[rini17]

So you imply refurbishing a car battery pack will be unreasonably expensive? Why?

And real world data does not suggest that will be needed at all. Sure there are outliers like someone damaging battery by doing only supercharging but that's exception like not changing oil in ICE.

[PeterisP]

Batteries cost a significant fraction of a new EV cost (something like 30%) - in the context of populations who want/need vehicles which are affordable because they're used for 10-15 years and should cost a fraction of what a new vehicle costs, that's unreasonably expensive; that replacement costs more than that whole used car should cost.

For example, the first reasonable site I googled for replacement costs (https://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/ev-battery-replac...) asserts that the battery replacement for a Leaf would cost on average $17,657 - but I'm talking about a target audience who currently would buy a $10,000 car and expect to use it for many more years; current ICE cars enable that, but if getting a usable range from a Leaf when they'll be 15-20 years old will require a replacement battery, that's not going to work out. The replacement batteries for full EVs (as opposed to hybrids with smaller capacity) are more expensive than even full engine replacements or full transmission replacements for old ICE cars, and even very old ICE cars usually don't need a full engine replacement but can work (with usable range!) with much cheaper repairs.

In essence, my doubts are about the longevity of EV cars - what proportion of EVs will be usable/used when they will be 15, 20 or 25 years old (or after 100k / 200k miles), and how that compares to the same metric for the current ICE cars; a downgrade there won't be a big difference for the relatively wealthy buyers of new cars now, but it can be a kick in the balls for the poorer communities in a few decades if the affordable used (and I mean significantly used, not those which were just leased for a few years) cars cease to exist.

[asdff]

There's also a huge population of people who pay even less for a car, like around $5k or less still. Go to the LA county craigslist, average car is $13k but the largest bin by far on the pricing histogram is the sub 5k bin. You set the price interval to be between $2-$5k you get about 2600 ads. You set it at 3k and you still get about 1500 ads, and these are "true" ads with that $2 start cutting off the people who don't list prices on more expensive cars.

[rini17]

You assume that everything will cost exactly as much as now. While the trends are clear, batteries keep getting cheaper and gas more expensive. Which is inevitable when production shrinks. And expensive gas is even bigger "kick in the balls".