Well the car has done 50,000km before I bought it and tbh in the winter it lost quite a bit of range (I've had a different EV previously and its range didn't decrease as much during the winter).
The car has a warranty on the battery valid for 8 years or 160,000km (whatever occurs first), the manufacturer promises it will have 70% or more capacity at that point.
ADAC did a test with a vehicle that reached 160,000km and its battery was at 91%.
I roll my eyes at this question because it's often framed as good faith curiosity, but it's often asked in bad faith by people that think it's a "gotcha" question, because they have this incorrect notion that EV batteries need to be replaced frequently. They see the warranty is 100K miles/8 years or whatever and think that means they have to replace the battery after 100K miles/8 years, yet fail to recognize that they don't apply that same logic to combustion engines with 30K mile/3 year warranties.
In my country it is 8y/160k km for batteries and 5-10y/150-200k km for ICE cars.
That being said, when a battery fails, it’s a €20,000+ whole unit replacement (e.g. for Audi e-tron 55 it is €26,500 in my country), while ICE failures very rarely need a whole unit replacement, usually it’s a €1700 turbocharger or a €400 injector or something of that caliber. Personal anecdote: my 12 year old 262k km BMW did not need any engine repairs until now, except for free manufacturer recall on the EGR cooling system. And it still has 1000 km highway range in the winter.
> As of 2025, the average age of a scrapped car in the UK is between 16 and 20 years old!
...
> You can also buy used EVs.
True, but you're quite limited there since good EVs have only been around for a very small number of years. Maybe you can get an old Tesla for not too much but that's pretty undesirable for obvious reasons.
> True, but you're quite limited there since good EVs have only been around for a very small number of years
You'd think that, but (I am shopping at the moment) it is routine to see last year's EVs on Autotrader, at 30-50% off list price. That does make me a little suspicious (is this being got rid of because it's a lemon?), but they're there.
I think we can narrow the statement to "if you are buying a new or nearly-new car, or leasing, and you can charge at home or work, you should seriously consider an EV". Fleet and business use should definitely be thinking very hard about it.
There is a huge difference between these two statements:
> most people keep cars for 20 years or more
and
> the average age of a scrapped car in the UK is between 16 and 20 years old
Because the second fact doesn't tell you whether or not the 1st fact is true.
After all, there is a second hand market where you can find cars of every age.
If most people kept cars for 20 years, and the secondhand market exists, then by the time an average car is scrapped it must be substantially over 20 years old.