[tcbawo]

I know someone with a 6 year old Tesla X that now has a range of around 120 miles. This is becoming a serious impediment for them. What happens to all the buyers of these vehicles when their range is halved before their life expectancy is up? Needing to pony up another $10-15k will probably be unaffordable for the average Joe.

[ggreer]

What year is your friend's Model X and what was the original rated range? All Model Xs sold before 2020 have an 8 year unlimited mile warranty on the drivetrain. If capacity is below 70% original, Tesla will replace the battery for free.

[atonse]

I thought there was enough data on how Tesla packs degrade over time, and that it was closer to 10% after 5 years.

Ours (mid-range 240 mile model 3) has lost less than 20 miles of range after 5 years/36k miles.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> I know someone with a 6 year old Tesla X that now has a range of around 120 miles.

How many miles do they have on it? Mileage that short after only 6 years should be covered by warranty. That's not degradation, that's a battery failure.

[tcbawo]

I’ll ask for more details and report back.

[Retric]

It just gets baked into the resale price. Some EV’s will still have 80% of their range at 20 years and other will be at 50% in 7 years based on owner behavior, battery chemistry, etc.

Though I doubt your friend’s situation would be much different with an ICE. The only way a new battery isn’t covered by the warranty is if he’s already driven 150k miles before 30% degradation hit, at which point ICE cars also see a dramatic drop in resale value.

As to ~10k to replace a battery, high mileage ICE engines end up needing a lot of work over their lifetime. Many 300k mile car see several sets of spark plugs, various belts, plus some big ticket items like transmission, catalytic converter, or cracked head gasket etc. Batteries just condense all that into one big ticket item which slowly degrades and people can budget for.

[ajross]

> I know someone with a 6 year old Tesla X that now has a range of around 120 miles

Yeah, I really don't think you do. That would be an outrageously wild outlier. As others are pointing out, the simple warranty terms promise a 4-5x lower degradation. I won't say it's impossible to break a battery that badly in six years, but if it happened your friend is doing some crazy stuff to their car.

More likely you're misunderstanding or they're spinning. Maybe you heard them talk about wanting to plan road trips with 120 mile legs or something (which is a pretty routine thing -- trips can actually be faster if you charge often at low capacities).

[rootusrootus]

> More likely you're misunderstanding or they're spinning

That's my bet. Cold winter, some pack degradation, US highway speeds, and only considering 60% of the capacity (20%-80% for road tripping), 120 miles between supercharging stops is plausible.

[aschobel]

My 8 year old Model S has 156k on it and gets around 254 miles on a full charge. New was around 300.

[seanmcdirmid]

> I know someone with a 6 year old Tesla X that now has a range of around 120 miles. This is becoming a serious impediment for them.

https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty

> 8 years or 150,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period.

So I'm guessing either your friend doesn't read their warranty or they've gone over 150K?

[leetharris]

There's no way this is true. That would be over 50% battery degradation and it's completed covered within the 8 year warranty.

Battery failures happen, but no 6 year old Tesla is at 60% battery degradation without a system failure.

Also, lithium ion batteries are almost entirely recyclable. Once we've mined enough and have a good recycling process in place, this will become more affordable for your average person.

[ceejayoz]

Or they've been Ubering with it and put a million miles on.

[rootusrootus]

Or someone is full of crap. Can't discount that possibility.

[JojoFatsani]

Occham’s razor..

[erulabs]

Hrm, I believe Tesla's warranty is "8 years or 120,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period.", so your friend should look into getting a new Tesla!

Also, and I'd love if someone could dig up some data on this, the X and S used an older battery type that has since been replaced by a new chemistry and assembly which degrades quite a lot less than the older nickel based batteries.

TLDR: I think battery degradation varies a lot by make/model/year.

[1970-01-01]

This. It's covered by warranty. In 6 more years, pack prices will be much much lower.

[nonethewiser]

That sucks but… duh. Its going the way of disposable consumer electronics. It will take some breakthrough in battery tech to prevent EVs from becoming as (tragically) disposable as our phones.

[AnthonyMouse]

The economics of used EVs is going to be unfamiliar.

With an older gasoline car, at some point you're going to have a transmission repair that will cost ~$2000. The engine will throw an emissions code and you're out $1000. The fuel pump goes bad, you have to replace the timing belt, the lead acid battery dies, actually the battery was fine but your alternator is shot. And when the head gasket fails you decide it's time for another car because even though it's "only" $4000, that's the today price and you know it's only going to be a few months until the muffler rusts through or you have to do the starter motor.

EVs don't have any of that stuff. Replacing the battery is expensive, but replacing the battery could be worth it, because EVs don't have any of that stuff. Once you replace the battery it's much less likely you're going to be facing another large repair bill for a while. Give the car an aluminum frame that can't rust and we could start commonly seeing 40 year old cars on the road.

It's also not impossible that there will be replacement batteries that don't match the original spec. When new the car had a 350 mile range, now the battery is shot and the car is 20 years old and a new battery is $15,000, but a cheaper battery with a different chemistry or fewer cells is only $4000 and it has a 90 mile range. Which is more than the range on some new EVs, and maybe you've only got a 20 mile commute -- or somebody else does who would buy the car.

[mjamesaustin]

I'm so sorry for your friend – it sounds like they got a really bad battery. Typical range loss for a Tesla is only 10-20% over that time, and it levels out after that.

[topaz0]

I don't think any average joe has a tesla.

[bonestamp2]

Why not? The Tesla Model 3 literally sells for less than the average new car price in the US (lease for as low as $329/mo, roughly $246/mo after rebates).

[AnthonyMouse]

The average Joe doesn't buy a new car at all. The average car in the US is more than 10 years old. So they'll have a Tesla once they've been selling in volume for 10 years, which is still another five or six years out.

[jasongill]

They sold almost 2 million of them in 2023 so someone is buying them.