The second hand market in EVs
Discussion
One of the issues around EVs, for me, is how is the second hand market going to work when you have a value timebomb in the shape of a deteriorating battery. If the battery loses some of its charging ability over time, and will ultimately become unusable except for short trips, how will the market deal with that?
At some point the value of the car will be nil because the cost of replacing the battery will be disproportionate to the value of the car.
At least if the battery is replaceable then the car might be viable but if it’s integral to the car structure …….
Does this make them depreciate faster?
I appreciate that we have similar issues if the engine packs up in an ice car, but it seems somehow less important. The battery deterioration is measurable. One can estimate how much longer it has.
What are your thoughts?
At some point the value of the car will be nil because the cost of replacing the battery will be disproportionate to the value of the car.
At least if the battery is replaceable then the car might be viable but if it’s integral to the car structure …….
Does this make them depreciate faster?
I appreciate that we have similar issues if the engine packs up in an ice car, but it seems somehow less important. The battery deterioration is measurable. One can estimate how much longer it has.
What are your thoughts?
Astacus said:
I appreciate that we have similar issues if the engine packs up in an ice car, but it seems somehow less important. The battery deterioration is measurable. One can estimate how much longer it has.
Have you considered that the battery may not degrade linearly and might plateau when it gets older?There is a chap in Germany who has covered 1 million miles in a Tesla, albeit, now on his third battery.
How many miles is enough for a battery pack to last the life of a UK car?
The topic was recently covered extensively in this thread: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Edited by GT9 on Thursday 29th June 17:17
Battery degradation is, IMO, a bit of a red herring. Yes batteries will inevitably lose some capacity as they age but there is strong empirical evidence that, with good thermal management, it levels off as the car ages and for anything which had a decent range to start with, the range will tend towards something which is still thoroughly usable for a great many people well past the realistic life-span of most cars.
If you buy a brand new car with a real-world usable range of 200 miles and after 10 years it has a real-world usable range of 150 miles someone will still want it.
If you buy a brand new car with a real-world usable range of 200 miles and after 10 years it has a real-world usable range of 150 miles someone will still want it.
Dav72D said:
The usable battery on my Vauxhall ampera has gone from 10.7 kw to 10.3 kw, over 109,000 miles.
And how many years?There is a lot of mixed data about batteries, we are increasingly seeing that well managed batteries can do a lot of cycles of charge state from 10% to 90% or similar, but calendar ageing is still a killer.
Cars are also cunningly programmed to deter you from accessing the full capacity of the battery,
when cars are young, the battery runs from maybe 10% to 90%.
As it ages, the car pushes it to 5% to 95% of its true capacity, to hide the degradation.
Loads of reports with i3's in the US of BMW tweaking the firmware to 'restore range' but what they are doing is allowing you to thrash the battery to see out the warranty.
The problem is that 15 years ago they were not selling many EVs, so there are not many old EVs to give us lots of data.
Also cars have improved, batteries have improved, so data about 15 year old cars has limited relevance to 2 year old cars.
There are different battery chemistries, LiFe PO4 offers longer lifetimes in cycle numbers but you're still hard pushed to find a cell maker to give a decent warranty.
There's huge pressure to create a car battery with a guaranteed 15 year product life, but it's not really happening.
It's not necessarily a Bad Thing, if people can buy clunker EVs like old Leaves for £4k and they'll get them to work and Asda for a couple of years quite economically. But as time goes on, there will be more teenaged EVs because more were sold, so there may be a shortage of buyers who only want very modest range.
It's also interesting to trawl 'howmanyleft', a lot of ~10 year old EVs are SORN or 'disappeared'.
It seems to me that one might get better value in BEVs by stumping up for one that's not so old, maybe run one from 3 to 6 years old, it costs a bit more, but does a lot more?
It doesn’t really matter if existing range will reduce a bit due to battery degradation because whether it does or doesn’t, newer cars will have greater range. What is factually the case either way is that nothing depreciates like lithium so you can get a nice deal on a used EV. They come with 8 year battery warranty usually so it’s not that big a deal I don’t think.
I get the impression that EV depreciation tails off at a certain point. Having a car that costs very little to run does put a floor on the value and other than battery worries they should require much less TLC. EV shed motoring would be appealing I think. And over time there will be folks who can keep them going and replace battery cells and screens without which you won’t be able to drive the car.
I get the impression that EV depreciation tails off at a certain point. Having a car that costs very little to run does put a floor on the value and other than battery worries they should require much less TLC. EV shed motoring would be appealing I think. And over time there will be folks who can keep them going and replace battery cells and screens without which you won’t be able to drive the car.
My Ampera is a 2014 car. I think the battery is about 17kw with only 10.7 available.
I get between 35 and 45 miles from a charge, and pre heat it during the winter.
The problem now is parts are difficult to obtain so I'm running it until it dies.
Apparently there's a Chevy volt in America that's done 400,000 miles.
I get between 35 and 45 miles from a charge, and pre heat it during the winter.
The problem now is parts are difficult to obtain so I'm running it until it dies.
Apparently there's a Chevy volt in America that's done 400,000 miles.
On VW the charge screen says to charge to 80% maximum to preserve battery life.
I'd suspect that degradation would be worse if you are charging to 100% regularly and also if you are regularly using ultra fast chargers rather than slow charging overnight.
On Toyota hybrids I believe the software kept the batteries between 20% and 80% of capacity for improved life rather than the 0-100 shown on the display.
I'd suspect that degradation would be worse if you are charging to 100% regularly and also if you are regularly using ultra fast chargers rather than slow charging overnight.
On Toyota hybrids I believe the software kept the batteries between 20% and 80% of capacity for improved life rather than the 0-100 shown on the display.
No one seems to worry that their ICE may be worn out after 200k miles, is it much different to a battery?
I drive a Lexus RX400h and the hybrid battery is still OK at 17 years old and 150k miles. Not sure its really an issue just like not buying cars that have done more than 100k miles.
I drive a Lexus RX400h and the hybrid battery is still OK at 17 years old and 150k miles. Not sure its really an issue just like not buying cars that have done more than 100k miles.
Toyota warranty is interesting: after 10 years or one million km, 70% capacity left, and 90% capacity left after 240 000km (up to the same 10 years). Source
There are a couple of trade-offs: slower than average fast charge, and IIRC, you could do only two fast charges per day. But still, 900km/day should be fairly easy and you could do two of those (per week for 10 years) and still be covered by the warranty. London-Lyon roundtrip once a week...
There are a couple of trade-offs: slower than average fast charge, and IIRC, you could do only two fast charges per day. But still, 900km/day should be fairly easy and you could do two of those (per week for 10 years) and still be covered by the warranty. London-Lyon roundtrip once a week...
Edited by PetrolHeadInRecovery on Friday 30th June 10:30
There is no value timebomb because degradation is largely a myth based on people's phones. There are plenty of 10yr old 100,000mile BMW I3 around with typical loss of range still in single figures. More likely value timebombs exist for older diesels that will effectively be banned from urban areas if they don't have the latest emissions rating.
Early EV's like the Mitsubishi i-miev and the Nissan Leaf had pretty terrible battery life but the battery technology in them was not the latest tech back then. The Chevrolet Volt/Ampera did have a narrow range available so as to give them a long life and it worked so well that the batteries out of old vehicles were being redeployed as static battery banks.
Might we be in the golden age of batteries? Tesla will soon be pretty much embedding the batteries in the structure of the chassis as it reduces build cost and adds to the rigidity of the chassis. But if a car carrying a million-mile capable battery is itself knackered after, say, 300,000 miles then what's the point with the battery needing to be built as such? Could they make the battery less costly have its EOL the same as the rest of the vehicle and retrieve and recycle the batteries when the rest of the car meets its fate?
Might we be in the golden age of batteries? Tesla will soon be pretty much embedding the batteries in the structure of the chassis as it reduces build cost and adds to the rigidity of the chassis. But if a car carrying a million-mile capable battery is itself knackered after, say, 300,000 miles then what's the point with the battery needing to be built as such? Could they make the battery less costly have its EOL the same as the rest of the vehicle and retrieve and recycle the batteries when the rest of the car meets its fate?
GT6k said:
There is no value timebomb because degradation is largely a myth based on people's phones. There are plenty of 10yr old 100,000mile BMW I3 around with typical loss of range still in single figures.
Are there?A quick look on Autotrader shows 454 fully electric i3s for sale, only one is above 100000 miles.
I would guess there are very few with over 100000 miles.
GT6k said:
There is no value timebomb because degradation is largely a myth based on people's phones. There are plenty of 10yr old 100,000mile BMW I3 around with typical loss of range still in single figures.
In fact, if you go for both 10 years old and over 100000 miles, there is only one car for sale in the UK.And by the owners' description it has between 66-72% of its "Battery Strength" remaining.
Looking into this more 
The Tesla Model S with the highest mileage on Autotrader is at 164000 miles, which is impressive.
Apart from the drivetrain was replaced in 2017 @ 54k miles and the battery was replaced Dec 2018 @ 102k miles
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202306168...
I'm going to stop looking into this now
The Tesla Model S with the highest mileage on Autotrader is at 164000 miles, which is impressive.
Apart from the drivetrain was replaced in 2017 @ 54k miles and the battery was replaced Dec 2018 @ 102k miles
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202306168...
I'm going to stop looking into this now
TheRainMaker said:
In fact, if you go for both 10 years old and over 100000 miles, there is only one car for sale in the UK.
And by the owners' description it has between 66-72% of its "Battery Strength" remaining.
Ok perhaps I was being optimistic I,ll withdraw the ,,'plenty'And by the owners' description it has between 66-72% of its "Battery Strength" remaining.
The point is that the early I3s had only a 20kWh battery and what is now a rather old battery chemistry. In the UK I3 FB owners group of several thousand members there is only a single case of battery replacement under the 8yr 100k miles warranty. These failures are no greater or more expensive than would be expected with a petrol engine.
GT6k said:
TheRainMaker said:
In fact, if you go for both 10 years old and over 100000 miles, there is only one car for sale in the UK.
And by the owners' description it has between 66-72% of its "Battery Strength" remaining.
Ok perhaps I was being optimistic I,ll withdraw the ,,'plenty'And by the owners' description it has between 66-72% of its "Battery Strength" remaining.
The point is that the early I3s had only a 20kWh battery and what is now a rather old battery chemistry. In the UK I3 FB owners group of several thousand members there is only a single case of battery replacement under the 8yr 100k miles warranty. These failures are no greater or more expensive than would be expected with a petrol engine.
Any 'new improved' battery chemistry by definition hasn't been around long enough to see how much longer it lasts.
The big picture is that cell makers are still striving for cell with a better calendar lifetime. There is big research and a lot of US gov't money looking for 12 or 15 year service life.
In the mean time, EV's will keep devaluing as they get near 10 years. But then modern IC cars are pretty much designed to be recycled sometime before 15 years.
There is a US i3 owner's forum, lots of issue with cars having to have the 'parameters adjusted' as warranty claims. More so in the warmer states.
I looked seriously at buying one a while back.
I have grown to like them, I have done a few journeys as passenger in one and had a short drive.
They seem to have lost two grand or more in the last 9 months.
If I was looking for a local runabout, I would seriously consider one.
TheRainMaker said:
Looking into this more
The Tesla Model S with the highest mileage on Autotrader is at 164000 miles, which is impressive.
Apart from the drivetrain was replaced in 2017 @ 54k miles and the battery was replaced Dec 2018 @ 102k miles
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202306168...
I'm going to stop looking into this now
If you widen the search a bit, you can find a Tesla with over 425,000miles, apparently on the original battery (albeit with a new motor). The Tesla Model S with the highest mileage on Autotrader is at 164000 miles, which is impressive.
Apart from the drivetrain was replaced in 2017 @ 54k miles and the battery was replaced Dec 2018 @ 102k miles
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202306168...
I'm going to stop looking into this now
You can find other cars for sale with "moon mileage" here (just skip the "Gesponsored" ads).
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