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by justapassenger 52 days ago
Useful life of most of the cars is on par with their battery longevity, as long as you have proper thermal management and your usage patterns are not outliers.

Focusing on being able to upgrade battery (and to be clear - upgrade, not replaced/repair) is solving 1% problem.
2 comments
carefree-bob 52 days ago
Cars have basically unlimited useful life because every component (arguably with the exception of the frame) can be repaired. It's surprisingly affordable to rebuild an engine and make it as good as new. I can buy a car made in the 50s today, that's a 70 year old car. And I can keep servicing it and keep it going for another 70 years.

The main enemy of cars is rust, but for that there are cost effective mitigations now. The real reason people ditch cars is always they get tired of the old car and want something more modern, not because the car is at the end of its "useful life".

Batteries are not like that. They actually have a useful life that degrades over time, which makes them non-servicable.

What I would like to see is serviceable batteries, where you can replace individual damaged cells and keep the battery going. Everyone would benefit from that, especially the used EV market, which would help stem the massive depreciation hits EV buyers are facing now.

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yolo3000 52 days ago
I still drive the car I bought 20 years ago. How long should the useful life of a car be?
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Anthony-G 52 days ago
Given the huge environmental cost involved in manufacturing a car, 20 years seems fair.

I’m still driving a 26-year old Nissan Micra – though it’s now on its last legs: the Irish climate isn’t kind to steel and we’ve had to have the under-carriage re-welded three times in the past five years. :(

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justapassenger 52 days ago
EV batteries are expected to offer about 60-70% of capacity at 20 years. I think that's really good compared to general wear and tear of the car.

But let's go back to the original point, about being able to UPGRADE (not repair/replace) battery in the car. 20 years old car is worth like $1k-2k, which is fraction of the cost of the new battery.

While it's cool thing to do for hobbyists, it makes 0 economical sense.

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carefree-bob 52 days ago
If you want pricing for older cars, I recommend carsandbids.com. For example, here is a 2008 Audi RS4, that is currently bid to $18,000. It has 111,000 miles on it. https://carsandbids.com/auctions/3oj8pvR7/2008-audi-rs4-seda...

What an old car is worth depends on many factors, but age is not the most important one. The average age of passenger cars on the road in the U.S. is 14 years old -- I think 14.5 years now. I don't think we have data on average appraised value of passenger cars on the road, but I would guess it would be in the range of 10-15K.

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