The reason why electric cars have more technical problems than regular ones

Electric vehicles have more technical problems than other cars, but that’s not because they’re electric.

Electric cars have 79% more technical problems than combustion engine cars, according to the most recent annual survey by Consumer Reports. But this has nothing to do with the powertrain, says Jake Fisher, director of the group’s automotive test center.

Electric cars tend to have more problems because they are generally new models, and newly launched cars tend to have more breakdowns, regardless of engine. Car manufacturers do not have several years to solve all the problems, as they already have the models they have been producing for years, explains the expert quoted by CNN.

In addition, electric models tend to be more expensive and include more sophisticated technology, from additional sensors to all kinds of gadgets. All these features increase the risks that some things will not go right.

“If you look at electric vehicles, they tend to be laced with new technology, the latest gadgets and screens,” Fisher explains.

As a rule, electric car owners complain about problems with batteries and charging, but these are also largely the result of the newness of these cars, not the propulsion technology itself. “If all the manufacturers had been making electric cars for 100 years and then one of them suddenly decided to build an internal combustion engine with a transmission, it would be full of problems”exemplified the expert.

Consumer Reports surveys a sample of 330,000 personal vehicles each year among its subscribers. The final results are calculated by combining data from the last three years. In new car models, the manufacturer’s previous reliability data is generally used, so many recent cars effectively “inherit” the manufacturer’s history of problems.