Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrome383Z
I think his point is that the used car market for out of warranty EV is a huge unknown. I think it’s understood for the new car buyer (with a warranty) the TCO for an EV is good (lithium could effect that but another discussion). It’s the latter that IMO could be bad, and have a detrimental effect on the bottom half of the population income wise.
I’ll give an example, I picked up my daughters first car 2011 Elantra for $3k in 2019 before the markets went stupid. A friend deal too so honestly on the actual market let’s say $5k. 8-9yrs old 105k mi I believe.
Worst thing that can happen is the engine and tranny goes. I do all of my own work so unless it’s a catastrophic failure it’s not going to cost much to fix. Worst case junkyard engines are pretty cheap and it could be back on the road for a grand or two. Now you might say I’m an anomaly, most people don’t do that…
Quite the contrary, most folks with low income do a lot (or have a friend) that helps then fix it and get back on the road. They don’t have the money for a brand new Kia (or rebuilt) engine/tranny in most cases. Let alone a $10k battery pack… and let’s be honest old ICE engine run for a long time. Maybe poorly but they run and that’s what those folks need.
Now maybe junkyard batteries will be a thing, idk but not something your AVG DIY can probably do (nor want to do from a safety standpoint) pushing all repairs back to service centers.
I could see the government having to subsidies EV battery replacement for low income folks. Otherwise they’ll just keep driving ICE engines forever.
Also if and I prob will someday own an EV, dump it before the warranty expires on the battery. We really don’t have any data on how resale is going to look yet.
It’ll be interesting for sure.
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Agree 100%. I have no idea how low battery prices will get once we bring on more production and battery recycling plants but you are right, unless we can bring the cost down EVs will be for the folks with enough disposable income to own them under warranty. Leasing may be another good option for EVs.
My understanding is that these new battery architectures are made up of a bunch of cells and if a cell goes bad you do not have to replace the whole pack. So, if these cell are eventually sold and are indeed modular like this that may help for sure.
The Tesla I purchased was $36,250 + tax. in 2019. I felt that for the same price as a nice Toyota Camry it is was worth the risk. So far so good, the car has been great and my wife says she will never go back to a ICE based car. That said, I am not a fan of the same car I own at $48k now. I know inflation, supply chain, etc. but to your point once this car is out of warranty the value could plummet. At $36k I am cool with it, if I get 10 years out of it.
Eventually, I see EV battery depreciation calculations becoming a thing. People will know the health of the battery before they buy (there are reports for this) and there will be some tool to factor the cost of the battery divided by the expected remaining life and spit out some sort of value.