this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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Electric Vehicles

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I want one. My worry is what to do once the battery needs replacing? I wonder what it would cost?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

By all accounts, batteries tend to last longer than most people own a car, so don’t worry about it.

You might think you’d instead worry that no one would buy an older car, but if you keep it that long, you’re getting almost nothing back for it anyway, so don’t worry about it.

My pattern has been to keep a car 10-15 years, until repairs are more than the vehicle is worth to me. At that point there is still resale, but not for very much. How would an EV change this? Tesla batteries are supposedly good for 15 years/250k miles, so I would likely sell for other reasons before having to worry about the battery. Unless there’s a fault, batteries tend to fade more than die, so if my cars battery is only 70% of its life at that point, it still has use/value.

Since I have a short commute and work from home, I only charge once per week to a set point of 80%, so should be very easy on my battery. I also charge from home, so fast charging is rare, also easier on the battery

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You have conservatively at least 10 years before needing to replace a battery. Even with a greater upfront cost compared to combustion cars, EVs are considerably less expensive over a 10 year period because of the lower energy and maintenance costs. The only regular maintenance most EVs should need are tire rotations and replacements of consumables like the cabin air filter, windshield wipers, brakes, and tires.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but then I wonder if the cost of replacing the battery would exceed the cost of an ice vehicles maintenance?

You got Hyundai trying to charge more than what the car is worth new, for a replacement battery pack.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

EV batteries don't typically catastrophically fail, they gradually degrade in max capacity. And many combustion cars also have expensive repairs needed near the 10-15 year mark. My Ioniq 5 has 300 miles of range now, and we really only need about 120 miles for a week of commuting for my wife. So we could afford a 50% hit before needing to do something about it, which should be quite a long while from now. We just couldn't take it on long road trips. So at least for me, the battery replacement cost in 10-15 years is not a big concern. We'd probably lean towards replacing the the whole car before just the battery.

For comparison, our combustion car is 11 years old at this point. It's in rough shape and could be replaced, but my commute is short. Hoping to hold off on replacing it for another ~4 years unless there's an expensive repair needed. The EV battery tech is evolving so rapidly these days that I expect cars with 500+ miles of range will be on the market by the time we buy a second EV.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

1k-15k depending on size and whether it is of a modular design or not. Might be worth the homework.

https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/electric-car-battery-replacement-costs.html

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately that totals the vehicle from what I've seen.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I've thought about it, but I know little about leasing. Not to mention I tend to keep my cars for 15+ years. At least so far, anyway.

I don't fully understand how leasing works. I've seen they want a down payment plus a monthly. Which seems like a lot of money for a car you aren't keeping.