this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Not a tesla fan, but also not in the business of refuting uninformed but confidently held opinions.
Then why even reply… Waste of time and space. It’s ok to just move on.
Lithium batteries are very expensive(20k) and don’t last 250-300k miles. That’s an undeniable fact.
Engine swaps are not even close to that. You can swap 5 engines for the cost of a full battery swap.
And EVs aren’t saving the world. They’re saving a few people some money on gas. Which is much less than the extra cost of the cars unless you drive a lot, or live somewhere with expensive gas.
20% battery degradation after 100k miles is not a small issue. It’s extremely significant to the equation of value.
These aren’t “opinions.” They’re facts that are well addressed and talked about routinely. There’s no secret information about the limits of lithium batteries. They’re literally 18650 batteries. The same batteries consumers used for over a decade. We’re all aware of battery degradation.
Some people are in denial. And that’s on them.
You see lithium degradation curves here:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/cp/d1cp00359c
Yes. They’ll be “functional” for 2000+ cycles, but they don’t hold much charge after 1000 cycles.
Fine.
First of all, only 1% of gas cars make it to 200k miles. So even if we accept your contention about battery loss, 99% of EVs will last as long as gas cars.
Second, EVs lose experience about 10% capacity loss per 100k miles. Some a little more, some a little less. So at 200k miles they'll still have somewhere around 80% of their initial range. Your 20% estimate is wrong, except maybe for Nissan Leaf which had poor heat management. My Chevy bolt had 50k miles on it with no appreciable capacity loss.
Third, battery replacement on a tesla is around $13k which is not 5-10 times the cost of the car. Battery prices are also decreasing as more of them are made, so the cost will be lower in the future.
I don't expect any of this will change your mind, since it's based on Fox News talking points, but I don't want other people misled.
First of all I have never owned a car that got less than 250k. But every car I’ve ever had was made in Japan and maintained properly. That statistic is meaningless because 1) many cars aren’t maintained 2) many cars are “totaled” for no good reason 3) cars are resold to people who refuse to or can afford to maintain them.
I didn’t say 10-15x the *original cost * of the car. By the time a car has let’s say 150k+ on it it’s not very valuable. It’s 17k for a full replacement on their smallest vehicle. So a $20k+ battery on midsized car (the actual cost of a full battery replacement, not according to Elon) won’t get replaced at all. The car will be totaled.
Replacing a full battery is not $13k. You are citing the average cost which includes if only one cell needs replacement. Replacing an transmission or a engine is much more affordable than a full battery replacement.
It’s not fox news. It’s fox news talking points that pretend EVs are good enough to save the world, and we can keep on feeling fine with an unsustainable “solutions” instead of dealing with the real issues.
Very misleading arguments you are making. EVs will make no meaningful changes to saving your wallet, the environment, or resolving climate change. And definitely won’t lessen the amount of waste headed to landfills in 15 years.