Are you interested in adding a new electric car to your home in St Louis? Before you do, it’s important to gain a good understanding of the service requirements for electric cars. As always, BMW of West St Louis is here to offer guidance you can trust. Below, you can read up on the answers to eight of the most frequently asked electric car service questions.
Fully-electric vehicles do not have gas-powered internal combustion engines, so no, they do not need oil changes. This is great news for Ballwin drivers because it’s one less maintenance item to worry about!
Worth noting, however, is that if you are looking at a hybrid electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, you’ll still need regular oil changes because these vehicles operate with both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor.
The absence of a combustion engine might lead you to wonder, do electric cars have horsepower? They do! Most manufacturers adopt the term “horsepower” in their electric models because it’s more widely understood as a measure of a vehicle’s power, but some measure the power of their electric models as “KW.” If you ever see this, you can search for a “kw to hp” conversion calculator to get a more traditional understanding of an electric model’s capabilities.
Yes, electric cars have transmissions, but not multi-speed. See, electric motors generate a consistent amount of torque regardless of RPM in a certain range. So, torque production via revving isn’t necessary because the power response is immediate in EVs. Gear ratios are measured and integrated so the driver never has to worry about changing gears.
No. Electric vehicles — as well as hybrid vehicles — use a DC-to-DC converter that uses power from the battery pack to recharge the 12V battery.
Electric cars do not need catalytic converters because they don’t have internal combustion engines. Catalytic converters filter out byproducts from exhaust gases, which electric vehicles do not produce. Zero emissions is just one of the many benefits of EVs!
As we just learned, electric cars do not produce exhaust gases. That being the case, electric cars don’t have exhaust systems.
Absolutely! You’ll enjoy the same level of comfort driving an EV in Ladue as you would in a gas-powered car. EVs use electricity stored in the batteries to operate the HVAC systems.
With regular maintenance and repairs, either a gas-powered car or a fully-electric car should have no problem making it 100,000+ miles. However, with fewer major components to maintain, EVs may require fewer repairs in order to last a long time.
Are there more questions about electric car service that are on your mind? Contact us anytime and we’ll be happy to tell you more!
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