[aetch]

15 years is completely realistic, I only started having problems with my 2007 Ford Escape Hybrid after 17 years of heavy use and 260k miles. Keep in mind that 2007 was when the 1st generation hybrids were just coming out, too, so technology is much better today.

Don’t forget that there are other parts of a car that degrades as well with time. Eventually most well used cars will have an engine or powertrain issue if they even make it to 15 years to use without being totaled in an accident or simply sold second hand or misused.

[fransje26]

The 2007 Ford Escape Hybrids were using a lot of shared parts with the Toyota Prius, so the battery pack is definitely not Li-ion. The newer high-density Li-ion packs will not survive 15 years without loosing significant capacity, if they survive at all.

[aetch]

The escape hybrid had a nickel cadmium battery. I don’t see why a li-ion battery pack wouldn’t be usable for 15 years with good battery management. Both battery and ICE cars have reduced performance and range due to capacity/efficiency degradation so replacing and recycling a battery or engine at 15 years to restore performance is not unreasonable. No car, EV or ICE lasts forever. Likewise, most people want to upgrade to a newer flashier car before 15 years.

[fransje26]

> I don’t see why a li-ion battery pack wouldn’t be usable for 15 years.

For 2 reasons, primarily. First, Toyota chose nickel-cadmium batteries because of their higher charge-cycle life, at the cost of a much lower energy density (about half that of li-ion). Secondly, they designed their system so that the discharge rate and the discharge level of their battery pack stayed low, thereby maximizing the lifetime of their battery pack, at the cost, once more, of extra weight.

So those two aspects combined mean that you can expect a much longer real-life usage of your battery pack before reduced performance becomes an issue.

I fully agree that a battery pack replacement after 15 years could be considered reasonable (as long as the build quality of the rest of the car warrants it, which is not a given nowadays). But if the mean-time between replacement is around 5 years, then it becomes unreasonable.

[satiric]

The battery chemistry is completely different; You can't assume similar characteristics.

[dainiusse]

Because we have plenty of real life examples for cars that have a lot less age.