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ICBC scraps 2022 electric car after owners faced with $60,000 bill to replace damaged battery 
Vancouver Sun ^ | December 21, 2023 | Derrick Penner

Posted on 12/27/2023 5:19:37 AM PST by lowbridge

A Vancouver electric-car owner was shocked to learn earlier this fall that seemingly minor damage to his car’s battery required replacement of the unit and was quoted a $60,000 repair bill — more than the list price for a new car.

The owner was told the damage voided his warranty on the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5, forcing him to file a claim with ICBC, which simply wrote the car off due to the extraordinary cost.

Automotive journalists Zack and Andrea Spencer chronicled the case on their Motormouth YouTube channel and said the case raises big questions for EV manufacturers around replacement costs and repairability of batteries as Ottawa introduces new rules to speed up EV adoption.

“The story is, people are buying these cars not knowing what the actual cost of the most important component of the car is to replace,” Zack Spencer said.

In this case, the Ioniq 5’s battery cover plate on the bottom of the car was scratched and showed a small deformation, which indicated the battery had suffered an impact.

Andrea Spencer added that it poses a problem for the whole industry if manufacturers can’t bring battery costs down, because “we cannot be writing off electric vehicles because the battery is damaged and the price is much too high to repair the vehicle.”

“This is a wake-up call and it really is big news,” Andrea said.

(Excerpt) Read more at vancouversun.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Travel
KEYWORDS: automotive; batterycoverplate; canada; ev; evbattery; totalloss; vancouver
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To: woodbutcher1963

My garage is part of the house and I would have a hard time sleeping well knowing that an electric car is parked there and hooked up to a charger.


41 posted on 12/27/2023 9:39:45 AM PST by Saintgermain
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To: CarmichaelPatriot
"Why do the batteries need to be assembled into a single large pack? Why not break it up into multiple smaller packs, interconnected, and easily replaceable, which allows a single or multiple packs to fail while still maintaining the operability of the vehicle?"

That's exactly what my golf cart has. Three 48v 30ah batteries about the size of a standard car battery.

I just had one fail for the second time in three years. They are supposed to last 10. I have bought four of them, and two of them have failed at less than 20% of their rated service life.

I would NEVER buy an all-electric car.

42 posted on 12/27/2023 9:56:14 AM PST by Henchster (Free Republic - the BEST site on the web!)
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To: lowbridge

Caveat emptor.

Get woke, go broke.


43 posted on 12/27/2023 11:19:27 AM PST by VideoPaul
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To: tired&retired

Believe it’s called a soup can now.


44 posted on 12/27/2023 12:18:33 PM PST by Vaduz (....)
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