[FabCH]

The article is making a huge mistake though, comparing apples to oranges.

Resale value of EVs doesn't depend on mileage nowhere near as much as ICE cars. EVs are just much simpler machines and electric motors can do a million miles with no maintenance, and the only maintenance you have is the oil in the differential, which is often simpler because it is single-speed. Compare that to thousand different mechanical parts that all wear out in a ICE engine. Which is why ICE cars resale value is determined by the odometer.

What drives EV resale value is the health of the battery, which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time.

And the anecdotal evidence of a commercial fleet going bankrupt and not getting much for their EVs... Well yeah, would you buy from such a source? I wouldn't. They usually don't follow longevity advice for battery charging, because they have to optimize for time-in-use.

As an anecdote, I bought all my ICE cars second hand, and would usually sell them 3-4 years later just before major maintenance was needed. My EV is now 8 years old, runs like the day I got it and had 1 repair, when the motor that drives the window up and down broke and battery capacity is still the same, or if it changed it's such a small change I didn't notice. I don't expect to sell any time soon, if ever. I expect I will just do a battery swap in 5-10 years.

[slavik81]

> What drives EV resale value is the health of the battery, which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time.

The resale value drops much faster than the battery health. Hyundai has been tracking the degregation rates of the batteries in their Ioniq 5 vehicles and they've been holding up surprisingly well. Most of them have >90% battery capacity at over 100k miles. Their data was sparse for 250k miles, but half of them were still over 90% capacity.

I had trouble finding the original video, but the data is included in this summary: https://youtu.be/s3DMd0e4loQ?t=17s

[FabCH]

Well ok, the perception of battery health :)

[solsane]

In that case, I’ll to cash in on this for my next car! I figured the degradation problem was much worse. My frame of reference is lithium laptop/phone batteries which definitely aren’t doing so hot 5 years in.

[natbobc]

The article is comparing 2 scenarios that have other explanations: a fire sale of a large fleet and Tesla which has an image problem because of its leadership.

I’m not saying the article is wrong I’d just like to see broader representation (Chevy bolt, lucid air, etc).

[mortoc]

Worse than that, the main vehicle it compares everything to is the Model Y. There may have been one or two things related to Tesla this year, and not other EVs, that might have hurt resale values for some reason...

[cogman10]

My battery is starting to get to unacceptable degradation; I have a 7 year old EV and my top battery percentage is 78% of the purchase.

I inquired about a battery swap and it's around $10->12k. I'm seriously considering it in the next couple of years as I see that as buying another 9->10 years of life for my car.

I might grab a used EV instead, though, as the one thing my car lacks is a heat pump, which kinda sucks in the winter.

[guerby]

Just like for ICE buyers will learn about the important things about EV choice and ownership.

An EV maker that sells parts at inflated prices including the battery will get less and less customers.

As those customers look at catalog prices for important parts including the battery before buying an EV.

Random web page on the topic:

https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/costs-ev-battery-repl...

Another listing price:

https://evshop.eu/en/13-batteries

Note the used LFP 55 kWh tesla pack at $4140 so ... $75/kWh.

[rickydroll]

Your warranty should cover the battery swap. I know my Chevy Volt's warranty is 150,000 miles or 10 years. It may only be 100,000. The length of the warranty depends on whether you live in a CARB state.

If a dealer charges you between $10K to $12K for a swap out, that's the "fuck you for not buying a car that makes the dealership more money" price. Several third-party vendors refurbish and sell EV batteries for much less.

I know what you mean by not having a heat pump sucking. The Volt has resistive heating for wintertime, and it definitely drains the battery. I dress warm and use the seat heaters when I'm driving by myself.

[sowbug]

Lithium-ion batteries have fallen in price at least 40% since you bought your car in 2018 (https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-ba...). Assuming there's some correlation between that decline and the replacement price you're facing, which is unfortunately not a given, it would be worth it to hold out as long as you can.

We can only dream of a day when battery packs are a standardized commodity, and as easy to change as motor oil. But modern industry is far too extractive.

[thegreatpeter]

if its a tesla you can probably get it replaced under warranty. i think its 8 years

[iancmceachern]

For me, a lot of the mileage on a car is wear and tear and general "niceness" of the interior.

In my previous vehicle I replaced the transition, engine, brakes, etc. but I sold it once the interior wasn't "nice" anymore.

This aspect does track between EVs and conventional vehicles.

[seanmcdirmid]

In the future, it might be worth it to have the interior of an EV refurbished and updated. What I'm really nervous about is the infotainment system, eventually it is out of date but unless you are maybe driving a Tesla, only the original model will work in your car! It would be nice if some of the electronics could be easily upgraded after 10 years. That isn't even counting failure (mine failed and had to be replaced in the first six months, but hopefully that was a product defect that usually hits quickly rather than slowly over time).

If solid state batteries actually come out, they probably won't be retrofitted into existing EVs. That's a bummer, but I guess by the time I'm ready to change cars self driving will be a real thing (the Waymo kind, not the Tesla kind).

[rasz]

>the only maintenance

Suspension and tires are the biggest items for EVs. The twist is cheap owner can neglect those and keep driving past service window with ripped bushings and clapped out tires until hitting that magic 3 year goal, then you buy used EV in need of 4 of everything.

[rootusrootus]

You can see the tires, at least, so that will just come off the value. And if you turn in a lease at three years with clapped out tires they'll make you pay for new ones.

[Marsymars]

I recently sold my 14 year-old ICE car, and like 2/3 of the maintenance costs were for things that still would have been present if it had been an EV.

[yardie]

Tires, brakes, and windshield washer fluid are the only regularly replaceable parts on an EV. My last ICE car, also that age, required oil, tires, coolant flush (100k miles), transmission (100k miles), water pump, thermostat, timing belt, and tensioners. And lots and lots of filters.

So, either you were really lucky with ICE or extremely unlucky with EVs.

[dilyevsky]

Belts, brakes, coolant system hoses, spark plugs, spark coils, various turbine valves if you have turbine, eventually turbine itself, gearbox fluid, oil + filters, fuel filters - shitload of things that need regular maintenance on ICE vs EV

[TechRemarker]

"which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time" would seem similar to "mileage" since both increase in general the passage of time and driving. But yes, driving two cars equal amount of time presumably the ICE will wear down far more than the equivalent EV so the title is quite misleading to those looking at a glance.

[FabCH]

Not really in practice.

A lot of charging is influenced by convenience and lifestyle rather than miles, for example:

People charge at work from 68% to 75% because is convenient.

People always draining the battery because they don't have charging at home.

Commercial EVs being charged based on loading/unloading schedules etc.

...

[pedalpete]

I was hoping you would have said that the issue is that article is comparing a $50k SUV to a $30k work truck, and then turning the price drop into percentage drop.

I'd like to see them compare two similarly priced SUVs.

I am sure the ICE vehicle will still depreciate slower, but perhaps not as drastically different.

The buyers of these two vehicles used in the example are very different.

[cyanydeez]

So likely the resale value is more percieved tham actual.

Another market failure to adequately assist us in making the best choice.

[Joker_vD]

> comparing apples to oranges.

In a situation when we're being told to completely give up on apples (ICE cars) and switch entirely to oranges (EVs), I am afraid we'd have to make exactly the comparison you find so distasteful for some strange reason. They are both vehicles, sorry, fruits, after all.

[FabCH]

You do not need to use age on the X-axis.

It's fine to compare ICE and EV.

It's not fine to be shoddy with data.

[interstice]

Not sure I understand the part about differentials being single speed, aren’t they unrelated?

[klaff]

I think the phrasing was imprecise and they were referring to the transmission and differential. Most EVs use a single-speed gear reduction system - one gear mesh from motor shaft to a compound gear, another mesh from that gear to the ring gear of the differential. In contrast with ICE drivetrains, there is no clutch or torque converter (the electric motor can operate from a standstill), no reverse gearing (the electric motor can operate both CW and CCW), and no synchronizers and dog-clutches (as in manual transmissions), no hydraulic logic and clutches of automatic transmissions, nor the hydraulically operated sheaves found in CVTs. We've been hobbing gears to operate at those power levels for roughly a century.

I think Porsche has done a 2-speed EV transmission and Lucid moved the differential inside the motor and has two-reduction gear sets on either side, but those are both unusual designs.

[IAmBroom]

My take was: the only lube-requiring, wear-out-fast part was the differential, and on EVs they are much simpler, with less to wear out.

ICEs have MANY wear-out-fast parts (where "fast" is relative) requiring lube, and lube itself suggests the risk of frictional degradation.

[RRRA]

My EV is 3 years old, but I have no hope of being able to swap the battery every, at least not in any reasonable way. That said, it'll be fine for my use case for at least 15 years, so whatever :)

[themafia]

> I expect I will just do a battery swap in 5-10 years.

Do you expect it will be an OEM part or a remanufactured battery?

[mikkupikku]

> As an anecdote, I bought all my ICE cars second hand, and would usually sell them 3-4 years later just before major maintenance was needed. My EV is now 8 years old

I mean, that sounds quite poor on both counts TBQH. I bought a used 2002 Honda Accord in 2004 and drove it until last year with little more than regular oil changes. I expect to get the same kind of life out of the Mazda 3 I replaced it with. Anything less than 10 years out of a car sounds like something went terribly wrong to me.

[rootusrootus]

Yeah I expect to drive my Lightning for at least 10 years. Probably a lot longer since it's a pretty simple body-on-frame truck. I'm secretly hoping that since the battery just hangs between the frame rails, someone will come along in a few years and offer upgrades.