What if the fault results in a failure after 800 miles? How does checking every few thousand help there?

But hey, these are electric cars which don't need regular service!...

...at least that is how they are sold. And people take it seriously.

Tires are not mentioned here. You could rotate them every 10 miles and still have faulty brake disks and axle suspensions.

- Brake disks are not a regular maintenance piece. Brake pads are the pieces that need replacement every 30.000 kilometers, depending on how hard you use them. But brake disks can outlast the car.

- Axle suspension is also not regular maintenance piece. Damper, bushings and springs need supervision and get changed every 80.000 kilometers or so. But to change an axle suspension without a serious hit to the car is very weird.

Unless you are using brake disks and an axle suspension designed for a 1,000 kg lighter car. In that case, you might end with twisted or broken pieces after a few thousand kilometers.

> I don’t know, actually look at your wheels and brakes every few thousand miles instead of let them ride for tens of thousands without service?

Let's read the text further and see the description for the winner, Mazda 2, emphasis mine

--- start quote ---

Mazda 2. Only 2.9 percent of these French-manufactured Japanese hybrid compacts turn up at their first periodic technical inspection with significant faults at an average mileage of 29,000 kilometers.

--- end quote ---

And then:

--- start quote ---

At the bottom of the table, the Tesla Model Y took over in last place from the Tesla Model 3 (17.3 percent). Second to bottom was the Ford Mondeo (14.3 percent), while the third from bottom was the Tesla Model 3 at 13.1 percent.

--- end quote ---

So, at regular inspection intervals (as proscribed by manufacturers and regulators) Teslas show significant faults.

Other EV:s have service inspections as part of the warranty requirements. That means they get inspected by workshops, which means that problems are more likely to be first found during the government inspection.

I don't think the actual quality difference under Equal conditions is a large as the TUV report suggests.

> This is the problem with this report. It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, it means that they are so rarely at the shop that the drivers don't notice the used brake pads, tires etc.

The average European drives about 12,000 km (~7500 miles) per year [1]. The maximum inspection period allowed by the EU for most personal cars is 2 years [2].

The average person in the US drives about 13,400 miles (~ 21,500 km) per year [3].

So, roughly, the average European vehicle is inspected after a driving distance which is about the same as that which the average US vehicle puts behind it in a year.

I thus doubt that the Tesla numbers from the article are greatly affected by a lack of inspections.

[1] https://www.acea.auto/fact/fact-sheet-cars/

[2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/45/oj/eng (chapter III, article 5, point 1).

[3] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

You'd need to be quite careless not to notice bad breaking on such a heavy car

I’m an American living in a state with no roadworthyness inspections so I don’t have any first hand experience with this. But in previous threads, people have mentioned that the typical thing to do is, at the vehicle service (oil change or whatever) prior to the inspection, you mention “hey, my car needs to get the roadworthyness inspection soon, can you look it over for that while it’s in the shop?”. And if something is wrong, it’ll be brought to your attention and fixed before the official inspection. Then you show up for the official inspection and oftentimes, it goes smoothly. The pro-Tesla theory is that BEVs require less service so people don’t catch these things prior to official inspection.

Seems like if that’s true of BEVs generally one could find similar trends with Nissan Leafs, etc.

It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, but it does mean that the average Tesla Model Y on the road is in much worse shape than another car of similar age.

Other brands do have scheduled inspection though.