Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Draco
Does those comparisons include the cost of replacing the battery packs?
Some of the hybrids I've looked into have a replacement cost of approx $12k and need to be replaced between 125k-150k miles depending on your driving style. When we figured owning the vehicle long enough to require at least one replacement, the scales greatly tipped in favor of the ICE equivalent.
I'm just wondering if this is also true for EVs.
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Some actually do. Keep in mind that they have to do so in an actuarial manner. In other words, for any particular instance, the cost to replace could range from $0 to the cost of simply one cell or pouch to the cost of a remanufactured battery pack to the cost of a brand new fresh from the factory battery pack. All of that has to factor in likelihood a battery pack needs replacement. The vast majority of battery pack replacements will be $0 because the warranty on the battery pack is at minimum 8 years / 100,000 mile. This is mandated by your friendly federal government. Some automakers extend that to 10 years / 100,000 miles. So, for the very very few (think one in a million) customers who will need to have their batteries replaced, it will likely be covered by warranty.
Some manufacturers have improved their battery technology to focus on replacement of cells or modules, not the entire pack. GM’s Ultium batteries, for example, have pouch cells that are assembled into modules. Should the battery experience problems, GM techs can isolate the failure to a specific module or group of modules and replace only those. Their modules are designed to be forward / backward compatible and link via software.
By the time today’s EVs are old enough to require post-warranty replacement, AND require a total battery pack replacement, expect the primary source of battery replacements to be remanufactured packs. As with engines and transmissions today, expect the cost to replace a battery pack to cost roughly 70% the cost of a new pack at that point in time. Since battery prices are steadily moving
down in price, despite the cost of lithium going up, we’re talking 70% of a number much lower than today’s battery prices.
Today you can get remanufactured replacement batteries for Prius for @ $1,200 - $1,600 dollars. You can get a 1st Gen Chevy Volt battery pack for about $2,600 and a 2nd Gen Volt battery pack for about $10k. Even though the Volt packs are about 15x the size of a Prius pack and they are lithium ion (Prius is NiMH) the cost is not 15x. Higher than the current cost of an engine replacement, but probably on par with the cost of an engine replacement as engine costs continue to go up while battery prices come down.