>> That’s not bad, given that most cars are scrapped somewhere in the 150,000 to 200,000 miles range. At that point, a Tesla will have more than 80% of its initial capacity, and in some cases, even more. So people will probably give up their car, well, well before the battery gets close to becoming a burden.

Can they not see that this is because of correlation and not causation. Why would an EV be given up at 150 - 200K when it has much less moving parts and stressors compared to the traditional ICE based vehicles?

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stetrain 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Some things will still add up. Someone who might be shopping in the price range for a used car with 100,000 miles might also see a car with 200,000 miles that needs brakes (probably for the first time in an EV's life), shocks, bushings, CV joints, A/C service, or possibly corrosion repair/mitigation in some climates, might choose to trade or scrap over spending those repair costs.

Also there becomes a crossover point of residual value where a car involved in an accident becomes cheaper to total than to repair, which is probably what takes a lot of cars off the road.

That mileage may stretch longer if the important parts of an average EV drivetrain can run without major service for significantly longer than the average ICE drivetrain, which seems like a likely possibility.

	▲	3 days ago \| parent [-]
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1970-01-01 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Rust, collision, part availability, and newer safety tech are all reasons to scrap an old EV. I hope manufacturers realize this and make the battery easy for DIY removal, similar to removing the catalytic converter from your rusty and bent ICE vehicle is the big moneymaker.

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WorldMaker 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

As a low mile driver with a tendency to hold on to cars, it would also probably surprise people how much the average life of plastics are closer to the 15-20 year mark, especially when regularly handled by people. Things like plastic knobs and buttons can break in interesting ways that a lot of people wouldn't expect. We tend to think of plastics as "forever chemicals" because we hear that term a lot, but it's not that plastic is particularly rugged against regular use across time, it's that how it breaks down is awful (see all the discussions of microplastics; it break down and then becomes a part of ecosystems in disturbing ways).

(ETA: Also the EV is so much more the "software-defined" car than anything, and the lifecycle of software versus tech debt and long term maintenance is going to be a large issue, even though the cars are mechanically simpler, the software is something making up for that in its complexity.)

> I hope manufacturers realize this and make the battery easy for DIY removal

This seems to be the case so far. A lot of scrapped cars' batteries seem to be going directly into second use in a second car. A lot of the manufacturers are also prepared for future "power wall" secondary uses of depleted batteries, but so far there has been too much of a market for the used batteries in second cars for used (even depleted) batteries to build a "power wall" market for used batteries. (Tesla's brand of that concept that sounds a lot like the generic term so far has almost exclusively been using new batteries for their products. Nissan's brand that no one has ever heard of, dedicated to used batteries only, has scarcely built or sold anything and is in danger of shutting down as an effort.)

The economics of used EV batteries is already a fascinating thing to watch, and something we'll probably see get more interesting rather than less.

	▲	vel0city 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Your remark about the plastics rings so true from my experiences. A friend's old Corolla used to constantly have plastic parts just crumble when handled in a regular fashion. New old stock parts would be nearly as brittle, often breaking only a few dozen uses. The car's motor was OK but everything else about the car was just falling to pieces.

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hvb2 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Which is why those catalytic converters were stolen so often. I'm sure a battery would be a lot heavier and bulkier but I'm not looking forward to people stealing those....

	▲	MBCook 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		When you’re trying to steal half the weight of the car that is likely integrated into the frame, it’s a hell of a lot more work than a quick 15 second cat grab. And a lot more like by be lethal too.

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Eisenstein 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Batteries are not like gas tanks. 80% of original capacity doesn't mean you have 20% less, it means a lot of other things too. These are chemical reactions which happen which lead to lots of other effects, like higher internal resistance.

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cuttothechase 3 days ago | parent [-]

Is this true!?

So does it mean that if I use a 80% capacity battery my actual functional value that I get out of it would be considerably less than what the 80% would infer?

	▲	Eisenstein 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		"The degradation rate of lithium-ion battery is not a linear process with respect tonumber of cycles, battery aging tests (Fig. 1) have shown that in cycling tests the degradation rate is signiﬁcantly higher during the early cycles than during the later cycles, and then increases rapidly when reaching the end of life (EoL)." Actually, 80% is considered effectively 'end of life': "Battery end of life is typically deﬁned as the point at which the battery only provides 80% of its rated maximum capacity" * https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303890624_Modeling_...

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SoftTalker 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Funny because 150k miles is about the low end for the cars I shop for.