Aging isn't the real problem. Batteries are being found to last ages and ages more than they were ever thought to. By the time it needs to be changed, these will be considered as antiques.

I think the real problem will be in crashes and insurance. The amount of cars that will be totaled for a fender bender will be nuts.

The idea of giga casting is horrible. One frame crack and its toast, I don't care how much people talk about that damn "Tesla glue" its forever structurally compromised.

Steel frame rails, good crash protection bolted to those frames and then a battery in the middle. Keep it simple and repairable.

Nah real problem, especially on smaller cells like 18650 back of the day is balance or temperature cable welds that randomly pop off, rendering entire pack useless and very laborious to repair. Rest of the things are very rare. If you crash hard enough to damage battery usually entire car is written off.

I've been looking for used Tesla in Eastern Europe. Battery repairs are so rare (I think I found 2). Post-crash rebuilds are basically 95% of cars sold here. 100% if car is from USA.

Upgrading would make that a nice to have. 8 years or so and battery tech should have an affordable higher capacity unit that could give new life to it.

I got a refurbed Nissan Leaf with a 40KWh battery (replaced the original 24KWh battery) which added enough range to eliminate range anxiety whilst tootling about the metro area.