Are you gonna get an electric car anytime soon? (Or do you already have one?)

[Leo Enticknap]

From the Daily Wail:

The used electric car timebomb - EVs could become impossible to sell on because battery guarantees won't last - find out if you are affected

By Toby Walne

Updated: 04:14 EDT, 1 May 2024

Money Mail can today reveal a timebomb looming in the second-hand market for electric vehicles (EVs).

Our investigation found that many EVs could become almost impossible to resell because of their limited battery life.

Experts said that the average EV battery guarantee lasts just eight years. After this time, the battery may lose power more quickly and so reduce mileage between charges.

Many EVs will lose up to 12 per cent of their charge capacity by six years. Some may lose even more.

Yet the cost of replacing an EV battery is astonishingly high, our research found.

In some cases, the cost of a replacement battery is as much as £40,000. For certain EVs, the cost of replacing the battery could be ten times the value of the vehicle itself on the second-hand market.

That means used EVs have a limited lifespan — which makes them a bigger and bigger risk as the years go by.

Research into EV batteries is yet to be conclusive and the second-hand EV market is new, given the first popular EVs were rolled off the production line in 2009.

Last night, one motoring expert said customers should be wary of buying a used electric car beyond its warranty (typically eight years), as after that timespan there is no easy way of measuring how much the battery will degrade before it needs replacing.

This may mean you end up needing to pay for an expensive new battery.

Motor expert Shahzad Sheikh, who runs the YouTube channel Brown Car Guy, said: ‘With a decaying battery, the range will be poor and you may find it becomes increasingly hard to resell the vehicle after eight years.

Buyers will know that they’ll only get a small amount of life out of the car so will pay only a small sum, if anything at all.’

This problem is exacerbated by the fact all new cars coming onto the market by 2035 will be electric and motorists will have to get used to paying around £10,000 more than it’s petrol equivalent, for a vehicle which is not built to last as long.

Take a new petrol-driven Renault Clio — it costs around £20,000, while its all-electric opposite, the Renault Zoe, costs closer to £30,000.

While you can drive a traditional petrol or diesel car for around 200,000 miles over 14 years before the engine needs fixing or replacing, by comparison a new EV is typically guaranteed under a warranty for 100,000 miles over eight years.

Should your petrol engine need replacing you can expect to pay around £5,000, but replace the battery on your EV outside warranty and you’re looking at an eye-watering £13,000 to £40,000, depending on the make of your car, if you fit a manufacturer’s new unit.

And there are external factors at play with battery degradation — including use of fast chargers and even a colder climate.

The high cost of EV batteries is a result of it being difficult to mine metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and manganese that are used in the lithium-ion batteries.

They are also in demand for the production of other electronics, including mobile phones and laptops.

In the most extreme cases, such as with a 12-year-old Nissan Leaf that cost £2,000 to buy, you can pay as much as £24,000 for a brand-new replacement 24kWh battery.

However, most owners would upgrade to a newer 40kWh Nissan battery costing £12,780 before garage installation fees of around £2,000. This later battery has a bigger capacity but can still be fitted into older models.

T hese high costs to maintain an electric car do not bode well for a fledgling second-hand market believes Shahzad Sheikh, who points out: ‘Early adopters have already bought electric cars while the next wave of buyers are looking for value for money — and struggling to find it.

‘The second-hand market might seem a natural place to look for an EV but unfortunately it is fraught with danger as the batteries are worth more than the car. If the battery stops working, the vehicle becomes almost worthless.’

Vehicle trading website AA Cars agrees and says that nearly half of all potential second-hand EV buyers are put off because of concerns about battery life.

Rightly so, according to the RAC. It cites the Nissan Leaf as one of the most popular second-hand EVs which by the time it reaches eight years old may have lost 20 per cent of the range it had when new.

This is due to the battery losing its efficiency, so achieves a distance of 99 miles between charges rather than the theoretical 124 miles.

This may be fine for local trips but impractical for long motorway journeys. The RAC adds that motorists might expect the battery to lose perhaps 2 per cent of its power each year to such degradation.

While motorists may try to save time using a service station fast-charger, these generate more heat which accelerates a chemical reaction inside the lithium-ion battery that can lead to a loss in the capacity it can hold over time.

To prolong the life of the battery it may be better to charge your car on a slower mains-connected home charger.

Weather also plays a part in how long your battery will last and EV batteries operate best at a temperature between 25-45 degrees Celsius.

If you live in a place with freezing winter temperatures, then this will slow the chemical reactions in EV batteries, which can also reduce the charge held over time — and therefore lower a car’s overall range.

So you are better off charging your EV car inside a garage rather than outside during the cold winter months.

Tom Barnard, of EV experts Electrifying.com, advises motorists to buy a second-hand car with a battery still under warranty. This typically covers the first eight years of motoring or 100,000 miles — whichever comes first.

He says: ‘If you purchase an EV older than eight years with more miles on the clock then you are taking a gamble on the battery holding out. You cannot just look at the mileage clock as with a traditional car.

‘There is a wide combination of other variables to consider with an electric car battery.

‘Battery degradation might also become a more important consideration in the future — as we try to be more sustainable — and perhaps be included in an MOT.

So, our advice for those who might be nervous about battery life is to buy a car that is still covered by warranty.’

Concerns about battery cost are not helped by a lack of transparency within the industry — with prices of a new battery not advertised.

Money Mail requested prices directly from Nissan and no definitive answer was given. Purchasing a battery for your second-hand electric vehicle is not an isolated cost either.

You must also consider the labour cost of replacing it, says David Smith, a director at car dealer and garage Cleevely Electric Vehicles, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

‘As a general rule-of-thumb you might budget £2,000 for a specialist to do the task. Batteries are typically placed flat along the length and breadth of the car just above the floor plate and usually not too difficult to get at.

There is a certain element of DM scaremongering in this article (not to mention some questionable claims: if all the planned maintenance is done per the manufacturer's recommendations, the current generation of ICE will likely make it to nearer 300,000 miles than 200,000 before requiring seriously expensive attention, e.g. a new head gasket), but its core point - that the condition of an EV's battery will likely have a big impact on its used resale value - is, IMHO, fundamentally valid. One that has always been slow charged and kept within the 20-80% range will likely be in better condition after 100K miles than one that has been repeatedly supercharged and then operated in freezing temperatures, for example. I would expect to see tools developed to assess a battery's actual condition as part of the resale process.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Here is Sabine Hossenfelder's POV (with a European perspective):

https://youtu.be/1yK7_LCbvec?feature=shared

Here's my POV on the matter (with a bit of a German perspective):

[Leo Enticknap]

Well this author has come up with a distinctive metaphor for a car breakdown:

Electric cars are dying fast and the repair industry is lagging
The demand for mechanics who can take apart the battery pack and repair a dead cell has vastly outstripped supply.

By Bradley Brownell / Jalopnik
Published Yesterday

When you were a kid and you had a little radio control car that you zoomed around the kitchen floor or built jumps for in the back yard, did you throw it away when the batteries died? For many owners of early electric vehicles from a decade or more ago, that seems to be the answer to electrical issues. If your 2012 Tesla Model S shits the bed, should you throw it to the scrappers, or invest some time and money and get it back on the road? Unfortunately, the demand for mechanics who can take apart the battery pack and repair a dead cell has vastly outstripped supply.

A recent report form NPR affiliate KUOW Puget Sound tracked down a Tesla driver who had to decide what to do with a bricked Model S. Christine Barnes was told by Tesla that the car needed a brand new pack, and it would be around $20,000, more than the car’s value.

“We thought about spending the money just because it was a perfectly good car other than this happening,” Barnes said. “There was nothing wrong with it, and I loved that car. But then, we decided that was just not smart.”

Early EV adopters with cars no longer covered by a warranty of any kind are running into issues with longevity of these complex electric systems. The non-dealership car repair industry has not kept pace with the proliferation of EVs, and as such, there are very few places that can affect the repairs needed to keep these cars on the road. As luck would have it, Barnes found a shop that could do battery repairs to her Tesla, Medlock and Sons, but the shop was so backed up that it would still take years.

“We have like 350-plus appointments for Model S battery repairs, and we just don’t have time to go any faster,” Medlock said.

“Tesla told them it needed a battery, because Tesla only replaces the whole thing. They don’t do component replacement like we do,” he continued. “Any Model S that has been supercharged a lot, early ‘12, ‘13, ‘14, those cars, their batteries are failing,”

If there were more technicians trained to work on batteries, the life of older EVs could be extended, said Gary Fantozzi, director of automotive programs at Shoreline Community College. His department trains future mechanics for carmakers like General Motors and Tesla.

“We could start changing out small sections of those batteries that are degrading on us and allow the battery to go longer,” he said.

But Fantozzi said carmakers aren’t particularly motivated to invest in that kind of workforce training, and many of them don’t allow mechanics to work on the batteries at all.

“There’s only a couple of manufacturers out there that actually allow you to get into the batteries and actually do some of the repairs,” he said.

Fantozzi believes that there isn’t much financial incentive for carmakers to work on batteries if customers — faced with the high costs of replacing them — are willing to buy new cars instead.

For a little while I had an old Nissan Leaf that I truly enjoyed driving. It was extremely cheap, though its battery pack had degraded to the point that it could really only do 40 miles on a charge. I had wanted to find a new battery pack for it to increase range, but sourcing a known-good pack was difficult and expensive, and finding a shop to do the work was even more difficult. That car is still on the road, and I hope it remains so for many years to come, but I’m worried about who will do the work when it eventually needs to be done.

If you’re a young mechanic getting into the industry, learn how to safely and reliably repair electric and hybrid vehicles. I’d stake a claim on you having plenty of work to keep you busy for the rest of your life.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.

[Mike Blakesley]

This whole repairability / battery cost thing is really going to be the anchor on the heels of the electric car revolution, I think. Early adopters are going to buy any new gadget, but the "mainstream" really hasn't embraced EVs enough and with the kind of stories like the above, never will.

I had the idea once that EV batteries ought to be standard sized, and just slide out by being pushed from one side. That way you could drive your EV into a dealership, park next to the specialized machine that holds a stack of new batteries, and the machine would slide your new battery into place while pushing the old one out the other side. You could be in and out in 10 minutes or less. That idea will never work though, because it makes too much sense.

But what do you expect from an industry that can't even think to make all their charging ports universal.

If the gasoline car was designed today, every brand of car would require it's own brand of gas.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I had the idea once that EV batteries ought to be standard sized, and just slide out by being pushed from one side. That way you could drive your EV into a dealership, park next to the specialized machine that holds a stack of new batteries, and the machine would slide your new battery into place while pushing the old one out the other side. You could be in and out in 10 minutes or less. That idea will never work though, because it makes too much sense.

I had exactly the same idea many years back... battery packs that could be swapped at the service station within a few minutes... Problem solved?
As a matter of fact, Tesla showed exactly this same idea about 10 years ago. Like most stuff that involves Elon Musk, it remained vaporware and the demonstration was probably fake.

If you analyse the situation, then you quickly come to the conclusion that a field-swappable battery solution will not work in practice. The battery is the very core of an electric vehicle. Swapping the battery in an EV is more like swapping the engine in an ICE. The battery usually is the single-biggest ticket item in your EV and it has been highly optimized to fit the specifications of the car. Also, the technology around this very battery is in constant motion. While the contents of "vehicle fuel" have somewhat evolved over the last century, the progress here is very slow. Combine all those factors, and it's clear that a field-swappable, universal battery pack will not work in the foreseeable future. The thing is, you don't need to be a genius to come to this conclusion. Why Electric Space Jesus still needed to perform this stunt for everybody to see, is probably just to keep his EV-Ponzi-scheme going.

I really want to believe in a bright future where we can all zip around in our fusion-driven flying electric Delorians, like it's 2015... the reality is that someone forgot to apply logic and science somewhere (which usually are pretty much in line). We don't yet have that magical source of free electric energy and neither do we have sufficient unicorn dust to store that same energy in large quantities.

[Ryan Gallagher]

This whole repairability / battery cost thing is really going to be the anchor on the heels of the electric car revolution, I think. Early adopters are going to buy any new gadget, but the "mainstream" really hasn't embraced EVs enough and with the kind of stories like the above, never will.

Agree. And beyond that, I think there are fundamentally two types of people when it comes to personal vehicle purchases. And the pattern can probably be discerned by how often they replace their phones.

1. Buys the "new shiny", into a new phone/car every 3-5 years, perhaps even enjoys shorter term "leases".
2. Does not buy a new phone/car thing again until the old one stops performing it's primary function and is not economical to repair.

It still feels like most EVs are meant for the Type 1 person. Type 2 people who are tempted by an EV at this stage of development are likely in for a disappointment, as that replacement window (or extremely expensive part replacement) will most likely come sooner than they are used to with their traditional fuel vehicles.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed; therefore, mass EV adoption is not going to happen until Type 2 people feel confident enough to buy in; because Type 2 people are, I would guess, around 70-80% of the overall consumer market.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I know that Aptera talks a mean talk about planned user reparability, but in practice I have no idea if that would extend to servicing batteries at the sub-pack level once they hit production. Purely from a liability standpoint I seriously doubt anyone, no mater how right-to-repair-aligned they are, is willing to tell the owners to start re-working cells within packs. Lots of amps in those things.

I think the solution there would be to make the packs more modular by design, replace a bad cell group at a fraction of the price of the whole pack. But that approach comes with sacrifices or complications on the density, efficiency, and pack cooling/warming engineering side of the equations.

[Lyle Romer]

I had exactly the same idea many years back... battery packs that could be swapped at the service station within a few minutes... Problem solved?
As a matter of fact, Tesla showed exactly this same idea about 10 years ago. Like most stuff that involves Elon Musk, it remained vaporware and the demonstration was probably fake.

If you analyse the situation, then you quickly come to the conclusion that a field-swappable battery solution will not work in practice. The battery is the very core of an electric vehicle. Swapping the battery in an EV is more like swapping the engine in an ICE. The battery usually is the single-biggest ticket item in your EV and it has been highly optimized to fit the specifications of the car. Also, the technology around this very battery is in constant motion. While the contents of "vehicle fuel" have somewhat evolved over the last century, the progress here is very slow. Combine all those factors, and it's clear that a field-swappable, universal battery pack will not work in the foreseeable future. The thing is, you don't need to be a genius to come to this conclusion. Why Electric Space Jesus still needed to perform this stunt for everybody to see, is probably just to keep his EV-Ponzi-scheme going.

I really want to believe in a bright future where we can all zip around in our fusion-driven flying electric Delorians, like it's 2015... the reality is that someone forgot to apply logic and science somewhere (which usually are pretty much in line). We don't yet have that magical source of free electric energy and neither do we have sufficient unicorn dust to store that same energy in large quantities.

The demonstration was probably real. I think Musk likes to push the envelope of what is possible and practical and a lot of things his companies try end up not being one or the other (or both). In the case of the swappable battery it would be a logistical nightmare to keep enough a the station. Also, since it is the most expensive part of the EV it would not be great for a consumer to not be able to take care of their battery to maintain value. The biggest "con" to EV ownership is charging time on the road. I think Tesla was trying to address that and change the perception of EV use to get more adoption.

I think Elon is the embodiment of the TS Elliot quote that, "only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." A lot of the ideas he pushes end up in the "going too far" category which is why they never end up coming to fruition. On the other hand, some things like rapidly reusable rockets do come to fruition.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I think Elon is the embodiment of the TS Elliot quote that, "only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." A lot of the ideas he pushes end up in the "going too far" category which is why they never end up coming to fruition.

“The sky’s the limit – if you can dream it, you can do it.”
-- Elizabeth Holmes
Founder Theranos Inc.

[Lyle Romer]

“The sky’s the limit – if you can dream it, you can do it.”
-- Elizabeth Holmes
Founder Theranos Inc.

Except Theranos was pretending things worked that didn't and what they pretended was working WAS the core technology of the company. It would be like SpaceX pretending they were putting payload into orbit when it was all really crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

[Mike Blakesley]

a field-swappable battery solution will not work in practice. The battery is the very core of an electric vehicle. Swapping the battery in an EV is more like swapping the engine in an ICE.

Well, they screwed up by not starting with the idea of making the battery easily changeable. Instead they followed the cell-phone model, which is: Just make it work, the hell with the long-range viability, as long as it works really well when it's brand new.

All they did was come up with a new way to power cars, without thinking of the overall long-term practicality of the solution.

They should have followed the compact disk model. With the CD, inventors took all the problems of vinyl records -- short playing time, two-sides, non-durability, limited dynamic range, and scratchy sound -- and techology'd them all out. If they'd been content with just the idea getting the music off of a disk and nothing else, we would have wound up with a 12-inch CD that had to be flipped over after 20 minutes.

The difference of course is, with CDs the government was not involved.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Except Theranos was pretending things worked that didn't and what they pretended was working WAS the core technology of the company. It would be like SpaceX pretending they were putting payload into orbit when it was all really crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

Well, the things really are in the details, aren't they? How many people haven't bought a Tesla with the promise of "Full Self Driving"? Or what about the RoboTaxi? Heck, his latest car is even rolled out without any auto-pilot-like function, even if you paid for it. How many haven't bought into Tesla stock, because of promise A or B from Musk? And regarding SpaceX: According to Musk, we should already have humans walking around on Mars. Meanwhile, his latest spaceship is barely capable of getting into earth's orbit.

Getting back to this Tesla "FSD" / Autopilot thing: The thing is legally blind. I had MULTIPLE near-death experiences with it myself, once as driver and twice as passenger. The fact that this kind of system is allowed to be put into production vehicles alone, I consider a crime.

I don't mind trying to push the envelope, quite the contrary. I can understand that some plans may fail. The thing is, most if not all the things Musk has started that did fail, did fail due to obvious reasons: Science and logic. You're not going to beat those, by "thinking outside the box" or by "trying to be different".

[Lyle Romer]

Well, the things really are in the details, aren't they? How many people haven't bought a Tesla with the promise of "Full Self Driving"? Or what about the RoboTaxi? Heck, his latest car is even rolled out without any auto-pilot-like function, even if you paid for it. How many haven't bought into Tesla stock, because of promise A or B from Musk? And regarding SpaceX: According to Musk, we should already have humans walking around on Mars. Meanwhile, his latest spaceship is barely capable of getting into earth's orbit.

Getting back to this Tesla "FSD" / Autopilot thing: The thing is legally blind. I had MULTIPLE near-death experiences with it myself, once as driver and twice as passenger. The fact that this kind of system is allowed to be put into production vehicles alone, I consider a crime.

I don't mind trying to push the envelope, quite the contrary. I can understand that some plans may fail. The thing is, most if not all the things Musk has started that did fail, did fail due to obvious reasons: Science and logic. You're not going to beat those, by "thinking outside the box" or by "trying to be different".

I agree that the Full Self Driving, Film-Tech Forums should not be named that in its current form (even if it did what it said perfectly). "Full self driving" implies that the vehicle, with nobody inside of it, can move itself from point A to point B. I am also highly skeptical that autonomous driving using only cameras feeding AI can work. The Autopilot system is essentially adaptive cruise control, active lane keep assist and active collision braking combined with a fancy name that makes it sound more capable than it is. I'm sure investors have bought Tesla due to Musk's hype but I guess that legally his "promises" are actually "plans" otherwise the SEC would charge him with violations of all kinds of regulations.

While many of his ideas that did fail may have failed for obvious reasons, some of the things he has been successful with were the result of thinking outside the box even if others thought failure was obvious. The willingness to take financial risks is what makes him able to push technology as far as it can go. The RoboTaxi may still come to fruition so I won't count that as a broken promise yet.

I don't think the criticism of the Starship rocket is fair given that it was planned to have an iterative design. The first test flight failed because they rushed it and didn't wait for a launch pad that wouldn't be severely damaged by the thrust so it kicked up debris and broke several engines. The third test got into orbit just fine, it was reentering that was the issue. Since this is the first rocket design in history that attempts to reenter the entire second stage rocket (including fuel tank) and trying to minimize heat shielding, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it will require some tweaking. The 2nd stage of Starship weighs 21,000 kg more than the Space Shuttle Orbiter so it's the most mass that anybody has attempted to return to earth. I also don't believe his time frame to get humans to Mars was ever that short. Recently he said he thinks it can happen within 20 years.

[Mike Blakesley]

My theory is, whenever we get humans to Mars, their first ambition will be to get the hell back home. I mean, why would anyone want to spend more than a couple hours there? It's worse than the moon -- from there you at least have some scenery to look at up in the sky, but Mars looks like nothing but orange gravel and a lot of black space.