3 ms·

When they do though then you are stuck with a brick. In the US there is a federal mandated warranty of 100k miles. But this leaves the used market in limbo (on

When they do though then you are stuck with a brick. In the US there is a federal mandated warranty of 100k miles. But this leaves the used market in limbo (one of the reasons that EVs have horrible residual value). If the failure rates are indeed so low then where are the insurance products for extended battery warranties? If the numbers are correct it would be a ludicrous business.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
These products exist. Why do you think they don't? It's a fairly obvious outgrowth of similar extended warranty products for ICE cars, where people would also be stuck with a brick if a major component failed. A more interesting question is whether the prices reflect this science. Insurance are usually pretty good at this as it's their job, but in small markets they might play it safe.
DanielHB 3y ago
I work in the industry and from what I see the "bad" batteries are usually manufacturing problems and they stop working very early in their lifecycle. The degradation of charge capacity though is almost always completely dependent on usage patterns though, if you trickle-charge instead of fast-charge, don't do a lot of full cycles (100% to empty) and keep them in reasonable temperatures they will lose very little charge capacity. BMS systems in cars have been getting better and regulating the temperature of the batteries even when the car is off though. Unfortunately the used market doesn't have a reasonable way to measure charge capacity, the only way out is for regulations to force disclosure of current charge capacity and total power cycled through the battery and tools to get that information out. Those two metrics would provide similar information compared to mileage for a gas-powered car. Also if I had the capital, space and know-how I would be buying every single dirty-cheap used EV I could get my hands on and store the batteries. Soon those batteries are going to be a gold mine for recycling. Recycling li-ion batteries is like aluminium recycling, very energy intensive but you get almost all the raw materials back and recycled aluminium is cheaper than newly mined aluminium. Soon you will see people shipping those used batteries to places with cheap energy for recycling (like Iceland for aluminium recycling). The process is more complicated than aluminium and there aren't that many spent batteries around which is why this is not a big thing yet.
- bilsbie 3y ago
  You’d think you could run a battery test if buying a used Tesla. Isn’t that in the service settings?
  - DanielHB 3y ago
    It needs to be standardised and illegal to tamper with like tampering with mileage clocks in combustion engine cars. Also how it is calculated needs to be certified by a 3rd party.
audunw 3y ago
Why do you say that? You can get a new battery for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. You can even upgrade to a bigger battery than the original had without an increase in weight. It’s expensive, perhaps not worth it to most. But it’s a very, very niche model. And many of them still work just fine on their original battery. The market for battery replacement is tiny. No economies of scale. Imagine 15-30 year down the line when there are millions of Teslas, Ioniqs, etc in the market for a replacement battery, and we have a huge battery recycling industry willing to pay a decent sum for an old car battery. And significantly reduced costs for producing new cells. Getting the battery replaced will be just like getting a new transmission for an ICE vehicle. Big investment. Painful on your wallet. But it’ll be worth it. Especially considering that the motor and inverter can probably last another 30 years without any issues.
theshrike79 3y ago
My car's drivetrain battery has an 8 year warranty. I'm gonna jump with joy if it breaks as fast as people predict. I'll basically get a brand new car for free =)

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

These products exist. Why do you think they don't? It's a fairly obvious outgrowth of similar extended warranty products for ICE cars, where people would also be stuck with a brick if a major component failed. A more interesting question is whether the prices reflect this science. Insurance are usually pretty good at this as it's their job, but in small markets they might play it safe.

DanielHB 3y ago

I work in the industry and from what I see the "bad" batteries are usually manufacturing problems and they stop working very early in their lifecycle. The degradation of charge capacity though is almost always completely dependent on usage patterns though, if you trickle-charge instead of fast-charge, don't do a lot of full cycles (100% to empty) and keep them in reasonable temperatures they will lose very little charge capacity. BMS systems in cars have been getting better and regulating the temperature of the batteries even when the car is off though. Unfortunately the used market doesn't have a reasonable way to measure charge capacity, the only way out is for regulations to force disclosure of current charge capacity and total power cycled through the battery and tools to get that information out. Those two metrics would provide similar information compared to mileage for a gas-powered car. Also if I had the capital, space and know-how I would be buying every single dirty-cheap used EV I could get my hands on and store the batteries. Soon those batteries are going to be a gold mine for recycling. Recycling li-ion batteries is like aluminium recycling, very energy intensive but you get almost all the raw materials back and recycled aluminium is cheaper than newly mined aluminium. Soon you will see people shipping those used batteries to places with cheap energy for recycling (like Iceland for aluminium recycling). The process is more complicated than aluminium and there aren't that many spent batteries around which is why this is not a big thing yet.

bilsbie 3y ago
You’d think you could run a battery test if buying a used Tesla. Isn’t that in the service settings?
- DanielHB 3y ago
  It needs to be standardised and illegal to tamper with like tampering with mileage clocks in combustion engine cars. Also how it is calculated needs to be certified by a 3rd party.

audunw 3y ago

Why do you say that? You can get a new battery for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. You can even upgrade to a bigger battery than the original had without an increase in weight. It’s expensive, perhaps not worth it to most. But it’s a very, very niche model. And many of them still work just fine on their original battery. The market for battery replacement is tiny. No economies of scale. Imagine 15-30 year down the line when there are millions of Teslas, Ioniqs, etc in the market for a replacement battery, and we have a huge battery recycling industry willing to pay a decent sum for an old car battery. And significantly reduced costs for producing new cells. Getting the battery replaced will be just like getting a new transmission for an ICE vehicle. Big investment. Painful on your wallet. But it’ll be worth it. Especially considering that the motor and inverter can probably last another 30 years without any issues.

theshrike79 3y ago

My car's drivetrain battery has an 8 year warranty. I'm gonna jump with joy if it breaks as fast as people predict. I'll basically get a brand new car for free =)