Featured Why repairing your BEV is so expensive—WSJ

A doctor, I know, paid $15K to replace the battery pack on his first gen Tesla - peanuts to the $100K+ he spent to buy it. As an early adopter; I think he still gets free (not so free) lifetime charges @ Tesla chargers.

As far as appliances go; I usually just replace. I bought a used/refurbished Lady Kenmore washing machine. Top of the line, for less than $300. Used it for 15 years and replaced the plastic pump assembly, $25, once. I think the heavy bleaching of my clothes ate a hole in the seam of the plastic pump. I gave it away to some cousins, going to graduate school. It got replaced 8 years ago, with a Samsung front loader, supposedly saves water. Same used appliance outfit for less than $300; they were around $1K at the time. Wish I knew about the smell; if you don't leave the door open and allow it to dry out on it's own. If/when this one fails, I think I'm going back to a top loader.

 

Anecdotal.
Still , dovetailing into traction packs, found an intriguing chart showing cost to replace batteries.



We are talking warranty work typically and that's roughly 1%.
Metrics is somewhat convoluted but it seems to indicate the more batteries under warranty that have to be replaced - the greater the manufacturer charges for the battery.

Updated: Electric Car Battery Replacement Costs in 2023

Thus older cars have more battery replacements - thus they cost less to replace - if i understand correctly (& don't mind getting schooled otherwise )
Wish I could find new models cost & percentages of short block replacement under warranty for comparison.
The article above links to another good read, that describes degradation & all the dynamics that affect that

How Batteries Degrade in Electric Cars

So - if a manufacturer is charging up the Wazoo per kWh (400/kWh example) in a small ev, you could have a huge pack that costs less to replace if/when it's per kWh is $125. Removability labor costs per hour then factor in. There are videos showing Model S packs that come out remarkably in just a few minutes.
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Found a bunch of ice comparisons to replace an engine. These prices of don't include shipping it to you which can run hundreds nor does it include the thousands for install;

2019 Engine Replacement Costs | Labor Costs - Bridwell Automotive

Seems prices are Sky High for both. So ..... The takeaway is you better shop around
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May be. But how does a battery last 20 years, like a well cared for ICE engine?

 

Right, like you wouldn't have had to do a valve job & numerous other maintenance things in that ¼million miles that most people would rack up on the same 20-year-old ice? Sorry but that many miles before replacement just doesn't wash.
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How about a 50 year old BEV barn find?

 

Ask Jay Leno as I understand he has an oldie that's seen 100 years.

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With ICE there are still a lot of good options. I know I can get a JDM engine with low miles for my 2006 Prius for as little as $1,200, possibily less. And the last time I checked what a new block cost for the Prius it wasn't much more than $2,000 or so IIRC. Picking larger luxurious engines isn't a fair comparison, because the person looking to replace an engine or battery is looking to save money and likely bought an economy car.

Rebuilding an engine for a couple thousand is (was) also a possibility. With a 200,000 miles 15-year-old battery the wear parts that need to be replaced is essentially the entire battery. I highly disagree that rebuilt batteries are worth the time, effort or money. Although I will say that on modern cars they now make them impossible to rebuild by making paper thin cylinder linings.

I was interested in rebuilding the battery on my Leaf with cylinderical cells and wanted to add some sort of cooling. But I realized it was a much bigger task than me rebuilding engines like I had before. That, and the greater danger or frying myself.

 

2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus.

• 167 mi @80%, 63F
• 209 mi ~= 167 / 80% projected 100% range
• 240 mi new range
• (209 - 240) / 240 ~= -13% battery degradation
• 120,270 mi, 4.75 years old

Bob Wilson

 

My Kia Niro EV is just $100.00/ year more and it is a 6 year newer vehicle.

 

The average miles per year for most people is more than 15,000 miles, IIRC. But still, that would mean you would get 16 years out of it, assuming the battery lasts the industry standard. That would be more than the average life of the average vehicle (around 12 years and 200,000 miles).

But I still feel there is some uncertainty, at least for me. 240,000 is not guaranteed. It's possible, maybe even probable. But at the end of the day, if a $15,000 (or more) battery needs replacement on a car with over 10 years or 100,000 miles on it, that would probably mean it's the end of the line even if it's only 100,001 miles or 120,000 miles, or 11 years, etc.

On the other hand, cars in general are becoming a pain like this anyway. Like my friend who got a less-than-100,000 mile 5-year-old car (Ford Escort) and the transmission died 3 months later and cost $9,000 to replace. Thinking of the what-ifs is kind of scary. Older cars are easier and cheaper to work on and there's a whole lot more history about what's good and bad about them to help make an informed decision. You have no guarantee that your Tesla will still be running in 12 years. You might have a situation of a $15,000 or so repair bill on a car worth half that that you might as well as take to the dump. Or you could still have plenty of life left in it in a car still worth a decent value if you were to sell it or it got stolen or totaled.

An old 1990's or earier vehicle you also don't have the guarantee. But it doesn't take much to understand what makes them tick, and what it would cost to fix it if it did die. The costs are more certain, something many have done time and time again.

 

I believe it is listed as Nickel, Manganese, and Cobalt (NMC.)

Bob Wilson

 

But how many cycles are expected when you don't fully cycle the battery. Say, you normally cycle it from 25% to 75% and only rarely fully cycle it?

Mike

 

If that were actually true, wouldn't there be numerous Tesla owners complaining that their batteries failed after just 15K - 30K miles? (300 mile range multiplied by 50 to 100 cycles at a Supercharger). If just 1% of owners only have charging access at fast chargers, that would be about 40 or 50 thousand owners (assuming about 4 or 5M sold so far)

Mike

 

CAUTION: EVreporter.com

LTO - Lithium Titanate (LTO) Cells

Bob Wilson

 

This was released last October

Tesla Supercharging Not Harmful To Batteries After All! - CleanTechnica

 

So much nonsense in this thread. The fact is that most ev’s go way beyond the average car lifecycle with little battery degradation.