this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
183 points (98.4% liked)
Technology
84434 readers
4145 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Unless they deliberately put in a part designed to wear out in 5 years, there's really nothing in an electric motor that would.
Bearings can sieze up, starting capacitors can go. A worn bearing can overheat the windings and cause damage.
Yes, but those are things that can be designed to last decades, at very little cost.
They can't have perfect quality control for every part that leaves the manufacturer, especially considering the massive temperature fluctuations they might experience, humidity changes, road salt, and the fact its attached to something hitting bumps and potholes at 100+ km/h.
So... how do manufacturers of hydraulic brakes do this?? Or any other safety- critical part on a car?
They don't. Parts like calipers failing and rotors warping is common.
Redundancy, warnings, and inspections. You should have two different brake systems, traditionally the "parking brake" is a cable. Your hydraulic brakes are two different systems, one for the front, one for the back - if one fails you should have the others (at least a few times until you lose all fluid - enough to stop once). Your brakes also are designed to make noise when the common wear parts get worn, and that is a good time for a tech to inspect the rest of the system.
When did seperate hydraulics start being common? Most of the vehicles ive worked on have one hydraulic system with a proportioning valve to control pressure, usually with more braking power going to the front.
1970s/early 80s. The master cylinder has two chambers, though they are connected.
I wouldn't really consider that 2 seperate systems. If your front brakes leak you're still gonna end up losing pressure to the rear. Its pretty much just enough to pull over if you clue in to whats happening
that is what I was trying to say, but perhaps I didn't write well.
Well every car has wheel bearings that experience all those same conditions and last hundreds of thousands of miles. Brake calipers can also stop functioning, rubber lines can plug up, people can never change their pads and rotors.
I've had a wheel bearing last 20k miles. It depends on the abuse. My ultimate point was that an electronic motor still has several possible failure points.
Wheel bearings are generally sealed and so last well. Brakes tend to be easier to access and so don't last - but it doesn't matter because they typically wear enough before salt/dirt gets them that they will be replaced as part of normal maintenance.
An electric motor is sealed too. The point is that these components aren't anything new and individually won't introduce and new types of unexpected failures.
Yeah, no way engineers of cars thought of that. Write Brembo an email and tell them they are stupid.
Car could get hit by a meteor or more likely a Space X fragment....
Idk it might use magnetic brake pads. I have used them in other fields & they are pretty nifty. The ones I used created eddy currents & had not mechanical wear. For my project the mechanical brake had a ~10 year lifespan while the magnetic brake could last ~50 years. Also the mag brake was only 30% more expensive but didn’t need maintenance & would be significantly cheaper if you took the lifespan of the project.
https://magnetictech.com/hysteresis-brakes/
Can eddy current brakes bring something to a full stop? I thought the fin brakes in roller coasters are eddy current brakes, but isn’t there a physics limitation that prevents them from fully stopping the coaster?
In the real world yes-ish. In the case of a a roller coaster or car the eddy currents bring the speed to near 0 & the rolling friction brings it to a complete stop. The issue is an eddy current braking system can’t keep something at rest. That’s why the roller coaster has a physical brake to keep the ride in place when people are getting on. There are other types of magnetic brakes/ contactless brakes, I just don’t know much about them. My company used the eddy current brakes to limit fall speeds to a safe level if a specific part fell during an emergency.
They're used for some trains now, though I think that a lot of them have since switched to rheostat or regenerative braking instead.
Welcome to the world of mostly solid state systems. Turns out when friction is a solved problem there's no need for cottage industries like brake pad and rotor production.
Subscription to the live cloud service that connects your pedal to your braking system