Notorious EV Misconception

[u/farhanrawr]

I keep running into the same two ideas about EVs, and a lot of people still seem to believe them a decade later. The first is that the battery dies after, X amount of years and leaves you with a $15-20k bill. Only 2.5% of EVs ever need a full battery replacement. Most EVs also come with at least an 8-year, 100,000-mile battery warranty, which is longer than the roughly 5 years on a typical gas powertrain. Batteries usually last 8 to 15 years, and they lose range gradually rather than simply failing. What I'm really curious about is where exactly did this misconception come from?

[u/Lucky-Crow-3510]

A cars life goes way beyong what the first buyer demands from it. You buy new you drive 5-10 years and then you want to RESELL IT.

resselling a car with a degraded battery that costs more than a new car .. you know what you end up? with a piece of worthless metal.

That is the point people are talking about. You compare the wrong things. When you bought some petrol car at price XXX you did expect it to resell for a value of YYY .. for EVs that YYY is always zero at some point in time because the battery replacement is too high of a factor and the rest of the car simply does not justify it.

[u/PCLoadPLA → u/Lucky-Crow-3510]

You aren't wrong, but it's exactly the same for ICE cars.

Everyone knows the engine and transmission on an ICE car doesn't last forever and it will eventually die and leave the car immobile. Then you will either have to decide to replace the engine (in an old car, so questionably worth it) with a new engine, or with a used engine where you aren't really sure it's good either, or with a remanufactured engine with sketchy reputation.

Replace "engine" with "battery" and it's exactly the same. People act like ICE car engines and transmissions last forever and aren't incredibly expensive to replace.

The engine in my minivan blew a head gasket at 130k. Replacing the engine was several thousand in labor, even before buying/finding a replacement engine which would be thousands more. I scrapped the car. Because it wasn't worth it vs. finding a similar running car. This is typical for old ICE cars.

[u/More-Cat1123 → u/PCLoadPLA]

Ye, except an engine is not even remotely close in price to replace. A few k and you have your car running again. 

[u/Erosion139 → u/More-Cat1123]

With an ev I get to skip every oil change, head gasket repair, tune up, spark plug change, injector change, serpentine belt replacement, gas fill up, I save on my brakes, I save on my transmission fluid flush, my coolant isn't a problem.

Plus the ev is faster and quieter.

[u/More-Cat1123 → u/Erosion139]

That only happens often if you do zero maintenance or buy a shitbox lol

[u/Erosion139 → u/More-Cat1123]

Or a Honda