How will electric cars influence how often people purchase a new automobile?

[Yggdrasill]

Brushless AC motors last basically forever. When they're continually running, the service interval is *at most* every 6 months, which works out to around every 200,000 miles. They can easily last 5 years or the equivalent of 2,000,000 miles.

Of course, motors used in EVs are abused more than motors used in stationary fan units and the like, but they still last a very long time. The thing that goes bad is the bearings. If you change them out the motor is pretty much as good as new.

 

[lolachampcar]

it depends on cooling and the quality of the bearings (and balance). Knowing Tesla, a very long time.

 

[ElSupreme]

do electric motors ever go bad? (based on other items? like ac fans, turbines, rc cars?, etc?) whats the failure rate?

They are used all the time to run pumps. They last decades. Even in poor environments They only really fail in three ways. They receive over current, or their cooling fans break, and they melt their windings (truly destroyed motor). The other is the bearings go out. This is not normal and the bearings typically last decades without physical external damage to the motors. The final way is something really heavy is run into them or dropped on them.

I personally think that you will end up changing out your power electronics systems twice before the motor needs any work at all.