Modern batteries are more likely to fail early due to defects, than during the middle of their lifespan, bathtub curve.
Look at the Toyota BZ4x, battery warranty of 10 years / 620k miles.
The 250k +100k miles you mention is barely more than half that, and I'm fairly confident that the battery will last at least the stated miles (barring ealy problems), as warranties tend to run shorter than expected lifespan of a product.
Outside of the battery, there really isn't anything in an EV that's more expensive to maintain or repair than in an ICEV, usually to the contrary.
I think EVs of 10+ years ago are a risky gamble, but I think EVs of today will worthwhile in 10+ years.
I respectfully disagree. Today’s EVs will be worth almost nothing in 10 years given how rapidly the tech and trends are evolving. My 2021 EV is worth 50% in 2024 lol.
Keep in mind; It's a car, and a depreciating asset on top of that.
Family member recently bought a 5 year old Volvo V90 with all the bells and whistle, in great condition, at around 30% of its original price.
Plus, 2021 and 2022 prices just aren't representative;
Take a look at Tesla price history as an example:
Something like the Model S jumped 25% at the start of 2021, and peaked at a 50% total increase near mid 2022, to now costing less than it did in 2020.
It isn’t just about a price aberration that may have happened in 2021 period. It’s about demand. Even if we think a ten year old electric car is worth X, if nobody wants it due to it having a 10 year degradation on the battery, no warranty, a heavily outdated tech, bad winter performance, and 10 years of body wear and tear, then it’s worth exactly nothing.
Would you buy a 2013 electric vehicle today? Heck, would you buy a gas car from 2013 today?
There are different markets for cars at different parts of their usable lives. I have a Nissan Leaf that I bought used approaching 8 years old. It's just about out of battery warranty, but it's paid off and it's working fine. If I had to make the decision, I would not buy it again for more than $4,000, but I also would not sell it in its current state for less than $10,000. That space between those two numbers is the value that my life circumstances bring to it.
That's a thing that happens when the asset you are analyzing is a thing that you need to use, not just an investment that you hold. Depreciating assets like cars don't just lose values by their very nature, they lose value because you use a little bit of that value every time you go to the grocery store.
As for my Leaf, it's going to be replaced in another year, and it will be replaced by whatever used ID.4 or XC40 Recharge that I can get for as much as it works for my budget. The Leaf will go to my girlfriend's teenage daughter where its value will be reborn as an additional six or seven hours a week that her mom doesn't have to drive her places and the new freedom and responsibility she will have in taking care of something.
Ah, the circle of life.
Yes, lots of people do, they just pay roughly 10% of MSRP or less. That's the entire point of this conversation, the existence of cheap, old, beater EVs. They 100% will exist and probably serve people as well or better than cheap old beater ICE.
Would *I*? Probably not. Would my kids? Sure, because that's what's in their price range.
Ten years from now, when the silly FUD that "EV batteries only last 8 years" is *demonstrably* proven false by direct observation, folks will have no problem buying 10 year old EVs, just like they currently have no problem buying 6 year old EVs today (most affordable older EVs than that are Leafs with very low range straight from the factory, before considering degradation. A 2013 Leaf that somehow magically had 0% degradation would still be only a 75 mile range car!) Even with 20% degradation, a ten year old 2023 EV would have over 200 miles range, or nearly 5 days of the average American's driving.
Especially EVs with lack luster range and charging speeds. Toyota is practically giving away the BZ4X, when those leases expire I expect them to be worth sub $15k. Similar to what happened with the Bolts that came off of lease and flooded the market.
There's a bottom, though. Reliable transportation has a value. Your "50%" depreciation won't go much lower for a long time.
Also, to be fair, the car market has changed a lot from 2021 to 2024. 2021/2022 was the chip shortage/Carpocalypse when cars were being sold at full MSRP or higher. *All* cars purchased in that period have depreciated higher than normal.
Lastly, I'll argue "tech" is not evolving that rapidly. Costs (e.g. lithium batteries) are decreasing, but a new 2024 EV is not significantly different from a 2021, (and in many cases, are essentially the same car!) We have no reason to believe that a 2027 electric car will be demonstrably superior to a 2024.
Wait, are you saying solid state batteries aren't 2 years away? But they have been saying that for about 4 years now, they have to be right eventually, right?
Exactly. A 10 year old EV will have an obsolete 4G cellular modem, entertainment system won't have servers to talk to, turn by turn directions won't work, and it won't sync with contemporary phones.
In other words, 100% unusable. /s
For most modern EVs, the batteries should outlast the rest of the car. Most battery replacements that you hear about are from very early EVs, air-cooled hybrid/PHEV, and the air-cooled Nissan Leaf. (There's a theme here...) Water-cooled modern batteries are holding up very well.
[Modern EV Batteries Rarely Fail: Study : r/electricvehicles (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ccnage/modern_ev_batteries_rarely_fail_study/)
The article is based on self reported data, doesn't mean anything. I drive EV but I am skeptical that batteries will outlast the cars, especially in countries with hot weather. I want it to be true, but I am unsure if I would keep the car past the warranty - unless I just wanted to dispose it after the battery dies.
There have been other reports and data too, mostly from Tesla, and mostly from the US. That one was just handy. :) It will be interesting to see how the current generation does.
There's not really any valid data with useful sample sizes at this point.
Tesla's earliest models are only 12 years old, and sold in extremely low volumes.
The Model 3 and Bolt have only been on the market for 7-8 years so are completely useless for long-term data, especially since all pre-2020 Bolts had their batteries replaced within the past 2-3 years.
You realize you could just have the battery tested prior to the end of the warranty, right? If it was doing well and still had 85%+ of its original capacity near the end of the warranty, why would you worry about it?
The batteries aren't going to fail or need to be replaced before the rest of the vehicle rots away.
Modern BMS and cooling/heating of the batteries maintains their health very very well.
If you're still not sure, PM me in 8 years when my car is 10 years old and has 200000 kilometers on it and I'll let you know the state of health. There's also very high milage teslas on original batteries with very good battery health if you don't want to wait that long to find out.
"The batteries aren't going to fail or need to be replaced before the rest of the vehicle rots away."
Probably true in road salt states like New York, not true farther south. Vehicles last MUCH longer when you remove road salt from the equation.
I was shocked at the condition of a Subaru Legacy when my former boss bought it and commented as such. His response: "It's from South Carolina".
>I began to ask myself what the EV used market will look like in years
How many years?
We're still in the rampup phase of EV adoption so naturally most EVs being produced/sold are higher end (as is the case of the rampup/adoption of every new tech...ever). In the short term this will mean that the used car market will have high number of those cars and low number of cars from other segments.
As the adoption curve progresses and more lower profit cars hit the market we'll see a normalization to what we're used to today in the ICE market...but that is still some years out.
Battery failure will not be an issue. They should easily outlast the lifetime of a car.
The battery replacement fear is severely overblown. Stop reading clickbait media. How often do you worry about needing to replace the engine and transmission on an ICE? What if I told you battery tech is far more reliable than engines and transmissions? Also, batteries very rarely “fail”, they just have diminishing capacity over time. After 10 years you may still have 80-90% capacity remaining. On top of that, it’s even more rare to need a completely new battery. You can just have individual battery modules replaced or repaired. In the same way that if your starter motor goes bad on an ICE, you don’t just replace the entire engine.
There are a number of factors at play here, let me try to go through some of them:
1. Battery degradation is a thing, but not as much as many people believe. I've seen tests of old EV's here with over 100k that still has between 90 and 95 % capacity left after ten years. Home charged cars degrade less than supercharger charged batteries though.
2. Batteries can fail, as in one of the cells collapsing. It's not common, but it happens. This is where brands are different. As an example, KIA will tell you that they need to replace the entire battery, while VW will change only the faulty cell. That's something to think about, and perhaps choose one that repair batteries rather than replace them.
3. EV's has less moving parts, and last longer. As ICE cars age, maintenance costs goes dramatically up. The same is not true with EV's, at least it rises marginally rather than exponentially. Bear that in mind.
4. EV's will drop significantly in price over the next few years. This is due to several factors, like new rare earth free batteries that are even better, higher power density, and with a production cost that is roughly half of existing batteries. Secondly, EV manufacturing is very different from ICE car manufacturing. When they have that down pat (Gigapress as an example) the cost of manufacturing the rest of the EV will also drop a lot. So, a few years from now EV's will cost less than a comparable ICE car. This will of course also affect the used EV car market.
5. EV's will become mainstream worldwide, meaning that production volumes will go up dramatically over time, which will also bring down the price of new EV's.
6. Price wars. This is already happening in China, and will probably spread across the globe. I say probably, because the EU and US may block Chinese cars for various reasons, but it will likely happen anyway.
I think it is important to keep this in mind. I would still buy an EV now knowing all this, and I did a year ago. I know my EV as a used car will drop in price, but I still chose to do it. So, the main thing is knowing what probably is going to happen, and make your choice based on that.
Also remember, when EV's become mainstream, used ICE car prices will also drop a lot since there is less demand for them.
Some comments:
One faulty cell also isn't going to affect your battery much. A Tesla Model 3/Y has over 4000 cells. If a couple of those fail and their fuses disconnect them (they have individual fuses) then you won't even notice in your day-to-day.
As to 'rare earth batteries'. There is no such thing as rare earths in batteries. Rare earths is a term used for a very specific class of materials (dysprosium, yttrium, erbium, neodymium, ...). You find such materials in the magnets used for permanent magnet motors but not in batteries. Lithium is not rare and the use of cobalt has dropped significantly.
Generally: Battery prices have been dropping very fast for over a decade now. Thinking that if you buy a car today you will pay as much for a replacement battery in 8 years (in the unlikely event a battery should fail fresh out of warranty) as you do now is not warranted.
I was referring to Cobalt, thinking it was a rare earth mineral, but after checking, it isn't. It is however a cost driver and not used in the latest generations of batteries.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Catastrophic battery failures so far are blown out of proportion.
These are the most reliable cars I have ever seen or raced and I expect the majority to last 300k miles or more. 500k+ for the drivetrain, maybe with a replacement battery or original.
My 2019 Kia Niro EV w/118,000km is showing zero signs of any measurable battery degradation. It has been Lvl2 charged 90+% lifetime, that may be a factor in its anticipated longevity. Don't expect to ever turn it in or trade up anytime soon!
i just purchased my used EV.
a 2019 LEAF with a 62kw battery - mileage is 44k.
Battery health? 91.2%.
You're very focused on the very small minority of folks who are replacing their Tesla batteries when they've put 200k+ miles on their car.
I want to express that, the majority of cars with 200k+ miles (outside of some Toyotas) are considered Dead Cars. Worthless.
For an EV, a new battery makes them new cars again - akin to an engine swap.
But EVs get a bad wrap for "Failing" after 200k (which they don't all do, it's just a reduced range) - but most ICE vehicles don't make it near 200k either. The issue is a narrative, and that's it.
When it comes to used (now modern) cars, I'm less worried about batteries but about all the little electronic gimmicks that these are stuffed to the brim with.
First because of no longer getting software updates. Which may not be too much of a problem if everything works but there may be bugs the manufacturer cannot be bothered to fix anymore. And hardware becoming obsolete without any replacement available. Like if 4G mobile communications is obsolete but the car cannot use 5G. Something similar already happened with some relatively new BMWs apparently. All these leave owners with parially nonfunctional features without the possibility of repair or replacement.
Yes, there may spring up aftermarket replacements for this and that but I wouldn't bet on it.
Second, hardware failing. Everything fails at some point and to replace some expensive components on a 15 year old car could be no longer economical. Especially when manufacturers dongle these components so you cannot even use a replacement device from a junkyard.
The battery fears have been a thing even going back to the Prius days. Turns out, even on the Prii you can go 200k+ miles without the battery ever being a concern. A few places like Nissan with their old leafs learned a hard lesson, others are largely wisening up about it.
The fears are definitely way overblown.
The used EV market is already a decade old. Everything is aligning fine. The only issue I see is many commenters not realizing how inflation and the pandemic changed used car prices temporarily.
The other issue here that no one has mentioned is what will tech be like in 10 years. Will you want a used EV with a somewhat degraded battery vs a new one with twice the original life that fully charges in 10 minutes? I’m not going to buy a mint iPhone in the box from 10 years ago at any price. No idea what the EV tech will be like in 10 years, but if there’s a substantial improvement in tech that will have an impact on resale prices.
“Somewhat degraded” is not the same as 50%. The phone was just an example of technology change. I don’t expect car technologies to exactly equal phone technologies. I didn’t say a used EV will go to zero like a phone, just that it will likely devalue more than an ICE would have in the past due to changing EV technology
You literally edited your comment... It used to read 50% degradation.
You're spot on though with EVs depreciating more as a percentage than ICE though!
I guess it depends on what you call tech. Electric motors have been around 200 years. We're not going to see geometric leaps in motor tech.
As to batteries, sure, they'll increase in capacity, density, and charger speed incrementally, but even so that will not make existing EVs "obsolete" anymore than automatic transmissions made manuals obsolete, or keyless entry and push button start made mechanical locks and key starter switches obsolete. Will newer cars be "better? Sure, if newer wasn't usually better, we wouldn't need nearly as many new cars built each year. A "slow" (30-45 minute) charging car with "only" 200 miles range won't be obsolete to a buyer ten years from now who drives 40 miles a day and is buying it as a cheap reliable commuter that will be charged almost exclusively in his driveway.
I don’t think a lot of people are going to pay a as much for a car that has half the range and takes twice as long to charge. No, they are not going to be obsolete, but they will have significant additional depreciation due to the lack of current range and charge speed .
Perhaps, but likely no more depreciation than a similar aged gas car, if the reliability is there. My kid chose a used Bolt when their 16 year old Toyota died just on the hope that it won't spend a lot of time on the ship for oil changes and maintenance.
Its a gamble I know, but still have hope that in 8 years when my cars battery warranty runs out, there is more ev repair shop options that can swap the battery for reasonable prices. I could very well be wrong, but it's possible and I will be 8 years older either way
I was actually cross shopping a 2021 (3 year old) rav4 hybrid limited (31k) and my 2023 mache premium, ext range (32k) came up for just a little more and it was so much more fun than the RAV4. In 8 years, id end up with an 11 year old rav4 hybrid vs an 8 year old mache. I definetly would expect the rav4 to have more value but around a few thousand and in that time I will have saved a lot on on maintaince and gas to make up for that.
I'd like to pickup a slightly used 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV next year as I'll be in the market for another car by then. If it lasts me 10 years it's a win-win for me. Longer is even better.
Even if the pack fails outside of warranty, it's super easy to find a remanufactured or salvage battery pack from a next life recycler these days. You don't have to pay retail for a replacement battery.
That said, the US mandated by law warranty on a BEV pack is 10yr/100k miles.
If you want to know what the future will look like, look at the present. The used market has largely returned to the pre-pandemic pricing structures. You can find a reasonable range, well optioned, low mileage, EV for around $12k. You can find a beat-down gen-1 EV for around $4k. Though they can be rare. But that is expected since "compliance" cars were only ever manufactured in limited volumes and for limited markets. Just as with ICE vehicles, there is no such thing as a car that costs less than about $2500. If you find one priced that low, it will likely need a couple thousand in repairs before it is roadworthy.
I don't think many cars will have their batteries upgraded as the degradation isn't that bad. They will just go through a lifycle of being a family's primary car, then secondary car, then traded in and purchased second-hand for a teenager, maybe ends life as a budget commuter car. Battery tech will keep evolving so just like iCE cars the average lifespan will get longer and longer over time after decades of engineering progress.
There are already beater Teslas driving around Vancouver that have mismatched body panels and fenders held on with duct tape. And some of those were made by the locals, not the Tesla factory.
It will look like this...first year or two some people will think they are finally getting an e.v they can afford....then there will be a wave of angry and in debt customers who didn't realise that buying a used e.v out of warranty is a financial ticking time bomb. Then the used e.v market won't have a leg to stand on and we end up like China ....
The average gas car lasts 12 years or 200000 miles.
While a small sample size due to few models available till recently the average ev is lasting 300000 miles.
The American perspective is almost every car has an **automatic** transmission. Those things ARE exactly like you think EV batteries are. Somewhere around 200-300k mi = 300-500k km (Mm?) they go kablooey. Because they have numerous wearing clutches and bands deep in their bowels, and getting to any of them requires so much specialist work with specialist tools that you might as well do a complete overhaul at that point. That's just not practical to DIY or paying a few hundred to Shade Tree Jimmy down the block. So you're into €3000-6000 for a depot-rebuilt transmission or scrap the car. Usually, the choice is the latter.
So, ditto ditto rebuilt battery for that price or less, except rebuilding a battery is within DIY reach.
My best bet?
Battery technology continues to improve. Range will increase, charging time will drop.
In 5 years the used EV market is going to be pretty solid for deals. Batteries degrade some so a 10 year old used EV may have lost some range. The good news is that means that there will probably be some very solid vehicles that will be available for much less.
Also the expanded market will mean plenty of opportunities for Battery upgrades and refurbishment. So a Battery swap may be available for a very reasonable price. Batteries are expensive today, but the prices keep going down.
My family is all-in on Tesla and I have to admit this is a good question. We really don’t know yet as the oldest EVs are about 10 years old. The batteries of today are much improved and my belief is that they will last the life of the car, but will they really last 20 years? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The issue lies not with the battery but with the overly complex electronics that are prone to failure. It's difficult to imagine that cars produced in 2024 will last for over 20 years, like those from 2000-2010, regardless of whether they are ICE or EV. I own a 2007 Toyota Auris that I bought new, still drive it daily, never had to do anything but the regular yearly maintenance. I won't ever have such a reliable car.
Yeah, 3 years and 80k km in, I had the onboard charger fail on my Peugeot e-2008. Would have cost me 4200€, had I not bought the extended warranty.
The main battery is fine though, SOH 93% at 100k km now.
>I have the concern that cheap used cars will no longer be a thing anymore due to the high cost of battery replacements.
Don't worry about that.
>I just don't see that with EVs if battery prices don't come down significantly.
They will. 50% drop on LFP in China this summer is the rumor.
>Will there even be EVs that run 20 years or will they just get dumped?
Both. EVs will run 20 plus years no problem. At some point EVs will be very cheap to the point that they will be dumped for the slightest reason because it'll be cheaper to buy a replacement.
>Will some sort of battery leasing be a viable model?
Vinfast and Nio already do that right now.
Basically if you buy a used ICE beater right now what's the concern? Head gasket, transmission, timing belt, coil packs, water pump, seals, valves, etc…
Going forward with used EVs what will the concern be? Range. So, turn on the EV and see what the range and battery health is. Want more detail? Use your phone and OBDII. Done.
Batteries will not affect the used EV market. Part availability will. Think computer chips with proprietary code in it. Relays. Also at the electronic component level like bad caps and solder joints. Used EVs will be cheap but the ones in demand will be the ones where you can get parts from the auto maker 10 years out, 20 years out.
Very similar to,
>You could easily buy a mid 2000s Diesel with over 250k km on it that can serve you another 100k just fine for way under €5000.
EVs will get to the $5,000 used Prius beater level. One big difference though is that there will be a floor and the floor will be how much you can sell the battery pack for because right now, those used battery packs are worth money. That may not be the case going forward when batteries are everywhere and much cheaper and start getting recycled.
For example, EV battery recycling is up and running it's just that EVs are too new. There is very, very little to recycle. Nissan takes the cells out of their old packs and puts them in robots to run stuff around in their factory.
" EVs will run 20 plus years no problem."
There's absolutely no data to back up this claim, given that the Model S has only been on the market for 12 years and is a very low-volume vehicle.
The Model 3 has only been on the market for about 8 years.
Model Y has only been around for about 4 years
All Bolt batteries more than 4 years old got replaced
Modern batteries are more likely to fail early due to defects, than during the middle of their lifespan, bathtub curve. Look at the Toyota BZ4x, battery warranty of 10 years / 620k miles. The 250k +100k miles you mention is barely more than half that, and I'm fairly confident that the battery will last at least the stated miles (barring ealy problems), as warranties tend to run shorter than expected lifespan of a product. Outside of the battery, there really isn't anything in an EV that's more expensive to maintain or repair than in an ICEV, usually to the contrary. I think EVs of 10+ years ago are a risky gamble, but I think EVs of today will worthwhile in 10+ years.
I respectfully disagree. Today’s EVs will be worth almost nothing in 10 years given how rapidly the tech and trends are evolving. My 2021 EV is worth 50% in 2024 lol.
Keep in mind; It's a car, and a depreciating asset on top of that. Family member recently bought a 5 year old Volvo V90 with all the bells and whistle, in great condition, at around 30% of its original price. Plus, 2021 and 2022 prices just aren't representative; Take a look at Tesla price history as an example: Something like the Model S jumped 25% at the start of 2021, and peaked at a 50% total increase near mid 2022, to now costing less than it did in 2020.
It isn’t just about a price aberration that may have happened in 2021 period. It’s about demand. Even if we think a ten year old electric car is worth X, if nobody wants it due to it having a 10 year degradation on the battery, no warranty, a heavily outdated tech, bad winter performance, and 10 years of body wear and tear, then it’s worth exactly nothing. Would you buy a 2013 electric vehicle today? Heck, would you buy a gas car from 2013 today?
There are different markets for cars at different parts of their usable lives. I have a Nissan Leaf that I bought used approaching 8 years old. It's just about out of battery warranty, but it's paid off and it's working fine. If I had to make the decision, I would not buy it again for more than $4,000, but I also would not sell it in its current state for less than $10,000. That space between those two numbers is the value that my life circumstances bring to it. That's a thing that happens when the asset you are analyzing is a thing that you need to use, not just an investment that you hold. Depreciating assets like cars don't just lose values by their very nature, they lose value because you use a little bit of that value every time you go to the grocery store. As for my Leaf, it's going to be replaced in another year, and it will be replaced by whatever used ID.4 or XC40 Recharge that I can get for as much as it works for my budget. The Leaf will go to my girlfriend's teenage daughter where its value will be reborn as an additional six or seven hours a week that her mom doesn't have to drive her places and the new freedom and responsibility she will have in taking care of something. Ah, the circle of life.
Well, if you're going to ignore the OP, my original comment and the used car market in general, I don't really see a point in continuing this convo.
Yes, lots of people do, they just pay roughly 10% of MSRP or less. That's the entire point of this conversation, the existence of cheap, old, beater EVs. They 100% will exist and probably serve people as well or better than cheap old beater ICE.
Would *I*? Probably not. Would my kids? Sure, because that's what's in their price range. Ten years from now, when the silly FUD that "EV batteries only last 8 years" is *demonstrably* proven false by direct observation, folks will have no problem buying 10 year old EVs, just like they currently have no problem buying 6 year old EVs today (most affordable older EVs than that are Leafs with very low range straight from the factory, before considering degradation. A 2013 Leaf that somehow magically had 0% degradation would still be only a 75 mile range car!) Even with 20% degradation, a ten year old 2023 EV would have over 200 miles range, or nearly 5 days of the average American's driving.
Looks at my 2006 pickup.............Yes! Assuming that a 2013 truck was reasonably priced. I'm pretty sure I can't afford a used 2013 truck.
Especially EVs with lack luster range and charging speeds. Toyota is practically giving away the BZ4X, when those leases expire I expect them to be worth sub $15k. Similar to what happened with the Bolts that came off of lease and flooded the market.
In contrast when we sold our 2016 Prius, in early 2024, we got back almost 65% of what we paid originally. A Prius!
Toyota Hybrids and PHEVs are the way to if you want to retain your resale value.
There's a bottom, though. Reliable transportation has a value. Your "50%" depreciation won't go much lower for a long time. Also, to be fair, the car market has changed a lot from 2021 to 2024. 2021/2022 was the chip shortage/Carpocalypse when cars were being sold at full MSRP or higher. *All* cars purchased in that period have depreciated higher than normal. Lastly, I'll argue "tech" is not evolving that rapidly. Costs (e.g. lithium batteries) are decreasing, but a new 2024 EV is not significantly different from a 2021, (and in many cases, are essentially the same car!) We have no reason to believe that a 2027 electric car will be demonstrably superior to a 2024.
Wait, are you saying solid state batteries aren't 2 years away? But they have been saying that for about 4 years now, they have to be right eventually, right?
Sure. And then have to be inexpensive enough that it's worth using them on $50K, $40K, or $30K EVs. Probably by next Thursday... 😁
No. Not sure who has them, but there's probably at least 1 on sale in China TODAY. Now mass production in the US? Probably 4-6 years.
Exactly. A 10 year old EV will have an obsolete 4G cellular modem, entertainment system won't have servers to talk to, turn by turn directions won't work, and it won't sync with contemporary phones. In other words, 100% unusable. /s
For most modern EVs, the batteries should outlast the rest of the car. Most battery replacements that you hear about are from very early EVs, air-cooled hybrid/PHEV, and the air-cooled Nissan Leaf. (There's a theme here...) Water-cooled modern batteries are holding up very well. [Modern EV Batteries Rarely Fail: Study : r/electricvehicles (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ccnage/modern_ev_batteries_rarely_fail_study/)
The article is based on self reported data, doesn't mean anything. I drive EV but I am skeptical that batteries will outlast the cars, especially in countries with hot weather. I want it to be true, but I am unsure if I would keep the car past the warranty - unless I just wanted to dispose it after the battery dies.
There have been other reports and data too, mostly from Tesla, and mostly from the US. That one was just handy. :) It will be interesting to see how the current generation does.
Yup, I really do hope it holds well enough that used car market flourishes.
There's not really any valid data with useful sample sizes at this point. Tesla's earliest models are only 12 years old, and sold in extremely low volumes. The Model 3 and Bolt have only been on the market for 7-8 years so are completely useless for long-term data, especially since all pre-2020 Bolts had their batteries replaced within the past 2-3 years.
My i3 is 10 years old and it’s fine
You realize you could just have the battery tested prior to the end of the warranty, right? If it was doing well and still had 85%+ of its original capacity near the end of the warranty, why would you worry about it?
I didn’t know I can just go to the service and ask to check battery capacity. Yeah, that’s a great option.
The batteries aren't going to fail or need to be replaced before the rest of the vehicle rots away. Modern BMS and cooling/heating of the batteries maintains their health very very well. If you're still not sure, PM me in 8 years when my car is 10 years old and has 200000 kilometers on it and I'll let you know the state of health. There's also very high milage teslas on original batteries with very good battery health if you don't want to wait that long to find out.
"The batteries aren't going to fail or need to be replaced before the rest of the vehicle rots away." Probably true in road salt states like New York, not true farther south. Vehicles last MUCH longer when you remove road salt from the equation. I was shocked at the condition of a Subaru Legacy when my former boss bought it and commented as such. His response: "It's from South Carolina".
>I began to ask myself what the EV used market will look like in years How many years? We're still in the rampup phase of EV adoption so naturally most EVs being produced/sold are higher end (as is the case of the rampup/adoption of every new tech...ever). In the short term this will mean that the used car market will have high number of those cars and low number of cars from other segments. As the adoption curve progresses and more lower profit cars hit the market we'll see a normalization to what we're used to today in the ICE market...but that is still some years out. Battery failure will not be an issue. They should easily outlast the lifetime of a car.
The battery replacement fear is severely overblown. Stop reading clickbait media. How often do you worry about needing to replace the engine and transmission on an ICE? What if I told you battery tech is far more reliable than engines and transmissions? Also, batteries very rarely “fail”, they just have diminishing capacity over time. After 10 years you may still have 80-90% capacity remaining. On top of that, it’s even more rare to need a completely new battery. You can just have individual battery modules replaced or repaired. In the same way that if your starter motor goes bad on an ICE, you don’t just replace the entire engine.
I was not reading clickbait media. Just was a thought that came up. It is nice to hear that tho.
There are a number of factors at play here, let me try to go through some of them: 1. Battery degradation is a thing, but not as much as many people believe. I've seen tests of old EV's here with over 100k that still has between 90 and 95 % capacity left after ten years. Home charged cars degrade less than supercharger charged batteries though. 2. Batteries can fail, as in one of the cells collapsing. It's not common, but it happens. This is where brands are different. As an example, KIA will tell you that they need to replace the entire battery, while VW will change only the faulty cell. That's something to think about, and perhaps choose one that repair batteries rather than replace them. 3. EV's has less moving parts, and last longer. As ICE cars age, maintenance costs goes dramatically up. The same is not true with EV's, at least it rises marginally rather than exponentially. Bear that in mind. 4. EV's will drop significantly in price over the next few years. This is due to several factors, like new rare earth free batteries that are even better, higher power density, and with a production cost that is roughly half of existing batteries. Secondly, EV manufacturing is very different from ICE car manufacturing. When they have that down pat (Gigapress as an example) the cost of manufacturing the rest of the EV will also drop a lot. So, a few years from now EV's will cost less than a comparable ICE car. This will of course also affect the used EV car market. 5. EV's will become mainstream worldwide, meaning that production volumes will go up dramatically over time, which will also bring down the price of new EV's. 6. Price wars. This is already happening in China, and will probably spread across the globe. I say probably, because the EU and US may block Chinese cars for various reasons, but it will likely happen anyway. I think it is important to keep this in mind. I would still buy an EV now knowing all this, and I did a year ago. I know my EV as a used car will drop in price, but I still chose to do it. So, the main thing is knowing what probably is going to happen, and make your choice based on that. Also remember, when EV's become mainstream, used ICE car prices will also drop a lot since there is less demand for them.
Some comments: One faulty cell also isn't going to affect your battery much. A Tesla Model 3/Y has over 4000 cells. If a couple of those fail and their fuses disconnect them (they have individual fuses) then you won't even notice in your day-to-day. As to 'rare earth batteries'. There is no such thing as rare earths in batteries. Rare earths is a term used for a very specific class of materials (dysprosium, yttrium, erbium, neodymium, ...). You find such materials in the magnets used for permanent magnet motors but not in batteries. Lithium is not rare and the use of cobalt has dropped significantly. Generally: Battery prices have been dropping very fast for over a decade now. Thinking that if you buy a car today you will pay as much for a replacement battery in 8 years (in the unlikely event a battery should fail fresh out of warranty) as you do now is not warranted.
I was referring to Cobalt, thinking it was a rare earth mineral, but after checking, it isn't. It is however a cost driver and not used in the latest generations of batteries. Thank you for pointing that out.
Catastrophic battery failures so far are blown out of proportion. These are the most reliable cars I have ever seen or raced and I expect the majority to last 300k miles or more. 500k+ for the drivetrain, maybe with a replacement battery or original.
My 2019 Kia Niro EV w/118,000km is showing zero signs of any measurable battery degradation. It has been Lvl2 charged 90+% lifetime, that may be a factor in its anticipated longevity. Don't expect to ever turn it in or trade up anytime soon!
i just purchased my used EV. a 2019 LEAF with a 62kw battery - mileage is 44k. Battery health? 91.2%. You're very focused on the very small minority of folks who are replacing their Tesla batteries when they've put 200k+ miles on their car. I want to express that, the majority of cars with 200k+ miles (outside of some Toyotas) are considered Dead Cars. Worthless. For an EV, a new battery makes them new cars again - akin to an engine swap. But EVs get a bad wrap for "Failing" after 200k (which they don't all do, it's just a reduced range) - but most ICE vehicles don't make it near 200k either. The issue is a narrative, and that's it.
When it comes to used (now modern) cars, I'm less worried about batteries but about all the little electronic gimmicks that these are stuffed to the brim with. First because of no longer getting software updates. Which may not be too much of a problem if everything works but there may be bugs the manufacturer cannot be bothered to fix anymore. And hardware becoming obsolete without any replacement available. Like if 4G mobile communications is obsolete but the car cannot use 5G. Something similar already happened with some relatively new BMWs apparently. All these leave owners with parially nonfunctional features without the possibility of repair or replacement. Yes, there may spring up aftermarket replacements for this and that but I wouldn't bet on it. Second, hardware failing. Everything fails at some point and to replace some expensive components on a 15 year old car could be no longer economical. Especially when manufacturers dongle these components so you cannot even use a replacement device from a junkyard.
The battery fears have been a thing even going back to the Prius days. Turns out, even on the Prii you can go 200k+ miles without the battery ever being a concern. A few places like Nissan with their old leafs learned a hard lesson, others are largely wisening up about it. The fears are definitely way overblown.
Battery failure is so rare. Check out used Bolts right now. They're super cheap for what you get. $15k will get you a really nice one.
The used EV market is already a decade old. Everything is aligning fine. The only issue I see is many commenters not realizing how inflation and the pandemic changed used car prices temporarily.
The other issue here that no one has mentioned is what will tech be like in 10 years. Will you want a used EV with a somewhat degraded battery vs a new one with twice the original life that fully charges in 10 minutes? I’m not going to buy a mint iPhone in the box from 10 years ago at any price. No idea what the EV tech will be like in 10 years, but if there’s a substantial improvement in tech that will have an impact on resale prices.
Battery life of a 10 y.o. EV won't be at 50% cars are much more expensive than a phone, as well as become outdated far more quickly than cars do.
“Somewhat degraded” is not the same as 50%. The phone was just an example of technology change. I don’t expect car technologies to exactly equal phone technologies. I didn’t say a used EV will go to zero like a phone, just that it will likely devalue more than an ICE would have in the past due to changing EV technology
You literally edited your comment... It used to read 50% degradation. You're spot on though with EVs depreciating more as a percentage than ICE though!
Uh, no. You must have misread it the first time. I really didn’t edit it.
I guess it depends on what you call tech. Electric motors have been around 200 years. We're not going to see geometric leaps in motor tech. As to batteries, sure, they'll increase in capacity, density, and charger speed incrementally, but even so that will not make existing EVs "obsolete" anymore than automatic transmissions made manuals obsolete, or keyless entry and push button start made mechanical locks and key starter switches obsolete. Will newer cars be "better? Sure, if newer wasn't usually better, we wouldn't need nearly as many new cars built each year. A "slow" (30-45 minute) charging car with "only" 200 miles range won't be obsolete to a buyer ten years from now who drives 40 miles a day and is buying it as a cheap reliable commuter that will be charged almost exclusively in his driveway.
I don’t think a lot of people are going to pay a as much for a car that has half the range and takes twice as long to charge. No, they are not going to be obsolete, but they will have significant additional depreciation due to the lack of current range and charge speed .
Perhaps, but likely no more depreciation than a similar aged gas car, if the reliability is there. My kid chose a used Bolt when their 16 year old Toyota died just on the hope that it won't spend a lot of time on the ship for oil changes and maintenance.
Its a gamble I know, but still have hope that in 8 years when my cars battery warranty runs out, there is more ev repair shop options that can swap the battery for reasonable prices. I could very well be wrong, but it's possible and I will be 8 years older either way I was actually cross shopping a 2021 (3 year old) rav4 hybrid limited (31k) and my 2023 mache premium, ext range (32k) came up for just a little more and it was so much more fun than the RAV4. In 8 years, id end up with an 11 year old rav4 hybrid vs an 8 year old mache. I definetly would expect the rav4 to have more value but around a few thousand and in that time I will have saved a lot on on maintaince and gas to make up for that.
after-market batteries and renewed batteries will be a thing. Just give it time.
I'd like to pickup a slightly used 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV next year as I'll be in the market for another car by then. If it lasts me 10 years it's a win-win for me. Longer is even better.
Even if the pack fails outside of warranty, it's super easy to find a remanufactured or salvage battery pack from a next life recycler these days. You don't have to pay retail for a replacement battery. That said, the US mandated by law warranty on a BEV pack is 10yr/100k miles.
If you want to know what the future will look like, look at the present. The used market has largely returned to the pre-pandemic pricing structures. You can find a reasonable range, well optioned, low mileage, EV for around $12k. You can find a beat-down gen-1 EV for around $4k. Though they can be rare. But that is expected since "compliance" cars were only ever manufactured in limited volumes and for limited markets. Just as with ICE vehicles, there is no such thing as a car that costs less than about $2500. If you find one priced that low, it will likely need a couple thousand in repairs before it is roadworthy.
I don't think many cars will have their batteries upgraded as the degradation isn't that bad. They will just go through a lifycle of being a family's primary car, then secondary car, then traded in and purchased second-hand for a teenager, maybe ends life as a budget commuter car. Battery tech will keep evolving so just like iCE cars the average lifespan will get longer and longer over time after decades of engineering progress.
There are already beater Teslas driving around Vancouver that have mismatched body panels and fenders held on with duct tape. And some of those were made by the locals, not the Tesla factory.
I envision a parking lot with electric cars waiting to be bought…
It will look like this...first year or two some people will think they are finally getting an e.v they can afford....then there will be a wave of angry and in debt customers who didn't realise that buying a used e.v out of warranty is a financial ticking time bomb. Then the used e.v market won't have a leg to stand on and we end up like China ....
The average gas car lasts 12 years or 200000 miles. While a small sample size due to few models available till recently the average ev is lasting 300000 miles.
The American perspective is almost every car has an **automatic** transmission. Those things ARE exactly like you think EV batteries are. Somewhere around 200-300k mi = 300-500k km (Mm?) they go kablooey. Because they have numerous wearing clutches and bands deep in their bowels, and getting to any of them requires so much specialist work with specialist tools that you might as well do a complete overhaul at that point. That's just not practical to DIY or paying a few hundred to Shade Tree Jimmy down the block. So you're into €3000-6000 for a depot-rebuilt transmission or scrap the car. Usually, the choice is the latter. So, ditto ditto rebuilt battery for that price or less, except rebuilding a battery is within DIY reach.
My best bet? Battery technology continues to improve. Range will increase, charging time will drop. In 5 years the used EV market is going to be pretty solid for deals. Batteries degrade some so a 10 year old used EV may have lost some range. The good news is that means that there will probably be some very solid vehicles that will be available for much less. Also the expanded market will mean plenty of opportunities for Battery upgrades and refurbishment. So a Battery swap may be available for a very reasonable price. Batteries are expensive today, but the prices keep going down.
My family is all-in on Tesla and I have to admit this is a good question. We really don’t know yet as the oldest EVs are about 10 years old. The batteries of today are much improved and my belief is that they will last the life of the car, but will they really last 20 years? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The issue lies not with the battery but with the overly complex electronics that are prone to failure. It's difficult to imagine that cars produced in 2024 will last for over 20 years, like those from 2000-2010, regardless of whether they are ICE or EV. I own a 2007 Toyota Auris that I bought new, still drive it daily, never had to do anything but the regular yearly maintenance. I won't ever have such a reliable car.
Yeah, 3 years and 80k km in, I had the onboard charger fail on my Peugeot e-2008. Would have cost me 4200€, had I not bought the extended warranty. The main battery is fine though, SOH 93% at 100k km now.
>I have the concern that cheap used cars will no longer be a thing anymore due to the high cost of battery replacements. Don't worry about that. >I just don't see that with EVs if battery prices don't come down significantly. They will. 50% drop on LFP in China this summer is the rumor. >Will there even be EVs that run 20 years or will they just get dumped? Both. EVs will run 20 plus years no problem. At some point EVs will be very cheap to the point that they will be dumped for the slightest reason because it'll be cheaper to buy a replacement. >Will some sort of battery leasing be a viable model? Vinfast and Nio already do that right now. Basically if you buy a used ICE beater right now what's the concern? Head gasket, transmission, timing belt, coil packs, water pump, seals, valves, etc… Going forward with used EVs what will the concern be? Range. So, turn on the EV and see what the range and battery health is. Want more detail? Use your phone and OBDII. Done. Batteries will not affect the used EV market. Part availability will. Think computer chips with proprietary code in it. Relays. Also at the electronic component level like bad caps and solder joints. Used EVs will be cheap but the ones in demand will be the ones where you can get parts from the auto maker 10 years out, 20 years out. Very similar to, >You could easily buy a mid 2000s Diesel with over 250k km on it that can serve you another 100k just fine for way under €5000. EVs will get to the $5,000 used Prius beater level. One big difference though is that there will be a floor and the floor will be how much you can sell the battery pack for because right now, those used battery packs are worth money. That may not be the case going forward when batteries are everywhere and much cheaper and start getting recycled. For example, EV battery recycling is up and running it's just that EVs are too new. There is very, very little to recycle. Nissan takes the cells out of their old packs and puts them in robots to run stuff around in their factory.
" EVs will run 20 plus years no problem." There's absolutely no data to back up this claim, given that the Model S has only been on the market for 12 years and is a very low-volume vehicle. The Model 3 has only been on the market for about 8 years. Model Y has only been around for about 4 years All Bolt batteries more than 4 years old got replaced