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by AnthonyMouse
860 days ago
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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. |
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