According to data from the German ADAC Automobile Organisation, battery electric vehicles are more likely to fail than combustion engines of the same age category.
The club’s crash analysis shows that for the first time, electric vehicles registered 4.2 failures of 4,000 cars in the fleet from 2020 to 2022.
The combustion engine has a number of 10.4. This confirms the early discoveries of the Auto Club – but now the data base is much broader given the increasing number of electric vehicles.
In most cases, failures in both types of cars should be attributed to battery failure or onboard electrical.
Currently, sales of electric vehicles in Germany are stagnant due to the lack of buyer incentives and ongoing range anxiety, but ADAC says reliability is rapidly improving.
The most reliable electric electronic car overall is the Tesla Model 3 (0.5).
ADAC notes that the potential for failure is higher because the internal combustion engine consists of hundreds of parts such as pistons, valves and turbochargers.
The motor consists of a small number of components. Fewer parts mean less chances of wear.
The motor also produces less waste heat than the combustion engine, which runs at high temperatures and causes more wear.
In 2024, the total number of ADACs exceeded 3.6 million, a further increase compared with 2023.
