I would not call Leaf 1.0 better than a Volt. If your battery capacity drops like the Leaf, that is no winner. I have the Rav4EV, I would not even call this car "better than" the Volt. A lot of compromises designed into each car. The only questions are... how do these compromises fit into your life style. IMO, Volt has less comprises for an ONE car family. The biggest compromise in the Rav4EV is the fact that Toyota does not want to support their customers, not range. If you want to talk Tesla Model S, then almost every compromizes are thrown out the window except the money factor.
One compromise for sure is reliability, esp. of their drive units. Elon seems content w/living on the bleeding edge and grabbing headlines. Meanwhile, there are MANY stories of multiple drive unit replacements, often w/each DU replacement happening no more than 10K to 15K miles after the last one.
I know very much about the drive unit. Rav4EV are not different, so I am scare it might happen to me too. So far, the majority of the case is noise from the drive unit. No indication of it actually breakdown on the street. According to some on Rav4EV forum, Tesla released a redesigned DU a year ago that was supposed to fix this "noise" issue.
Re: the bolded part, are you talking about on the Rav4 EV or the Model S? If the latter, there are numerous cases but yes, the majority of replacements are for noise, not total failure. I don't know the chronology of this guy: Drive Unit Replacement Poll - Page 28. Source for your last statement? I'm not confident the issues all understood w/solutions. At what point did DU's with this fix start being installed? Below happened to Edmunds Model S: Stuck on the Freeway - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test Is the Third Drive Unit the Charm? - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test Here's are some failures: Drive unit, new or refurbishishid? - Page 5 P85D Front Motor Died - Page 3 (this is on an AWD model) Here's two recent noise cases (two of many): New Noise immediately after 6,500 mile road trip, opinions? New Noise immediately after 6,500 mile road trip, opinions? - Page 5 New Noise immediately after 6,500 mile road trip, opinions? - Page 5
The DU issues for the Model S seems to have decreased quite a bit. I'm over 25k miles on my last drive unit with no signs of issues. Do DU issues still happen? Of course, but the rate has gone down. I know of many drivers that have had no issues. I myself have had three across two cars. None were an issue for me though. Tesla rapidly, and frequently makes adjustments and engineering changes. They are a young company and this was their first, in-house, car design. I'm not surprised there haven't been more issues than more established companies. I have been pleasantly surprised at the fact that most of the issues have been cosmetic (such as all three DU replacements) rather than show stoppers.
Well, Dipper's reviving an old 2014 thread, but we got some long time members back,so it's a good thing. I was thinking GWMORT hit 100k miles.
The Volt leads the pack - in numerous compromises. it is easy to lose track of them. But the numerous compromises made with the Volt, there is really no surprise to anyone that the Volt sits where it is in the market place: at the very best as a 'niche' vehicle. Gen2 has a very, very steep climb to overcome being tagged a "niche" vehicle and get into being a vehicle for the masses. This has NOT happen yet, but even with the passage of time with the Gen2, I suspect the 'niche' vehicle will always be attached to the Volt. Yes, bold predictions on my behalf, but reality of increased market competition dictates the Volt really needs a "Hail Mary" pass to break into the "car for the masses" Call me a skeptic: the Volt will remain mired in the 'niche' category for the rest of its' product life. A more interesting question: what does Government Motors offer after the Volt disappears? The same old, same old? DBCassidy
