What will happen to all the ten year old electric cars?

[Theeaglesoared]

I'm thinking of buying an electric car. The price of second hand EVs has plummeted in recent months so I could now get a 1-2 year old EV for the same price as its petrol equivalent.

All well and good but it got me thinking: the batteries in EVs wear out after 100,000 miles or 10 years. A replacement battery is currently around £8000.

But will owners really replace the battery? On a 10 year old car? I can't see it happening. So are we going to see loads of cars effectively dumped in 10 years' time?

It seems massively bad for the environment but I can't find the answer to this anywhere! It probably won't put me off buying an EV (I don't want to lease for various reasons) but I am interested, because I assume my car will be worthless in a few years.

If anyone out there is in the car industry I'd love to hear your views.

Yes, but I was responding to a pp who said theirs does 60-80 miles per charge. The lower end of that would just about get me to work and back but with my journey being pretty much all motorway it’s not a risk I’d want to take.

I did have an EV as a courtesy car a few weeks ago and didn’t hate it. But it was a lower end model and was £32k with a range of 250 miles. Unaffordable and impractical for the work and lifestyle of our household.

We regularly go from Greater Manchester to South Wales to watch football and visit DH family. Couldn’t do it with a vehicle that would only get us there but not back!

EVs rely on plastics to keep them as light as possible. Where does plastic come from? Oil and gas. How will we make all the renewable energy tech if we stop oil?

Yes DH was snorting at the footage of the JSO protestors in their high viz doing their road protests. High viz made from plastics made from oil.

Well yeah, but you said that’s the reason you wouldn’t get an EV. Which doesn’t make sense, as there are loads of EVs that do more than 80-90 miles a charge, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t buy one that does only do 80-90 miles, as it wouldn’t be sufficient?
We did a long journey in ours last week. Charged before we left, then parked it up in a charging spot while we were there which gave us enough charge for the drive home. I can’t see why someone couldn’t do that when watching sport or visiting family?

There are no chargers, to the best of my knowledge, where my MIL lives. She’s in a block of flats that have parking but no chargers. We also like to take her out when we go down but need the car to do so.

I haven’t seen any at the football ground, but that may have changed since last season. Usually though it’s 2/3 chargers per few hundred spaces. Until they come down in price and with a vastly extended range we wouldn’t consider an EV.

No not allEVs do this. Have been looking for an EV to download from our solar and then upload to the house to store electricity and haven't found a solution, the tech just doesn't seem to be quite there yet. There was one car company, possibly Tesla who said they could do it but the inverters etc meant it wasn't a reasonable solution for us. Hopefully it will improve but I'm dubious about the environmental benefits of batteries and battery recycling so I'm not willing to rush into an EV for this purpose just yet.

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars

EVs are not perfect. But they are better than ICE cars over their lifetime. The perfect is the enemy of the good. EVs represent a part of the solution; the fact they are not perfect does not excuse prolonging the eventual retirement of ICE vehicles.

Yes the battery manufacture is problematic. But so are many other aspects of energy production, including fossil fuel extraction: there is widespread pollution in Niger, the Gulf of Mexico, and regular oil spills. Oil is not clean. The answer is to regulate the mining, not ignore the technology.

Range has developed to the point it’s no longer a problem. Charging is not hard if you use Google, Zap Map or other apps. Gridserve have fast chargers at motorway services all over the U.K. that can provide a 20 minute change - just about long enough to have a wee and get a sandwich and a coffee. A lead can be used outside a terraced house (I have seen this).

Charge can be obtained from renewables, making emissions very low. You can get renewables only electricity tariffs from most providers, especially Ecotricity and Octopus. If you have a smart metre you can charge overnight when it’s cheapest. Yes electricity cost are high but so are petrol and diesel and per mile electricity is still cheaper than going out and buying petrol or diesel.

EVs still result in micro plastic particles degrading from the tyres, but that applies to all cars. They do not emit CO2 or NO2.

Prices are high for new but so are ICE cars, and should equalise as numbers increase. Road tax is still currently zero, although that might change in the future. If you do a total cost of ownership, a new EV is likely to be cheaper. Leasing evens out costs.

Wider solutions include fewer car journeys, more walking and cycling, more public transport investment, and we should all be choosing these and campaigning for them.

I have a Mini E - like the pp with one, it’s great but has a small range. That’s fine, we use it for the school run, shopping and family visits. We also have a diesel VW T5 which we use for motorway long haul and holidays. We are very lucky to have two cars and we try to minimise the diesel as much as possible as it feels dirty; however it’s better to run that vehicle until the end of its life than scrap it. I accept we won’t be able to take it into low emission zones and that’s fine. We have solar panels and that’s how we charge the Mini. Occasionally we charge it out of the house and I’ve never had a problem finding a charger within range, even in West Wales or Devon.

There are a lot of myths. I think cost is the biggest barrier for most people but that’s the case when buying most cars.

There’s No Planet B by Mike Berners Lee does a good breakdown on this.

Had a lithium battery swell up in my phone. Omg the warnings on how to deal near it was frightening.

Reading today of the deaths on a ship carrying electric cars is deeply concerning. When they go wrong they're a bomb basically.

"One sailor dead and 23 evacuated from burning 18,500-tonne cargo ship carrying 3,000 cars in North Sea off The Netherlands after 'electric vehicle caught fire'" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12338705/amp/One-sailor-dead-23-evacuated-burning-18-500-tonne-cargo-ship-carrying-3-000-cars-North-Sea-Holland-electric-vehicle-caught-fire.html

@CarterBeatsTheDevil the batteries are recycled to black mass. Good luck using that for new batteries of the same standard.

There is a company in the US claiming to make a cobalt free battery. Not for EVs yet but changing battery chemistry should help with some of the problems.

@justasking111
while it’s obvious that’s a worrying incident it’s pretty telling that the DM (anti EV-rag) is saying it was definitely an EV that caused it while other media outlets are admitting that it’s a possibility. Do you really believe everything you read in the DM?

@justasking111
have a look at this
https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/are-electric-car-fires-really-that-common/#:~:text=%E2%80%9COur%20latest%20research%20indicates%20that,(internal%20combustion%20engine)%20vehicles.

Well an old phone of DS found the lithium battery had swelled up and burst out. It's now in a metal pail in the garden. Sons friend works in a garage the batteries are put in an isolated zone and removed by specialists

This! Tesla powerwall home batteries contain reused batteries from old tesla cars (the cars aren’t one big battery but lots of small ones).

According to the National Grid, 42.3 per cent of electricity from 2022 comes from fossil fuels compared to 35.9 per cent from renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear power, and biomass, which comes from burning food, plants, and organic matter.

I'm running a 10 year old petrol car and a 44 year old classic, both as dailies.

Fairly sure the 44 year old car has done it's bit re longevity and far outlasts any EV - the odd new part for a 100% mechanical engine with no computer on board and only 4 wires between thee engine and EVERYTHING ELSE is surely better for the environment than 4 complete EVs that need batteried replacing/computer systems updating/electrical parts becoming obsolete so cannot be repaired/replaced?

I run an EV and a 35 year old classic. Unfortunately keeping a modern car on the road is a completely different prospect to a classic as I’m sure you are aware.
Whilst it’s a lovely idea that a current, say Ford puma, could still be pootling about as a classic in thirty years time, the reality is that the comprised parts will be obsolete and any issues will need to be dealt with by garages.

Most people own classic cars for the love of spending time working on them and restoring them. Your average home mechanic isn’t going to be able to do that on modern cars, at least not without a large amount of specialist equipment.

You don’t really own a classic for environmental credentials. You own it for a hobby and almost always have a back up. I’ve had many over the last thirty years, my fault was a 1971 morris minor for many years, always had a back up though for those days it was in pieces in the garage.

The main problem is the range, lack of working chargers and time it takes to charge. I don't want to drive to Cornwall with all the extra stress of finding a working charger, queuing to use it and limited range which is why EVs don't compare with PVs on rational grounds. Hopefully they will move the 2030 target out by 10 years to allow some catching up.

Neither do I. Had an EV for 5 years. Yes come across an occasional non working charger but invariably found a working one next door to it. Queued to use a charger once. My car goes 300 miles which is way more than most people would want to go in one go. Let few times I used a rapid charger it charged to full in less time than it took for me to grab a coffee and do a toilet stop at the service station. oh and it costs a lot less to run.

Battery technology is developing quite rapidly at the moment.

@StillWantingADog

300 miles is nothing, we regularly do 400 miles in a day, as we are on a motorcycle (range circa 200 miles) this means 2 trips to the petrol station, each takes day 10 mins including filling, paying, rejoining main road etc, could you imagine having to wait a couple of hours each time. Longest single drive in a day I've done (car this time) was 652 miles, several in the 500's.

Electric cars are no good for long distance driving end of

Can I imagine waiting a couple of hours each time? err no because I never have done. Mine charges up on a rapid charger in about 20 minutes. Most of the time I just charge it at home while I am asleep so have saved goodness knows how much time not visiting petrol stations over the years.

If you drive hundreds of miles on a regular basis then I admit EVs may not be as practical. However most people I know are like us, do perhaps 3-4 longish trips a year at the most. So it absolutely is practical for many.

You sound bitter about he fact that due to climate change, we're all going to have to change the way we live our lives. We've made a lot of changes, all of which we are happy with. They were mostly quite expensive though, and I fully take on board the fact that not everyone can afford the changes we have made to our lifestyle.

This, EV are not for purpose, maybe in 10/20 years, when they sort out the charge time, range and availability of working chargers. Also, China make 80% of EV batteries, not sure we want the whole motor industry to be so reliant on one country.

@Luckydip1 I am not repeating myself but just posted above about your info being wrong. Things have enormously improved and just back from the Netherlands and saw with my own eyes how totally easy and stress free it can be - admit this country is playing catch up but it would take very little time to do this IF the government showed some proper will and put its food down.

Agree 100% is not a good idea for us to be reliant on China for batteries.

EV are not for purpose

EV's are not for all purposes. But for a large amount a people they suit them just fine.

There are loads of new battery factories being built all over Europe, North America and Asia outside China. Chinese dominance in batteries is a concern, but it's very much on the world's radar and being addressed with massive investment.