Posted on 04/30/2024 8:23:30 PM PDT by Libloather
Money Mail can today reveal a timebomb looming in the second-hand market for electric vehicles (EVs).
Our investigation found that many EVs could become almost impossible to resell because of their limited battery life.
Experts said that the average EV battery guarantee lasts just eight years. After this time, the battery may lose power more quickly and so reduce mileage between charges.
Many EVs will lose up to 12 per cent of their charge capacity by six years. Some may lose even more.
Yet the cost of replacing an EV battery is astonishingly high, our research found.
In some cases, the cost of a replacement battery is as much as £40,000. For certain EVs, the cost of replacing the battery could be ten times the value of the vehicle itself on the second-hand market.
That means used EVs have a limited lifespan — which makes them a bigger and bigger risk as the years go by.
Research into EV batteries is yet to be conclusive and the second-hand EV market is new, given the first popular EVs were rolled off the production line in 2009.
Last night, one motoring expert said customers should be wary of buying a used electric car beyond its warranty (typically eight years), as after that timespan there is no easy way of measuring how much the battery will degrade before it needs replacing.
This may mean you end up needing to pay for an expensive new battery.
Motor expert Shahzad Sheikh, who runs the YouTube channel Brown Car Guy, said: ‘With a decaying battery, the range will be poor and you may find it becomes increasingly hard to resell the vehicle after eight years.
Buyers will know that they’ll only get a small amount of life out of the car so will pay...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Have you ever taken a long road trip in your model 3? If so, what were the principal differences, if any, from a car with with gas engine?
I’ve wrote about the used-EV problem about 4 years ago. Once you wear out the battery purchased with the original car, you have to replace that battery before you sell it. The used-EV price will never make up for the money you paid to replace that used battery. You are basically selling that car at a huge loss.
HA!!
Scotty Kilmer says in one of his latest videos that a replacement battery under warranty from Tesla is actually a used battery. It was refurbished. He sited one person who bought a 2021 Tesla and is now on his 3rd refurbished battery.
The range is reduced as the battery gets older. They already they have short ranges now deduct at least 10% more.
No resale value.
I think you’re exactly right. One of the problems with EVs that doesn’t get a lot of attention is that their life cycles are more similar to computers than to cars. When it reaches the end of the first ownership cycle it basically has a residual value of $0 and you can’t even give it away.
Don't know anybody who admits to driving an EV, so I don't know how many EV's have actually gone 200K miles yet.
poor person here...you make a calculation on how long the battery will last and then buy really cheap. the only question I have is when the battery goes bad meaning no charge or verry limited charge... what the disposal fee will be. I can see those cars actually being sighed over to someone for free just so the owner does not have to pay a processing fee on the battery...theses batteries are nasty and it will cost to dispose of them.
and $500 for labor.
HA HA HA HA
NO WAY!
That is way too optimistic...betting its closer to $2500.
You can hardly get a standard transmission worked on...not replaced... for $500.
But I’ll personally never know because I won’t ever have to deal with that issue.
it’s also quite possible prices will NOT fall dramatically.
Elon surely has seen this issue coming. Unless he has an economical replacement battery in the pipeline, even his EV business will die.
I’ve maintained only Tesla will survive and he’ll own all of the niche EV market. We’ll see.
The used EV with ANY miles on it is a huge gamble. Wouldn’t touch one with a ten foot pole. I’m sure by now that most people see this & most of them are likely not to have any guarantee on the battery. It naturally follows that to sell one used, you’d be lucky if you could give it away & the buyer had still better beware.
“Tesla data shows”.....
They wouldn’t have a vested interest in casting the best possible light on battery life, would they? It would be best to completely ignore the manufacturer’s data. Independent testing.
Everyone with a working set of brain cells realizes that battery and other electric tech is advancing.
Never mind what the warranty says by the time someone wants to sell their EV — it’ll be so obsolete nobody would want it.
Quick search, for instance, on 2016 EVs. “Six Best” KBB EVs from 2016 are all tiny commuter cars with ranges of 60-100 miles spec. If their first owners treated them halfway decently they should have 90% or more of that range, but in such early vehicles that’s 54-90 miles range. If someone’s selling it, there’s a good chance things are not ideal.
Quick search on 2024 EVs shows ranges of 250-500 miles. Great, and everyone knows the limitations of charge rate and charger availability. In 8 years *those* cars will look like garbage.
Contrarily ICE cars are mature; there’s unlikely to be a revolutionary leap in ICE tech that obsoletes whole fleets.
So none of this is news. Tech depreciates madly whether your gaming computer or your phone or your EV. (That said, your old gaming computer and your old phone, and those old EVs still *work* just fine, but for resale? Nope)
“Someone is going to make a fortune...”
It all comes back to money each time, doesn’t it? And everyone is making a profit based upon government control. Funny thing is that most people have forgotten that Joe’s kid is involved financially with the products that go into car batteries along with their sales.
wy69
100% single serving cars...
That’s nice. I provided a concrete examples of 2024 tripling range vs 2016 cars, which is one reason why nobody wants a used EV, and by extension why in 2032 value of 2024 EVs will be low.
The warranty time is relevant if owner 1 abused the car and owner 2 might get a replacement battery, but by then the whole thing will be obsolete (unlike a now-new ordinary car).
Yes. Plan to keep it or don’t bother, for sure.
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