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What puts me off electric cars is battery wear. Every laptop or phone battery I've had has noticeable wear after a year or two. In a $50-100 battery this is no
by PolygonSheep 5y ago
What puts me off electric cars is battery wear. Every laptop or phone battery I've had has noticeable wear after a year or two. In a $50-100 battery this is no big deal (and for phones the device itself is probably nearing end of life anyway by the time battery wear becomes an issue).
I know gasoline car drivetrains wear too but a new gasoline car is probably good for at least 5 years/60k miles before it needs serious mechanical attention, and with a bit of luck you may even get up to 10 years/100k before you get a 4 digit repair bill. And even past that unless it's in seriously bad shape it will still get pretty much the same mileage out of a tank of gas as it did the day it rolled off the assembly line.
Is this any better for electric car batteries? The laptop I'm typing this on now is ~11 months old and the battery has lost 15.4% of its capacity after 272 cycles. Undoubtedly I wouldn't average anywhere near 1 cycle/day with a 300 mile range Tesla but the thought of my car's energy storage losing capacity like that just makes me extremely nervous. I know I can "supercharge" my car's gas tank as often as I need to and it will not lose any capacity regardless of how often I empty it and fill it up again. This is very comforting to me.