What do you think after reading this warning about electric vehicles?
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The whole EV ecosystem is incredibly immature at this point. It doesn’t surprise me that a battery for a 2014 car is no longer available. That is generations of EV technology old.
The message for the industry: support and parts will be essential if EVs are going to ever catch on. You can’t just build it and drop it.
EV technology changes every week. This specific issue shouldn’t be seen as an indictment of the EV industry going forward. It should be a wake-up call, however.
I think it highlights the differences between compliance cars reluctantly built by legacy auto manufacturers and companies that are dedicated 100% to electric vehicles.
There are many factors that play into the longevity of an EV battery. One is temperature. In these early EVs, some manufacturers didn’t bother heating and cooling the batteries to maintain a good temp. This reduces the lifespan of the batteries.
The other major factor is the the depth of discharge. If you regularly go from 100% to 0% it will fatigue the batteries quickly (that’s why smartphones wear out after a couple of years and why hybrids are a lousy idea). If instead you go from 80% to 20%, they’ll last a very long time, as in WAY longer than the engine in a car. We have one example of a four-year-old Model 3 with 100k miles that only lost 2.2% of range due to battery degradation.
Well, my 2006 Prius was designed to use 80% – 20%. The battery packs were small and typically only a few would fail at any time, so refurb was not too expensive.
Bummer about the older pure EVs though. You are right – compliance cars with early battery technology would be rather risky technology to buy used.
I love the idea of the EV, but I NEVER learned to totally trust them!!! A dear friend of mine bought a Prius & it did save her money on gas; however, when the battery went out, the cheapest she could find for that particular model was $6K. For some people, that’s not a lot of money. For others, it’s their life savings!!! Also, greedy manufacturers/dealerships have priced these cars out of my comfort zone!!!
The other thing that scares me is the Tesla that caught fire while sitting in the junk yard & they had to bury the battery in order to smother the fire. I could be wrong because I don’t own one, but I’ve been told that the battery is under the seat & I don’t want to be sitting on top of a battery that “might” explode & catch fire!!!
“Correction”:www.zerohedge.com/technology/battery-replacement-familys-ev-ford-focus-would-cost-more-car-itself
There are Prius battery modules on eBay for a reasonable price. The trick is to open up the back of the Prius and figure out how many modules are bad. Usually only are few are bad. $6K buys you a whole new pack. And they are nickel metal hydride batteries which are pretty safe.
The thing with lithium ion battery packs (e.g. Tesla) is that they need to be carefully charged and not damaged. A Tesla in a junk yard has probably been in a crash, so battery packs were probably damaged.
@LadyMarissa “From 2012 to the year 2020, there was close to one vehicle fire for every 19,000,000 miles traveled. From 2012 to the year 2020, there was one Tesla vehicle fire for every 205,000,000 miles traveled. Not only are Tesla battery fires a rare occurrence, but Teslas are actually safer than gas-powered vehicles when it comes to catching fire.” (Source)
That said lithium ion battery fires are nasty when they do happen and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have to smother it with dirt. On the other hand it’s a really bad idea to store lithium ion batteries in a junkyard. It’d be like storing dynamite out in the sun, unprotected.
@LadyMarissa ” I don’t own one, but I’ve been told that the battery is under the seat”
The batteries run the entire floor for the most part.
I saw something similar with the Prius. The item that converted the battery power to mechanical energy would often fail after about 5 or 6 years. And it cost as much to replace it as buy a new one. That means you are basically renting a car for 5 or 6 years on the hope you will rent another one when the first dies.
I’ve been hearing this for 15 years.
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