You can get a Nissan leaf with 30k on it for under $8000, the battery cost $12k. The replacement batteries cost as much as the second hand value of the vehicle. Until that changes , battery powered vehicles will mostly be ewaste once the battery dies.
Exactly this. I read about a guy buying his daughter a used electric car for $12k only for it to need a $16k battery like 3 months later, and to make matters worse, they don’t sell the battery anymore. Then last week I watched a vid about how Hyundai wants to charge you $60k if you scratch the scratch plate under your car as they wont service the battery located there, just just write the whole thing off.
Until there is government mandated, removable, interchangeable batteries- I don’t see how this will get better. There needs to be a system in place for battery exchange, repair, recycling, and regulation. Imagine if you could only buy gas from the company that makes your car, and they could decide to stop selling the special gas for your model any time they wanted.
I don’t think batteries as we have them now are the answer at all, and need to be treated as the stopgap they were. There is better technology now that would be economically better, though power output and range would be considerably hampered. We need an alternate power storage solution.
I did the math and an ev would be about 1/8 the price in electricity versus gasoline. I don’t know what backwards place you live in, but that’s not the norm. Then there’s the lower cost of maintenance and repairs which further makes EVs cheaper.
There’s less maintenance, but repairs are more expensive. After a minor fender bender, expect to add an extra zero to the bill for repairing an EV versus ICE.
A few years ago, it looked like after you factored in the savings from cheaper electricity versus more expensive gasoline, and the lower maintenance costs, the true cost of owning a $45k Tesla was about equal to the cost of owning a $25k ICE car over 10 years, with most of the savings coming from significantly lower maintenance costs in years 5-10. However, it turns out that the cost of unscheduled repairs is so much higher that the true cost of owning an EV is significantly higher than a basic model ICE car.
Really waiting for hydrogen. Right now it’s not viable, but it feels like it’s the only option that could actually save us. Would love to have a tank in my yard for my house and car, or possibly through pipes like natural gas. Many problems to solve there too unfortunately.
I fully understand the drawbacks of hydrogen, and why we physically can not use it right now. But if we had that as the long term goal and treat chemical batteries as a micro-short term stopgap, I can’t help to think we would be a lot closer than we are now.
Replacing the battery makes it essentially a new car from drivetrain perspective.
Also, Leafs typically last as long as gas powered cars. Gas cars have the same problem - the entire engine and transmission are expensive to replace and the car is usually scrapped. The problem you outline is not unique to electric cars.
Why does everyone say replacing the battery gives you a new drivetrain? It would be like replacing the gas tank. The drivetrain equivalent in an EV would be the electric motors.
They’re uninformed, or fanboys. 10k for a battery might get your range back to stock, but you’re still going to have worn cv axles, control arm bushings, wheel bearings, and ball joints that typically start needing replacement after 100k miles. There are still bearings on the motor, gearing to the differential, and winding insulation that also wear with age. I’d expect those to last 250k easy, but to think a new battery is a panacea for your clapped out commuter car is asinine.
$10k gets you the battery pack, but then there is the controller you need to replace as well, a good $4-8k. Plus the labor, +$300/hr for a certified technician. Meanwhile, my 2007 mini can get the engine and transmission swapped for $7000, with performance modifications and labor included.
There is maintenance you have to do, bearings that can and do fail, windings that fail.
The problem is the percentage of that cost compared to the second hand value. A full ICE drivetrain for a FWD car is not the same price as a fully functional second hand ICE vehicle. Whereas a battery back can be the same to double the price of a functional second hand battery EV. You can also rebuild an ICE drivetrain, or buy used there as well, things that aren’t yet possible with batteries.
ICE sucks, and we need something else, batteries suck just as much in different ways.
Replacing cells is far from simple and can be deadly if done wrong by someone who does not know what they are doing. Wet chemical batteries are terrible at storing energy compared to dry chemical batteries and super-capacitors, which are both close to mass production, but far from being implemented in the automotive world right now. I agree they are good for what we have now, but need to be replaced with something more sustainable, save and clean.
You can get a Nissan leaf with 30k on it for under $8000, the battery cost $12k. The replacement batteries cost as much as the second hand value of the vehicle. Until that changes , battery powered vehicles will mostly be ewaste once the battery dies.
Exactly this. I read about a guy buying his daughter a used electric car for $12k only for it to need a $16k battery like 3 months later, and to make matters worse, they don’t sell the battery anymore. Then last week I watched a vid about how Hyundai wants to charge you $60k if you scratch the scratch plate under your car as they wont service the battery located there, just just write the whole thing off.
Until there is government mandated, removable, interchangeable batteries- I don’t see how this will get better. There needs to be a system in place for battery exchange, repair, recycling, and regulation. Imagine if you could only buy gas from the company that makes your car, and they could decide to stop selling the special gas for your model any time they wanted.
I don’t think batteries as we have them now are the answer at all, and need to be treated as the stopgap they were. There is better technology now that would be economically better, though power output and range would be considerably hampered. We need an alternate power storage solution.
Battery costs and electricity costs are the reason an EV isn’t even on my radar. I’d rather invest that possible EV money in solar.
I did the math and an ev would be about 1/8 the price in electricity versus gasoline. I don’t know what backwards place you live in, but that’s not the norm. Then there’s the lower cost of maintenance and repairs which further makes EVs cheaper.
There’s less maintenance, but repairs are more expensive. After a minor fender bender, expect to add an extra zero to the bill for repairing an EV versus ICE.
My dealer told me the same thing. Everything is more expensive for EVs.
They sell them to rich people only…
And early adopters who didn’t know better.
A few years ago, it looked like after you factored in the savings from cheaper electricity versus more expensive gasoline, and the lower maintenance costs, the true cost of owning a $45k Tesla was about equal to the cost of owning a $25k ICE car over 10 years, with most of the savings coming from significantly lower maintenance costs in years 5-10. However, it turns out that the cost of unscheduled repairs is so much higher that the true cost of owning an EV is significantly higher than a basic model ICE car.
Really waiting for hydrogen. Right now it’s not viable, but it feels like it’s the only option that could actually save us. Would love to have a tank in my yard for my house and car, or possibly through pipes like natural gas. Many problems to solve there too unfortunately.
Not sure about a tank but I’d pay for a regular delivery & exchange of fuel cells for my house if hydrogen tech ever gets there.
Hydrogen needs too high of a pressure (thousands of psi), and is much more volatile than natural gas.
I’m not saying never, but it’s tough.
I fully understand the drawbacks of hydrogen, and why we physically can not use it right now. But if we had that as the long term goal and treat chemical batteries as a micro-short term stopgap, I can’t help to think we would be a lot closer than we are now.
Replacing the battery makes it essentially a new car from drivetrain perspective.
Also, Leafs typically last as long as gas powered cars. Gas cars have the same problem - the entire engine and transmission are expensive to replace and the car is usually scrapped. The problem you outline is not unique to electric cars.
Why does everyone say replacing the battery gives you a new drivetrain? It would be like replacing the gas tank. The drivetrain equivalent in an EV would be the electric motors.
They’re uninformed, or fanboys. 10k for a battery might get your range back to stock, but you’re still going to have worn cv axles, control arm bushings, wheel bearings, and ball joints that typically start needing replacement after 100k miles. There are still bearings on the motor, gearing to the differential, and winding insulation that also wear with age. I’d expect those to last 250k easy, but to think a new battery is a panacea for your clapped out commuter car is asinine.
$10k gets you the battery pack, but then there is the controller you need to replace as well, a good $4-8k. Plus the labor, +$300/hr for a certified technician. Meanwhile, my 2007 mini can get the engine and transmission swapped for $7000, with performance modifications and labor included.
ICE BAD ≠ BATTERY GOOD
Don’t electric motors last pretty much forever?
It’s equivalent because in an ICE car the big cost to replace is the engine and the big cost to replace in an electric car is the battery
There is maintenance you have to do, bearings that can and do fail, windings that fail.
The problem is the percentage of that cost compared to the second hand value. A full ICE drivetrain for a FWD car is not the same price as a fully functional second hand ICE vehicle. Whereas a battery back can be the same to double the price of a functional second hand battery EV. You can also rebuild an ICE drivetrain, or buy used there as well, things that aren’t yet possible with batteries.
ICE sucks, and we need something else, batteries suck just as much in different ways.
Thanks for the info.
You can fix individual cells in a battery pack so some are repairable.
I think batteries are the answer we are just in thr early days of this tech still.
Replacing cells is far from simple and can be deadly if done wrong by someone who does not know what they are doing. Wet chemical batteries are terrible at storing energy compared to dry chemical batteries and super-capacitors, which are both close to mass production, but far from being implemented in the automotive world right now. I agree they are good for what we have now, but need to be replaced with something more sustainable, save and clean.