When comparing on a mileage basis, EVs have very similar failure rates in the early years, differing by less than a percentage point. But that changes once you get to higher mileage numbers – past 40,000 miles lifetime.

At that point, petrol cars are less reliable, and the reliability only gets worse over time. By the time a petrol car reaches 120,000 miles, it’s 7.5% more likely to have failed than an EV (16% vs. 23.5%).

It's been a long time since 40k miles was considered "high mileage". Most people use 100k as the line, and sometimes even higher.

By the time a petrol car reaches 120,000 miles, it’s 7.5% more likely to have failed than an EV (16% vs. 23.5%).

7.5% sounds small, but at 120k miles, there are 50% more failed gas cars than EVs, that's a pretty staggering number.

My Model 3 is approaching 100000 km. It runs like on day one and I've had minimal repairs so far. If it wasn't for the fucking asshole CEO I'd still be very happy with this car.

So it's brand new still? Why has it needed repairs?

Signed,

guy whose cars are usually over 400k km.

Seems they (the article) worded it in a pretty uncharitable way. If we're comparing likelihoods, then it's a big difference like you said almost 50% more likely. That's like saying something going from 1% likelihood to 5% is a 4% increase, instead of saying 5x more likely.

Also, going from 16% failure rate to a 23.5% failure rate is a 47% increase in the failure rate.

What a shocker. A vehicle that uses far fewer moving parts has a greater service life than its more mechanically complicated counterpart. This is likely to be a good thing for the resale market in general with a greater selection of reliable EVs available in listings.

The only downside I see is the more locked down nature of many EV models compared to pre-2020 ICE vehicles though.

Wow! Four Hundred Thousand Metric Kilometers without needing a single repair? Amazing!