I look forward to the day we can use our “dead” car battery as the battery backup for our home.
64kWh * 0.8 is 51kWh.
Even 40kWh would be a great battery paired to a solar system.
The used car batteries could have great second lives.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Hell, a car with 40 kWh of usable battery capacity is still plenty for a high schooler to get around town or something. Which is what you'd often expect for a car as it reaches an old enough age anyway
Early Nissan Leafs started with 24 kWh, so when they lost a chunk of their initial range they became impractical to use. Your range might be shorter than the distance between chargers, especially in winter.
If you start with 40 kWh, you can lose a third of that and it's still fine for occasional long trips if you have charging network coverage. And you probably won't lose a third of your battery capacity ever, since modern EVs have battery cooling and better batteries.
LFP batteries will probably all outlive the cars they're in.
We have a slightly later leaf with ~30k but now it's getting older the range is only about 80mi in warm weather (much worse in cold). It's not really viable for distances, but we could hire an ICE for those rare occasions.
Leafs are popular in southeast Alaska because there is nowhere to drive. They import used Leafs and use them as oversized golf carts.
There's already a company positioned to take "dead" ev batteries, referb them and put them into municipal power storage. I'd guess it'll be the sort of situation where, if you can replace them yourself then the cells are yours to do with as you please, but if you go to a shop to have them replaced the shop will probably resell your cells.
People do this already. Tons of YT videos on 48v home systems.
"Dead car" batteries get recycled up to 3 times after they are not fit for EVs.
It's almost like there is an AstroTurfed campaign to get people to lose confidence in electric vehicles by talking about batteries, even though most first generation Prius batteries are doing just fine.
This is good news. Hopefully the percentage of damaged batteries (whether from improper production, wear and tear, or physical damage ) is low that they can continue to serve long lives. Hope to see more information on that soon.
This is all good news and all, but we need to keep from setting the bar too damn low. I do not consider 100,000 miles to be a huge benchmark. I understand the constraints of a study of EV batteries since most EVs simply haven't been around long enough to study, but we as consumers should not be accepting EVs to be throw-away items like gadget-makers have turned most consumer electronics.
Yeah 90% charge remaining is still a decent number, but your 200 mile range when new turned into only 180 mile max range in less than a decade. And since you typically are told to only charge to 80%, your real world range is only 144 miles or so. In the winter that will be down to less than 100 miles.
People shouldn't be falling for misinformation about batteries (like the repeated dismissed myth that they are worse for the environment), but there is also a lot of overly positive info out there that doesn't reflect reality.
So, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, my EV (a Polestar 2) charged to 80% gets a theoretical 220’ish miles range (I’m basing this not on the EPA range, but the calculated range in the car based on my driving habits). Now I say theoretical because I’ve never tested it all the way with my largest trip since I’ve owned it being about 70 miles one way. My average “long” driving days are only 50 miles round trip, and an average day where we take the car out is only about 12 miles total in the day. I’ve had a single time where I haven’t charged in my garage at night (on a 110v nonetheless!) and that was the 70 mile road trip where I parked in a garage with a charger so figured I might as well.
Now I bring all this up because I know I’m not alone in this. Sure my driving doesn’t represent everyone but it’s also not singularly unique. Even if this car loses 10% of its range it’s not going to affect my use of it. I know everyone thinks that everyone else does daily long commutes and huge yearly road trips, but that is only a subset of the population (maybe it’s you! I don’t know). But this constant discounting of EVs because they don’t meet some bar for certain groups is disingenuous. They already meet the bar for vast groups of people, and if your daily usage is super high odds are there’s an EV out there that can meet it, even after a drop to 90% years down the road.
This is the first positive press piece about EV batteries that I’ve ever seen.
I've read a few about the longevity of Tesla's; especially those used as taxis and work vehicles. Done over 300,000km in a few years, and still doing great.
Trust me folks an EV is on everyone's mind with gas prices like they are these days. Nobody can really afford either thing, amirite?
I’ve recently started delivering for DoorDash and my mileage has skyrocketed. Im trying to figure out the cutoff where it makes sense to go finance an EV vs keep paying for gas. I don’t think I’m there yet, but I’m spending upwards of $200/month on gas so I’m not terribly far off from a used EV being the same monthly cost.