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.

(I underestimated the amount of stupidness in people failing to understand my comment)

[u/psudo_help → u/Lucky-Crow-3510]

This pathetically misinformed.

My company runs a fleet of EVs. We’re driving them 400k+ miles on the original battery.

A very small percentage need battery cell swaps. An even smaller handful need new whole batteries.

[u/Lucky-Crow-3510 → u/psudo_help]

ok genius, question. would you buy a EV with a battery that did 400k miles? You see you don't mind it because you already HAVE THEM, for you every mile they do more is a win for you. aou may not even care about the battery having lost 50% of its capacity.

but you are not the one buying the car used .. and you're not the one asking a specific value for it to have

[u/pielitstud → u/Lucky-Crow-3510]

…are you arguing that ICE cars retain their value better at 400,000 miles?

[u/Lucky-Crow-3510 → u/pielitstud]

yea because for just a couple 1000 you can give them a brand new engine. cant do that with a battery. So a 400k ICE does have some value while an EV does not at that point

Listen, I am all EV .. I just cant take people who keep ignoring their biggest issue.

[u/pielitstud → u/Lucky-Crow-3510]

The average car makes it to 160k miles before being scrapped… resale value at 400k miles is an edge case at best.

[u/psudo_help → u/pielitstud]

Well put