Title text:
Now that I’ve finally gotten an electric vehicle, I’m never going back to an acoustic one.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3214/
Title text:
Now that I’ve finally gotten an electric vehicle, I’m never going back to an acoustic one.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3214/
Source? I thought we don’t really have sufficient real live data, but it seems like the batteries last longer than was expected. And it’s not that they completely break, it’s just that they lose capacity meaning range.
According to this estimate you simply would need 5-6 times more charging points than fueling points, which is already the case for the majority of gas stations at highways where I live.
So, I’m going off of talking to mechanics and a lot of YouTube. But theres a few ways to slice it.
Most batteries aren’t experiencing total failures, which was more common on your electric cars of 15+ years ago (think Nissan leaf). But they lose capacity as they are used. 25% after 5 years is common. After 10 years it could be 50%. An EV advertised with 300 miles of range only really gets 250 from a full charge when it’s really cold out, by the time it’s a 10 year old car that could be anywhere from 90-140 miles depending on how the battery is holding up. And it still takes just as long to charge to 100%.
When a car loses this much performance, most people would say it “needs” a new battery. Not really sure how long cars manufactured 2020 and later are going to last before a complete failure on average, it might be 15-20 years. But even after the first couple years they are losing performance.
This is why EVs fetch extremely low prices used, and a lot of people recommend leasing rather than buying them. Because you can’t make or fix a battery at home, and the price of a new battery is $10k-$20k on a car that, probably, is starting to get other issues and has little or no service availability (since most owners are junking them).
So currently, a $30k Corolla is going to be worth far more 5 years after purchase than an $80k whatever EV you care to name.