EVs were written off too soon — Toyota stays on top, but Tesla breaks into the long-haul club

© A. Krivonosov

Toyota and Lexus have once again confirmed their reputation as brands people buy “for the long haul”. But a fresh iSeeCars study delivered an unexpected riser: Tesla. The brand’s EVs turned out to be twice as likely to cover 402,000 km as a Subaru.

Analysts looked at more than 174 million vehicles and calculated the probability of reaching 250,000 miles, or about 402,000 km. Toyota took first place with 17.8%. Next come Lexus — 12.8%, Honda — 10.8% and Acura — 7.2%. Only these four brands beat the industry average of 4.8%.

Tesla took sixth place alongside GMC: both brands are rated at a 4.6% chance of hitting that mileage. That’s higher than Chevrolet, Cadillac, Mazda, Ram, Ford, Nissan, Subaru, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, BMW and Audi. Subaru sits at 2.3%, Porsche at 0.5%, BMW at 0.4% and Audi at 0.3%.

Tesla’s result has a simple explanation. An EV has no internal-combustion engine, no oil, no belts, no timing chains, no injectors and dozens of other parts that age in a gasoline car. The battery is still an expensive risk, but the architecture itself gives fewer typical reasons for a major overhaul.

At the bottom of the ranking are Land Rover at 0.1%, with Jaguar, MINI and Maserati posting essentially zero. The old stereotypes about reliability haven’t disappeared, but Tesla is now breaking a different stereotype — the one that says an electric car isn’t built for a very long life.