for the first couple of owners, but will hurt the third or fourth owner of most vehicles. And, if you’re planning on driving the car for decades, these decisions will come to be your problem.

It’s NOT A Conspiracy Against Buyers. It’s Short-Sighted Thinking.

What I disagree with the video on is motivations. Automakers aren’t necessarily thinking about selling more cars in 5-7 years when these shoddily or overly-complex cars inevitably become mechanically totaled early. As we know, automakers are under immense pressure to deliver quarterly results that look good. Every red cent they can save, and every penny they can pinch and fight over until they invent copper wiring can make today’s numbers look better.

Automakers know they have to make the car run well for 5-7 years to maintain their reputation with new car buyers, but beyond that, they simply don’t care. If saving a few bucks today means that the car becomes a mechanically-totaled junkyard decoration in 8 years, so be it.

Building An EV Your Great-Grandkids Might Inherit

What I’m going to suggest here won’t be cheap, but it would make for some great selling points. Instead of buying a disposable car that you can “drive into the ground” in a decade, we should instead make cars that will be around for a long time. Not only does this save people money, but it prevents a LOT of wasted carbon emissions that would go into building new cars that we shouldn’t be building.

First off, design philosophy needs to change. Instead of building something that can’t be worked on easily, everything should be easy to reach, easy to replace, and easy to get to. More importantly, everything needs to be modular and upgradeable. For example, instead of an infotainment unit that fits just one vehicle model, we should go back to using standard sizes. A single or double DIN box can house the computer controls with a touchscreen that sits in front of that, for example.

Anything that can be manually-controlled without becoming tough to work on should be manually-controlled. Everyone wants power windows, but everyone is also sick to death of fighting with HVAC controls where you set a temperature but need to constantly compensate for it not making you comfortable.

Battery packs should be easy to remove and easy to rebuild. They shouldn’t be flooded with glue or sealant that prevents getting this done. It should be possible to upgrade to a better battery chemistry in 15 years instead of throwing a perfectly good car or truck away.

Ultimately, every part should be designed to be serviceable, swappable, and upgradeable. If automakers were smart about this, they could continue to make money off the car for decades by offering upgrade services and parts, training independent shops, and through other means.

That might not play well this quarter, but if done right, companies could have customers for life.