this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
157 points (98.8% liked)
[Dormant] Electric Vehicles
3206 readers
1 users here now
We have moved to:
A community for the sharing of links, news, and discussion related to Electric Vehicles.
Rules
- No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, casteism, speciesism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
- Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
- No self-promotion.
- No irrelevant content. All posts must be relevant and related to plug-in electric vehicles — BEVs or PHEVs.
- No trolling.
- Policy, not politics. Submissions and comments about effective policymaking are allowed and encouraged in the community, however conversations and submissions about parties, politicians, and those devolving into general tribalism will be removed.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Amazing, what a great development. The value prop of my Chevy Bolt was always the operating cost. I've saved $25000 CAD over five years on gas and oil changes VS a car with 8l/100km (my old car). I'm at the point now that my Bolt was a better or equal deal to most new vehicles over $20,000 CAD MRSP. In a few years the low operating cost will make it a better deal than any car over $10,000. If the car makes it to around 300,000 km it will have saved so much money on gas it will have offset its own cost.
But when I talk to people about it the capital cost is what people tend to fixate on. As if operating it doesn't count. But at price parity, it's basically a no brainer for the vast majority of commuters. This barrier is gone.
The used market is transforming here too. I actually just purchased a second EV, a loaded 2020 soul ev with 2 years/20,000km bumper to bumper warranty left, and 140,000 battery warranty. I paid $16000CAD, this was less than 8 of 10 comparable gas versions in my regional market. This was a private sale, no EV rebates, and there was price parity. It wasn't even my only option like this, my local market has enough 2020/2021/2022 Ioniqs, Leafs, and Bolts that I had a hard time choosing our second car.
Change is here in the market, I hope attitudes change with it. Because I'm a bit sick of every Facebook ad for an EV being nothing but laughing faces and ignorant comments.
How much would a replacement battery for your cars cost should the worst happen?
For my Chevy, which is out of warranty now, but amazingly still working with little to degradation, it would be around $15000 CAD for a new replacement battery at the dealer. Less if I can source the used part from a wreck and goto my own mechanic.
For the Soul, I have no idea, but I'm 140,000km or 5 years away from being exposed to it.
Just for context, a motor replacement for an ICE car can run anywhere from $5500-$14000 CAD according to JD power and associates.
Battery failure is an interesting problem, dead cells can reduce the range of the car, but is my Bolt with a 300km range useless? Probably not. The batteries can be pulled for home backup uses as well if the failure isn't catastrophic. When an ICE engine fails, we salvage the parts, EVs have that too. There is a huge community around replacing and upgrading NISSAN leaf batteries, for example, they can be upgraded for half what I mentioned here.
Plus battery cost is still dropping rapidly, while the longevity has been increasing. A lot of refinement of the tech has been going on the last 10 years.
CATL is producing a battery with a million mile 15 year, 80% charge warranty that is only a bit less energy dense than current batteries. At 15 years, if your battery is 79.9% Soc, they do a full replacement.
For context, CATL is not some start up making a big promise, they're one of the biggest battery manufacturers in the world and this battery is in production now, headed to EVs in a year or two. This tech ends battery failure anxiety, and will guarantee batteries outlive the useful life of the car.
Do you think people could intentionally degrade their battery to get a replacement before the warranty runs out? I don't know how one would do this but it would be on my mind if I owned an EV.
This doesn't seen feasible without damaging or bypassing something that could likely be discovered later when looking at any data collected while charging. This sounds like a good way to wind up with a broken car and no warranty.