Overview:
Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.
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An EV battery experiences a loss of capacity of about 1.8% per year on average. This means a gradual reduction in the vehicle's original range, but it's hardly a catastrophic failure. After 20 years on the road, an EV could still keep about 64% of its initial range - a surprisingly practical number for many drivers.
Nah. Losing 36% of range is quite a lot. That's the safety buffer I depend on.
Over buying capacity by an extra 1/3rd is either noticeably more expensive, or just not available yet.
If you had the same car for 20 years you can consider buying a new battery which will only cost less than half of what it costs now.
Assuming there're batteries available...
It's not an engine swap. People put used tesla batteries in custom evs right now, in few years you'll have shops doing aftermarket battery pack replacement as a matter of course.
It’s not an engine swap. People put used tesla batteries in custom evs right now, in few years you’ll have shops doing aftermarket battery pack replacement as a matter of course.
So you can get a battery that's already been worn out or hope that these manufacturers do a 180 and start supporting repairability? Those are not great options.
Sure. But so are your options with internal combustion. Maintain and replace (a lot of moving parts in that, with explosions). And if you're replacing an entire engine or an expensive part in an old car, you're going to buy a new one from the original manufacturer or try a second hand part?
Mind, I'm not talking about immediate warranty. I'm talking about 10+ yo cars. With at least 10k km yearly.
I can buy oem parts for my 13 year old car easily (or at least the common stuff, realistically there's probably things that don't typically need replacing that are harder to come by but I haven't had an issue yet). Can the same thing be said for a Tesla? Or are you locked in to dealing with them for service.
Gas vehicles can run into a similar issue. Though, I don't know how many. I've got a Gen 2 Prius and it only holds about 65% of it's rated capacity of gas. Why? Bladder in the tank that's meant to reduce gas vapors. Gets stiffer over time. Not worth spending the money to get it replaced.
Didn't even know it was a thing that could happen until it had already happened.
That's a strange and specific problem. Gas tanks don't shrink.
As another said, That is very specific, can't say I've heard of that before, but not a Prius connoisseur, However is right regardless when it comes to ICE engines (internal combustion engine). An engines efficiency goes down over time, there is a lot of mechanical movement and a lot of its components decay overtimes, bearings, piston rings, springs, valves, gaskets, just everything in the engine is not a "lifetime" part. In 20 years, if you on average drive 2 hours a day, 5 days a week at 2,000rpm, just 1 piston has done 41,600,000 strokes, crankshaft has spun 20,800,000 rotations, Camshaft has spun 10,400,000 rotations as has the intake and exhaust cam opened/closed, fuel has been injected into the engine and exploded. It comes at a cost that would honestly be similar to the lost of charge in an EV battery, however the EV battery will lose its charge at a same rate even if "neglected". An engines overall efficiency over time also correlates to the maintanace you put in. Late in a oil service can cause problems causing poor efficiency, as can using the wrong oil, or using the wrong octane/cetane rating fuel/diesel, poor engine cooling, etc, a lot of maintenance is required, and you'll still have poor efficiency after 20 years, at least with a battery, as long as you aren't constantly discharging it completely then filling it, and it is being cooled correctly, it should consistently lose its charge over time.
Not to mention that many vehicles are programmed to disable themselves after a certain threshold of capacity loss.
it goes from a useful car to more of a commuter car.
but even then, no one expects any costumer machine to last 20 years.
imagine saying that no one should buy a fridge because it'll have to be replaced in 20 years?
Most of my vehicles are 20+ years old...the fuck. Telling someone they should buy new because the old ones are degraded is dumb.
They are only buying a new battery. Not the whole car.
Have you replaced anything at all those 20+ years old cars that you own? That's the comparison we should do. Cost of maintenance.
They didn't make that clear in the comment then. Maintenance is always required for basically anything that gets used on a regular basis but saying a entire car is done after 20 years is insane.
are there?
(genuine question, not mocking)
I thought my 2008 car was old, because I rarely see older cars, don't have statistics here, just vibe guessing that the average age of a car was much less than 20 years
might be wrong, but if I am, I am surprised
Yea, cars aren't cheap, and it's way cheaper to keep them running than to buy new. Tons of people drive 20+ year old cars, and as that other poster shows 14+ is the average now. It's going up because cars are just insanely expensive now. At least here in the USA.
i would have guessed 10 years of the US average, was so wrong, it's 14 and rising, it was like 6 back in 2000s.
TF happened? those multiple one in a lifetime crisis really take their toll in the economy. good thing we're approaching another one
Price of cars has increased massively. 2000 average price of new car was like 20k now it's around 50k. Dunno about you but most people's salaries have not increased 150%.
I'm running my 2008 Toyota until the engine melts a hole in the floor and I have to push it like the Flintstones
What Toyota? A lot of their engines will do 500k miles with normal maintenance easy. My LC had 300k miles right now.
FJ cruiser nearing 150k miles.
Just changed the radio for a 160$ android system and a huge screen, and rear view camera (another 60ish), gives me 90% of all the bells and whistles I want from modern cars.
O yeah thats got the 1GR in it. You can do 400k miles with no issues in that thing.
as long as you keep up with the bare minimum of oil changes.
I know a family who doesn't believe in oil changes, they go though a lot of cars
Yea that's like smoking a few packs a day, drinking like a fish, and eating baconators for every meal and then wondering why you're dying at 30...gotta do the bare minimum at least lol
Though I did know someone who would basically buy a car drive it until the tires were bald and trade it in for the next one... pretty sure they didn't change the oil either.
I think it depends on where you are. Some regions cause cars to rust through and destroy themselves from salt and humidity. Others are dry as a bone, so cars last longer.
Found this:
looks like the average age is increasing, mot what I expected, but it is still about 14 years.
also found data for the EU, and they are about 12 years old (older in east Europe but not reaching 18, and newer in central Europe, about 10 years)
Car insurance doesn't reduce significantly when the car is no longer useful.
sort of makes sense ish, insurance is mostly based on what damages you can make, so it would be partly based on the average cost of cars in the area. and if the car you buy is considered safer, it actually might be cheaper insurance than an older cheaper car.
which is also a problem to solve, by less cars, smaller cars, safer streets... also a luxury law on expensive cars, so if you get a fancy luxury car there's a limit on how much insurance will pay, so if you can afford a Ferrari, you can afford to replace it, who would everyone else have to pay extra in insurance for them?
It certainly can vary quite a bit as the graphs in the article show. Seems that cell chemistry, thermal management, and total cycles are the largest drivers of degradation. EV's with generally smaller, more frequently cycled packs, no active thermal management, and cell chemistry not optimized for that use case will not fare well in hot climates. Something with a larger liquid cooled pack, that doesn't experience as many cycles, will fare much better regardless of the chemistry and easily still have useful amounts of capacity after 20 years.
As a data point, this is from an early 2016 EV with 90,000 miles, roughly 50% DCFS, and about half of its life in a temperate climate. Nearing 10 years and just under 3% degradation. 
When I bought my EV in 2020 it had a stated range of 274km. The first time I fully charged it I got 320km.
They did an ECM reset last service. The range estimate dipped to 290 but since then has readjusted to 330km.
So I seem to be gaining here.
Am I reading their data wrong? Looking at the bottom graph, the battery loses 20% of it's life in 4 years if I fast charge once a month & live somewhere hot (yes to both for me). That's 5% a year, but the article says 1.8%. That's a pretty big difference once we account for real world conditions.
Not quite a full 20%, but yeah, in your situation, that's a big longevity problem. This data is obviously better for people not living in very hot climates. It looks like the first graph (which the 1.8% average is pulled from) is keeping climate constant (and probably temperate.)