How can I get my Nissan Leaf to read this paper? Its range has dropped to 50% of new and a refurbished replacement pack cost 150% the value of the car, which is in otherwise excellent condition. It has only 70k miles.
Leafs don’t have active battery management. As far as I know, they’re basically the only widely available EV in the US with this problem.
Just replace the car, as much as that sucks.
Apparently Honda IMA (NiMH) 1 and 2nd gen not only lacks active thermal management, it also doesnt have any BALANCE management!?!?!
Its almost like Japanese do it on purpose to push BS Hydrogen.
NiMH packs are usually used without balancing, because in principle they should equalize at each full charge. Maybe the charger circuit is too gentle and terminates charging too early with low ΔV when not every cell is fully charged yet.
I think methods used in that video are somewhat dodgy. When dealing with severely unbalanced packs care should be taken when discharging, as unbalanced cells could go below 0V and become damaged by reverse charging. And while cooling them during charging might keep the temperature in check, it probably doesn't completely prevent internal outgassing and pressure buildup. Very long charge at low current would likely be safer option.
Their hydrogen obsession has set the world back decades.
How?
The promotion of hydrogen vehicles by automakers, particularly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, served as an effective delay tactic that slowed the transition away from internal combustion engines. Major oil companies like Shell and BP made splashy announcements about hydrogen investments and fueling infrastructure, yet these remained largely symbolic. Shell's "Hydrogen Network" consisted of just a handful of stations even years after announcements.
Meanwhile, automakers like GM heavily promoted hydrogen initiatives like Project Driveway, generating positive PR while maintaining their core ICE business. These companies knew that the fundamental challenges of hydrogen, including its energy intensive production, lack of infrastructure, and extremely high cost of fuel cells, made it impractical in the near term. Yet they used hydrogen's theoretical promise to argue against investing in more immediately viable technologies like battery electric vehicles.
This created a "vaporware" effect: the industry could claim to be pursuing clean alternatives while avoiding meaningful investment in technologies that could have disrupted their existing business model. The resources and attention diverted to hydrogen could have accelerated battery development and charging infrastructure years earlier. By the time automakers finally embraced EVs in earnest in the late 2010s, they had effectively delayed the transition by 20 years.
what is fascinating about your comment to me is thag the value of your car has dropped precisely because people fear battery issues. my friend had a 2015 Tesla S in pristine condition, just a ridiculous car. replaced the battery so now we have 50k miles new battery like-new Tesla S that he could not sell for more than $30k. wild stuff…
even though most people don’t do it, on more expensive cars it actually makes serious financial sense to replace the battery but on cheaper cars it does not!
Your friend's Tesla did not drop in resale value because of the battery. If anything a new battery would make those who fear battery degradation more willing to buy this used car.
It dropped because Teslas in general have a high maintenance cost associated and a high insurance cost (because insurers also see it as costly to maintain). High maintenance cost tends to sink a car's resale value.
I know the car does not need oil changes or have the possibility of various failure modes an ICE car has, but when it does have an issue, like a dent or a scrape, etc. the cost to repair is much higher.
As of 11/13/2024, Consumer Reports rates Tesla as the lowest maintenance and repair costs over the first 10 years of ownership, not factoring in insurance or collision repair.
They didn't ask me about my $15k battery replacement that occurred the day after my warranty expired
Doesn't much matter how good the cells are when the wires in the pack just magically corrode
outliers always exist, you were dealt bad hands. I think also if you pushed hard you could have gotten this covered, just needs a whole lot of yelling and if that doesn’t work going social and trying to get some publicity behind it, especially if it was 1 DAY after warranty expired.
I personally thinks it makes financial sense to get extended warranty for things like this, $15k used to be a price of a new car, getting a warranty to cover that past Tesla’s warranty I think makes financial sense.
My wife recently bought pre-owned eTron and I made her get extended warranty after doing research online about maintenance costs on them
Arguing got it down to $7.5k and beyond that I needed a lawyer. I paid it, and kinda regret it, because not only is it a refurbished battery, it's basically useless on a trip/supercharger now as they cap the speed to absurdly low levels. Like 10%/h. Car only had 70k miles on it, too.
I appreciate that you didn't call me a liar, which has been my past experience anytime I mention something negative about that company
I have a colleague at work that had the same experience as you - it was close to 9 months after warranty! For sure this is a thing - can’t believe someone called you a liar! There are other people on various Tesla forums with issues like yours.
Is the supecharger capping a thing? Like for any refurbished battery? I didn’t know about this!!
I'd only seen it mentioned with regards to salvage titled cars before my own experience. They certainly didn't tell/warn me that this would happen. They actually did the opposite (of course), insisting it would be warranted and as-good-as-the-battery-it-replaced. They said I could buy a new one for like $30k....... the car was worth about $20k, assuming it was working, which it wasn't.
It stings. Can't even write it off in my head as supporting the EV movement with how soured that's all become.
But that's not factoring in the exact things I'm talking about: insurance and collision repair, which are both higher on this make
insurance and collision repair works out not much different from other luxury cars. if you think tesla’s repairs are high see about owning a mercedes or audi…
again, even if this was true, you are shitty driver and have to pay premium for tesla insurance, given virtually $0 in maintenance you’d still come out on top
I agree that if you pay $0 in maintenance you come out on top. But since you will have to pay high insurance and potentially high repair costs (and those repair costs get closer the older the car is), the price of the car tanks on the used market.
> insurance and collision repair works out not much different from other luxury cars
No, it does work out differently than other cars of a same retail value, that's very well documented. See my other comment
This is poor documentation... again I'll say if you are a shitty driver you will be paying high insurance and you will be having issues fixing the car and whatnot not matter what the car is. I have been a driver since 1993 and have had one claim where I was at fault (slippery road, rear-ended a car in front of me). my insurance on the Tesla is as cheap as it gets, like $68/month. have several friends that drive Teslas too (mostly 3 and Y) and no one is paying high insurance.
if you know you are going to F sh*t up with the car and have bunch of claims on it and have it at the shop all the time - I agree with you Tesla is not for you. But if you are a good driver insurance and maintenance is not a thing you need to worry about at all...
Did you look at one of the many links I posted at all? They have pretty detailed comparisons of avg insurance cost for various Tesla models vs similarly priced non-EV alternatives.
You also ignored repair costs.
with all due respect every single reason you listed here is 100% wrong… I have had Tesla S 2014 for now over a decade - the cost of “maintenance” exactly $0.00. here’s what my costs have been (I have free supercharging so we can say this has been total cost of ownership)
- new internal battery $220
- new modem when switch to “5G” was made - $250-ish
- new tires
that is it. after 80k miles I am still on original brakes cause with regerative braking I seldom-to-never use the brake (as my wife would say if I use a brake on Tesla it is always followed by F-bomb at another driver)
not sure who told you all these things but they are all 100% wrong - no exception
Please read this part of my comment:
> but when it does have an issue, like a dent or a scrape, etc. the cost to repair is much higher.
This is why insurance on Teslas is higher. It is not uncommon for bodywork on Teslas to be far more expensive than on other cars, and since bodywork is the majority of insurance claims, it factors in.
You can read about why insurance and repair costs are higher at many sites:
I HAVE a Tesla :) Insurance is fine unless you are a bad driver, just like insurance should be.
I pay roughly 40% less for Tesla vs. my other car which is audi etron. KBB on both comparable.
Even if insurance was higher, the actual cost of ownership/maintenance is practically $0.00 so even if I was paying 25% more in insurance compared to some comporable I’d still choose Tesla every day of the week and twice on sunday
But the original question was about why Tesla prices drop on the used market. It is not about fear of batteries. It is due to real, documented cost increases in other sides: insurance and repair costs.
You having a Tesla doesn't mean all the statistics and articles I posted are false.
the reason prices drop is exactly the battery, not insurance or repair costs.
as most tesla owners will tell you there is no maintenance costs and insurance (if you are not a shitty driver) is not bad at all considering it is a luxury vehicle
and repair costs are also not that bad. the real issue is the cost to replace a battery fear of which drives people away from buying used teslas. this is true for other EVs, if I tried to sell you 2018 audi etron your first thought will be “that is a 7-year old battery in that car”, not “ain’t going for it cause of insurance and repairs.”
if tesla offerred lifetime warranty on the battery (or if battery replacement was like <$2k) the used tesla prices would go through the roof
> as most tesla owners will tell you there is no maintenance costs and insurance (if you are not a shitty driver) is not bad at all
Statistically neither of these are true. Average repair costs for collision damage are higher than comparable MSRP vehicles. So is insurance, I already provided many sources for that claim.
Tesla owners can think the sky is purple. That doesn't make it so.
Since the Leaf has a smaller battery, it get's more wear and tear per trip.
It also lacks active thermal management. That's more or less a requirement for long battery life.
THIS. The ARIYA is the first EV they've widely released (last year) with any active thermal management. I live in AZ, and all my friends with Leaf's all have had to have their batteries replaced at least once.
All my Chevy based EV/PHEVs have had great battery life (so far) - knock on wood.
I'm also in AZ. What's surprising to me is I get slightly better range in the summer months.
Probably depends on the climate and use case… early EVs with no thermal management seems to last forever in coastal areas with mild climates, and slow heavy traffic
I think this is the answer.
That is also a problem for hybrid powers vehicles, the battery is small and it gets charged and discharged 0-100 / 100-0 very often, if you use the hybrid as intended.
Some manufacturers limit this, but in a few years we will see a lot of hybrids that have batteries that barely work and will not deliver the expected ev only distance by a lot.
A lot of Toyota hybrids (but I believe not PHEVs) use NiMH batteries, which are longer lasting than the Li-ion batteries used in EVs and can withstand more charge cycles.
They last longer because they are treated gently compared to lithium packs in EVs (shallow/frequency cycles, lower charge/discharge rates, etc).
When used in the same duty cycle, most lithium cells/packs should last longer than the same capacity NIMH cells/packs.
They’re used on hybrids because they’re more longer-lasting than Li-ion for the duty cycle hybrids have.
Li-ion is not universally better, but its energy density makes it better for EVs, and economies of scale mean that they’re becoming as cheap or cheaper than NiMH cells even if the hybrid duty cycle will make them degrade faster.
Not only that, those small batteries do cost a disproportionate amount of money to replace.
If you want a real world opinion, check the EVClinic blog…
Nissan probably did more damage to EV image than good. Even then it's NZs most popular used EV.
> a refurbished replacement pack cost 150% the value of the car
When I researched evs, I couldn't make the economics make sense. 7 years for a car lifetime seems outrageous.
Where do you get 7 years? That is not true of most EV. Even the worst ones, like the early Leafs did better than that.
The 7 years thing is from the idea I have heard that after around 7 years the functional life of the battery is effectively over.
> The Li-ion battery typically has a lifespan of 300-500 charge cycles. Suppose a fully discharged lithium-ion battery provides 1Q of charge, and not considering the decrease in charge with each charge, the lithium-ion battery can provide or replenish a total of 300Q-500Q of charge over its lifetime. It can be seen that if charged to 1/2 each time, it can be recharged 600-1000 times; if recharged to 1/3 each time, it can be recharged 900-1500 times. And so on and so forth, with an indeterminate number of charges if they are randomized. In any case, no matter how you charge, the total amount of energy replenished remains constant at 300Q-500Q.
Except there are thousands of EVs out there older than 7 years old that have no problem with their batteries. The whole point of this article is that batteries are lasting much longer than the earlier assumption suggested. Your assumption of 300-500 charge cycles is an example of that. Actual charge cycles are 3-5 times greater. Aside from some problems with early chemistries like the Nissan Leaf battery, battery life is not a problem for long lasting EVs.
The economics of that seems solid to me. If the battery is bad in year 7 it's replaced under warranty.
It's unexpected because batteries are rated based on full charge/discharge cycles.
But in reality it's comparatively very rare for those full cycles to happen. People overwhelming drive <40 miles a day and top off the battery regularly.
I'm not an expert but I've designed stuff with batteries for a long time.
A large battery with proper charge and thermal management will last much longer under light service. Which is exactly what you have with longer range EV's. A battery rated at a 1000 full discharge cycles will probably last 5,000 light duty cycles.
However people are mostly used to batteries in consumer products which utterly abuse cheap batteries to save money.
This has always been true for anyone who knows anything. Batteries rapidly deteriorate from 100%, but the degradation gets slower the more capacity has already been lost.
Even for consumer devices, battery aging and capacity loss is very slow after 70%, and they are exposed to much harsher conditions than EVs (no temp control, daily full cycling, etc).
Very slow degradation after reaching 70% capacity is cold comfort when EV batteries are barely adequate for many people at 100%. EVs typically start with ~300mi range. 70% of that is 210mi. I live in the city, but my parents live ~150mi away from the city along a route that has zero superchargers and only a handful of slow chargers along the way. I couldn't even visit my parents reasonably on a single charge, therefore my next car(s) will be a hybrid. Hybrid sedans can give me the traditional ~600mi range so I can drive from Austin to Ft. Worth and back before filling up a small tank.
Hybrids are great. If they had slightly larger battery range (50ish miles), I'd probably go that route myself. More people should probably be choosing them.
But I think that the situation you are posing: quasi regularly driving a trip that is >100 miles with no ability to charge at all is actually pretty uncommon. And even in your case, since you are driving that far (and visiting family), I assume you are staying overnight. You can get a portable lvl 2 charger for a couple hundred bucks that will plug into a dryer plug and charge your vehicle back to full overnight. (admittedly. this assumes the drive is in ideal conditions and you get the full 210 miles; given where you are going and the apparently lack of infrastructure, if this is mountainous at all, then yeah....very well might not make it)
To me, the issue that actually affects more people is that if you need a family sized vehicle, your options are A) pretty limited and B) almost all >$60,000. For a single person, or a childless couple, EVs are pretty accessible, for families, that's much less true.
There is a ton of infrastructure between Austin and Ft. Worth, it’s almost a contiguous city at this point. And there are no mountains in the vast majority of Texas, it’s very flat. There are a lot of chargers on that route, not sure what OP is talking about.
I totally missed that they had actually specified the route, and was just commenting on a generic one (which is why I guess it might be mountainous, definitely places in the West where you can drive >100 miles without charging infrastructure....just also not many people to visit).
Austin to Ft Worth is not the route to my parents, it’s a separate drive I sometimes need to do. Yes there is good charging along that route, my point was that a hybrid could make that trip without wasting time for charging or filling up.
As someone with two kids, a Model Y or a Mach E are very reasonable vehicles for a family. Both are under $60k.
That's fair. I was basically taking my family's "worst case" scenario (10+ hour drive, 2 kids, 2 dogs, + luggage) and assuming that was typical, when in actuality that's probably as rare a situation as the one I was replying to. We can, just barely, make our current vehicle + roofrack work with 1 kid and 2 dogs when we visit my parents, but since we are planning a second kid, we are looking around for something larger.
For anyone not trying do to both kids + dogs, there are probably a lot more options.
Model Y is very spacious. I can take 2 kids + week worth of glamping gear. I did fit 3 kids in back before, but you'll probably want to get slimmer seats (which are far cheaper than upgrading 3 row car). It's ridiculous how versatile this car is.
The average adult drives roughly 40 miles per day. An EV battery with 25% the original max would still satisfy literally hundreds of millions of Americans for the vast majority of their driving needs.
Temple Buccees has a supercharger, as do many other places. Still, Texas is not a great place for EVs. Everything’s so far apart. Instead of a Hybrid, how about a PHEV or an EV with a range extender? The problem with hybrids is they have all of the complexity of an ICE as their main drivetrain, whereas an EV drivetrain is much simpler, more powerful and more reliable. If you can get a vehicle where the gas / diesel is just there as a power plant for the EV, you get the best of all worlds, plus the gas engine can run at peak efficiency which gives you better fuel economy and if the ICE has issues you can still drive with just the EV part.
We have a Volkswagen e-Up with a max range of maybe 150 miles, we drive it every day with longer trips on the weekends and I literally never even had to charge it outside of home in the few years I owned it.
Not everyone's use case is the same.
Even for consumer devices, battery aging and capacity loss is very slow after 70%,
My laptop, power tools and iphone beg to differ....
Do not charge them to 100% and you'll be sweet. For macOs there's free "Battery" tool on github. Charge your mover 1hr before moving and leave it half full. Power tools are trickiest as they sit full for months and months which is the most damaging. Still can estimate charge time tho.
> This has always been true for anyone who knows anything
Not sure that's true. I have seen comments on HN multiple times over the years claiming batteries die in a few years and were almost never downvoted.
This might not be quite as strong a rebuttal as you were hoping for!
> I have seen comments on HN multiple times over the years claiming batteries die in a few years and were almost never downvoted.
Car batteries - very unlikely. Cheap portable electronics made in China - all the time.
The problem with these comments is that there are at least 10 different battery chemistries, and dozens of potential use cases and duty cycles you can put a battery through.
So yes, some combination of that will make batteries die in a few years. Most won't.
HN downvotes are not signal for truth, just popularity.
This is why I opted for a hybrid Camry over a new Tesla. I kept my previous car for 13yrs and still sold it for $11k.
This was always "expected" by people in the know ever since the Model S came out in 2012 and there was real world data on cars with 100K+ miles.
Didn't stop the oil lobby anti-EV myths from spreading far and wide. And now both political factions hate EVs so expect even more people to continue to think batteries die in a few years.
EV companies wouldn't be warranting the battery degradation for hundreds of thousands of miles and several years if batteries died easily.
> And now both political factions hate EVs
A significant fraction of people have now actually driven them. It's going to be increasingly tough to tell spooky stories about EVs when your neighbor/friend/coworker has been driving one uneventfully for 4 years.
2014 Tesla S, 80k miles, battery still getting me 230 range - not too much drop off.
99% of charges are at supercharger (which is also not supposed to be good for the battery)
We have been cut off from Chinese vehicles right when we need them the most.
After break pads, another good news I see :)
Great, now put them on busses and trams. Cars suck.
How can I get my Nissan Leaf to read this paper? Its range has dropped to 50% of new and a refurbished replacement pack cost 150% the value of the car, which is in otherwise excellent condition. It has only 70k miles.
Leafs don’t have active battery management. As far as I know, they’re basically the only widely available EV in the US with this problem.
Just replace the car, as much as that sucks.
Apparently Honda IMA (NiMH) 1 and 2nd gen not only lacks active thermal management, it also doesnt have any BALANCE management!?!?!
2006-2011 Honda Civic IMA battery repair WITHOUT buying new cells https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGfQchiLtG8
Its almost like Japanese do it on purpose to push BS Hydrogen.
NiMH packs are usually used without balancing, because in principle they should equalize at each full charge. Maybe the charger circuit is too gentle and terminates charging too early with low ΔV when not every cell is fully charged yet.
I think methods used in that video are somewhat dodgy. When dealing with severely unbalanced packs care should be taken when discharging, as unbalanced cells could go below 0V and become damaged by reverse charging. And while cooling them during charging might keep the temperature in check, it probably doesn't completely prevent internal outgassing and pressure buildup. Very long charge at low current would likely be safer option.
Their hydrogen obsession has set the world back decades.
How?
The promotion of hydrogen vehicles by automakers, particularly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, served as an effective delay tactic that slowed the transition away from internal combustion engines. Major oil companies like Shell and BP made splashy announcements about hydrogen investments and fueling infrastructure, yet these remained largely symbolic. Shell's "Hydrogen Network" consisted of just a handful of stations even years after announcements.
Meanwhile, automakers like GM heavily promoted hydrogen initiatives like Project Driveway, generating positive PR while maintaining their core ICE business. These companies knew that the fundamental challenges of hydrogen, including its energy intensive production, lack of infrastructure, and extremely high cost of fuel cells, made it impractical in the near term. Yet they used hydrogen's theoretical promise to argue against investing in more immediately viable technologies like battery electric vehicles.
This created a "vaporware" effect: the industry could claim to be pursuing clean alternatives while avoiding meaningful investment in technologies that could have disrupted their existing business model. The resources and attention diverted to hydrogen could have accelerated battery development and charging infrastructure years earlier. By the time automakers finally embraced EVs in earnest in the late 2010s, they had effectively delayed the transition by 20 years.
what is fascinating about your comment to me is thag the value of your car has dropped precisely because people fear battery issues. my friend had a 2015 Tesla S in pristine condition, just a ridiculous car. replaced the battery so now we have 50k miles new battery like-new Tesla S that he could not sell for more than $30k. wild stuff…
even though most people don’t do it, on more expensive cars it actually makes serious financial sense to replace the battery but on cheaper cars it does not!
Your friend's Tesla did not drop in resale value because of the battery. If anything a new battery would make those who fear battery degradation more willing to buy this used car.
It dropped because Teslas in general have a high maintenance cost associated and a high insurance cost (because insurers also see it as costly to maintain). High maintenance cost tends to sink a car's resale value.
I know the car does not need oil changes or have the possibility of various failure modes an ICE car has, but when it does have an issue, like a dent or a scrape, etc. the cost to repair is much higher.
As of 11/13/2024, Consumer Reports rates Tesla as the lowest maintenance and repair costs over the first 10 years of ownership, not factoring in insurance or collision repair.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/the-cos...
They didn't ask me about my $15k battery replacement that occurred the day after my warranty expired
Doesn't much matter how good the cells are when the wires in the pack just magically corrode
outliers always exist, you were dealt bad hands. I think also if you pushed hard you could have gotten this covered, just needs a whole lot of yelling and if that doesn’t work going social and trying to get some publicity behind it, especially if it was 1 DAY after warranty expired.
I personally thinks it makes financial sense to get extended warranty for things like this, $15k used to be a price of a new car, getting a warranty to cover that past Tesla’s warranty I think makes financial sense.
My wife recently bought pre-owned eTron and I made her get extended warranty after doing research online about maintenance costs on them
Arguing got it down to $7.5k and beyond that I needed a lawyer. I paid it, and kinda regret it, because not only is it a refurbished battery, it's basically useless on a trip/supercharger now as they cap the speed to absurdly low levels. Like 10%/h. Car only had 70k miles on it, too.
I appreciate that you didn't call me a liar, which has been my past experience anytime I mention something negative about that company
I have a colleague at work that had the same experience as you - it was close to 9 months after warranty! For sure this is a thing - can’t believe someone called you a liar! There are other people on various Tesla forums with issues like yours.
Is the supecharger capping a thing? Like for any refurbished battery? I didn’t know about this!!
I'd only seen it mentioned with regards to salvage titled cars before my own experience. They certainly didn't tell/warn me that this would happen. They actually did the opposite (of course), insisting it would be warranted and as-good-as-the-battery-it-replaced. They said I could buy a new one for like $30k....... the car was worth about $20k, assuming it was working, which it wasn't.
It stings. Can't even write it off in my head as supporting the EV movement with how soured that's all become.
But that's not factoring in the exact things I'm talking about: insurance and collision repair, which are both higher on this make
insurance and collision repair works out not much different from other luxury cars. if you think tesla’s repairs are high see about owning a mercedes or audi…
again, even if this was true, you are shitty driver and have to pay premium for tesla insurance, given virtually $0 in maintenance you’d still come out on top
I agree that if you pay $0 in maintenance you come out on top. But since you will have to pay high insurance and potentially high repair costs (and those repair costs get closer the older the car is), the price of the car tanks on the used market.
> insurance and collision repair works out not much different from other luxury cars
No, it does work out differently than other cars of a same retail value, that's very well documented. See my other comment
This is poor documentation... again I'll say if you are a shitty driver you will be paying high insurance and you will be having issues fixing the car and whatnot not matter what the car is. I have been a driver since 1993 and have had one claim where I was at fault (slippery road, rear-ended a car in front of me). my insurance on the Tesla is as cheap as it gets, like $68/month. have several friends that drive Teslas too (mostly 3 and Y) and no one is paying high insurance.
if you know you are going to F sh*t up with the car and have bunch of claims on it and have it at the shop all the time - I agree with you Tesla is not for you. But if you are a good driver insurance and maintenance is not a thing you need to worry about at all...
Did you look at one of the many links I posted at all? They have pretty detailed comparisons of avg insurance cost for various Tesla models vs similarly priced non-EV alternatives.
You also ignored repair costs.
with all due respect every single reason you listed here is 100% wrong… I have had Tesla S 2014 for now over a decade - the cost of “maintenance” exactly $0.00. here’s what my costs have been (I have free supercharging so we can say this has been total cost of ownership)
- new internal battery $220 - new modem when switch to “5G” was made - $250-ish - new tires
that is it. after 80k miles I am still on original brakes cause with regerative braking I seldom-to-never use the brake (as my wife would say if I use a brake on Tesla it is always followed by F-bomb at another driver)
not sure who told you all these things but they are all 100% wrong - no exception
Please read this part of my comment:
> but when it does have an issue, like a dent or a scrape, etc. the cost to repair is much higher.
This is why insurance on Teslas is higher. It is not uncommon for bodywork on Teslas to be far more expensive than on other cars, and since bodywork is the majority of insurance claims, it factors in.
You can read about why insurance and repair costs are higher at many sites:
https://www.compare.com/auto-insurance/vehicles/tesla/why-is...
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-car-insurance
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/30/the-quotes-wer...
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/tesla-insurance
I HAVE a Tesla :) Insurance is fine unless you are a bad driver, just like insurance should be.
I pay roughly 40% less for Tesla vs. my other car which is audi etron. KBB on both comparable.
Even if insurance was higher, the actual cost of ownership/maintenance is practically $0.00 so even if I was paying 25% more in insurance compared to some comporable I’d still choose Tesla every day of the week and twice on sunday
But the original question was about why Tesla prices drop on the used market. It is not about fear of batteries. It is due to real, documented cost increases in other sides: insurance and repair costs.
You having a Tesla doesn't mean all the statistics and articles I posted are false.
the reason prices drop is exactly the battery, not insurance or repair costs.
as most tesla owners will tell you there is no maintenance costs and insurance (if you are not a shitty driver) is not bad at all considering it is a luxury vehicle and repair costs are also not that bad. the real issue is the cost to replace a battery fear of which drives people away from buying used teslas. this is true for other EVs, if I tried to sell you 2018 audi etron your first thought will be “that is a 7-year old battery in that car”, not “ain’t going for it cause of insurance and repairs.”
if tesla offerred lifetime warranty on the battery (or if battery replacement was like <$2k) the used tesla prices would go through the roof
> as most tesla owners will tell you there is no maintenance costs and insurance (if you are not a shitty driver) is not bad at all
Statistically neither of these are true. Average repair costs for collision damage are higher than comparable MSRP vehicles. So is insurance, I already provided many sources for that claim.
Tesla owners can think the sky is purple. That doesn't make it so.
Since the Leaf has a smaller battery, it get's more wear and tear per trip.
It also lacks active thermal management. That's more or less a requirement for long battery life.
THIS. The ARIYA is the first EV they've widely released (last year) with any active thermal management. I live in AZ, and all my friends with Leaf's all have had to have their batteries replaced at least once.
All my Chevy based EV/PHEVs have had great battery life (so far) - knock on wood.
I'm also in AZ. What's surprising to me is I get slightly better range in the summer months.
Probably depends on the climate and use case… early EVs with no thermal management seems to last forever in coastal areas with mild climates, and slow heavy traffic
I think this is the answer. That is also a problem for hybrid powers vehicles, the battery is small and it gets charged and discharged 0-100 / 100-0 very often, if you use the hybrid as intended.
Some manufacturers limit this, but in a few years we will see a lot of hybrids that have batteries that barely work and will not deliver the expected ev only distance by a lot.
A lot of Toyota hybrids (but I believe not PHEVs) use NiMH batteries, which are longer lasting than the Li-ion batteries used in EVs and can withstand more charge cycles.
They last longer because they are treated gently compared to lithium packs in EVs (shallow/frequency cycles, lower charge/discharge rates, etc).
When used in the same duty cycle, most lithium cells/packs should last longer than the same capacity NIMH cells/packs.
They’re used on hybrids because they’re more longer-lasting than Li-ion for the duty cycle hybrids have.
Li-ion is not universally better, but its energy density makes it better for EVs, and economies of scale mean that they’re becoming as cheap or cheaper than NiMH cells even if the hybrid duty cycle will make them degrade faster.
Not only that, those small batteries do cost a disproportionate amount of money to replace.
If you want a real world opinion, check the EVClinic blog…
Nissan probably did more damage to EV image than good. Even then it's NZs most popular used EV.
> a refurbished replacement pack cost 150% the value of the car
When I researched evs, I couldn't make the economics make sense. 7 years for a car lifetime seems outrageous.
Where do you get 7 years? That is not true of most EV. Even the worst ones, like the early Leafs did better than that.
The 7 years thing is from the idea I have heard that after around 7 years the functional life of the battery is effectively over.
> The Li-ion battery typically has a lifespan of 300-500 charge cycles. Suppose a fully discharged lithium-ion battery provides 1Q of charge, and not considering the decrease in charge with each charge, the lithium-ion battery can provide or replenish a total of 300Q-500Q of charge over its lifetime. It can be seen that if charged to 1/2 each time, it can be recharged 600-1000 times; if recharged to 1/3 each time, it can be recharged 900-1500 times. And so on and so forth, with an indeterminate number of charges if they are randomized. In any case, no matter how you charge, the total amount of energy replenished remains constant at 300Q-500Q.
https://cmbatteries.com/comprehensive-understanding-of-lithi...
Except there are thousands of EVs out there older than 7 years old that have no problem with their batteries. The whole point of this article is that batteries are lasting much longer than the earlier assumption suggested. Your assumption of 300-500 charge cycles is an example of that. Actual charge cycles are 3-5 times greater. Aside from some problems with early chemistries like the Nissan Leaf battery, battery life is not a problem for long lasting EVs.
The economics of that seems solid to me. If the battery is bad in year 7 it's replaced under warranty.
It's unexpected because batteries are rated based on full charge/discharge cycles.
But in reality it's comparatively very rare for those full cycles to happen. People overwhelming drive <40 miles a day and top off the battery regularly.
I'm not an expert but I've designed stuff with batteries for a long time.
A large battery with proper charge and thermal management will last much longer under light service. Which is exactly what you have with longer range EV's. A battery rated at a 1000 full discharge cycles will probably last 5,000 light duty cycles.
However people are mostly used to batteries in consumer products which utterly abuse cheap batteries to save money.
This has always been true for anyone who knows anything. Batteries rapidly deteriorate from 100%, but the degradation gets slower the more capacity has already been lost.
Even for consumer devices, battery aging and capacity loss is very slow after 70%, and they are exposed to much harsher conditions than EVs (no temp control, daily full cycling, etc).
Very slow degradation after reaching 70% capacity is cold comfort when EV batteries are barely adequate for many people at 100%. EVs typically start with ~300mi range. 70% of that is 210mi. I live in the city, but my parents live ~150mi away from the city along a route that has zero superchargers and only a handful of slow chargers along the way. I couldn't even visit my parents reasonably on a single charge, therefore my next car(s) will be a hybrid. Hybrid sedans can give me the traditional ~600mi range so I can drive from Austin to Ft. Worth and back before filling up a small tank.
Hybrids are great. If they had slightly larger battery range (50ish miles), I'd probably go that route myself. More people should probably be choosing them.
But I think that the situation you are posing: quasi regularly driving a trip that is >100 miles with no ability to charge at all is actually pretty uncommon. And even in your case, since you are driving that far (and visiting family), I assume you are staying overnight. You can get a portable lvl 2 charger for a couple hundred bucks that will plug into a dryer plug and charge your vehicle back to full overnight. (admittedly. this assumes the drive is in ideal conditions and you get the full 210 miles; given where you are going and the apparently lack of infrastructure, if this is mountainous at all, then yeah....very well might not make it)
To me, the issue that actually affects more people is that if you need a family sized vehicle, your options are A) pretty limited and B) almost all >$60,000. For a single person, or a childless couple, EVs are pretty accessible, for families, that's much less true.
There is a ton of infrastructure between Austin and Ft. Worth, it’s almost a contiguous city at this point. And there are no mountains in the vast majority of Texas, it’s very flat. There are a lot of chargers on that route, not sure what OP is talking about.
I totally missed that they had actually specified the route, and was just commenting on a generic one (which is why I guess it might be mountainous, definitely places in the West where you can drive >100 miles without charging infrastructure....just also not many people to visit).
Austin to Ft Worth is not the route to my parents, it’s a separate drive I sometimes need to do. Yes there is good charging along that route, my point was that a hybrid could make that trip without wasting time for charging or filling up.
As someone with two kids, a Model Y or a Mach E are very reasonable vehicles for a family. Both are under $60k.
That's fair. I was basically taking my family's "worst case" scenario (10+ hour drive, 2 kids, 2 dogs, + luggage) and assuming that was typical, when in actuality that's probably as rare a situation as the one I was replying to. We can, just barely, make our current vehicle + roofrack work with 1 kid and 2 dogs when we visit my parents, but since we are planning a second kid, we are looking around for something larger.
For anyone not trying do to both kids + dogs, there are probably a lot more options.
Model Y is very spacious. I can take 2 kids + week worth of glamping gear. I did fit 3 kids in back before, but you'll probably want to get slimmer seats (which are far cheaper than upgrading 3 row car). It's ridiculous how versatile this car is.
The average adult drives roughly 40 miles per day. An EV battery with 25% the original max would still satisfy literally hundreds of millions of Americans for the vast majority of their driving needs.
Temple Buccees has a supercharger, as do many other places. Still, Texas is not a great place for EVs. Everything’s so far apart. Instead of a Hybrid, how about a PHEV or an EV with a range extender? The problem with hybrids is they have all of the complexity of an ICE as their main drivetrain, whereas an EV drivetrain is much simpler, more powerful and more reliable. If you can get a vehicle where the gas / diesel is just there as a power plant for the EV, you get the best of all worlds, plus the gas engine can run at peak efficiency which gives you better fuel economy and if the ICE has issues you can still drive with just the EV part.
We have a Volkswagen e-Up with a max range of maybe 150 miles, we drive it every day with longer trips on the weekends and I literally never even had to charge it outside of home in the few years I owned it.
Not everyone's use case is the same.
Even for consumer devices, battery aging and capacity loss is very slow after 70%,
My laptop, power tools and iphone beg to differ....
Do not charge them to 100% and you'll be sweet. For macOs there's free "Battery" tool on github. Charge your mover 1hr before moving and leave it half full. Power tools are trickiest as they sit full for months and months which is the most damaging. Still can estimate charge time tho.
> This has always been true for anyone who knows anything
Not sure that's true. I have seen comments on HN multiple times over the years claiming batteries die in a few years and were almost never downvoted.
This might not be quite as strong a rebuttal as you were hoping for!
> I have seen comments on HN multiple times over the years claiming batteries die in a few years and were almost never downvoted.
Car batteries - very unlikely. Cheap portable electronics made in China - all the time.
The problem with these comments is that there are at least 10 different battery chemistries, and dozens of potential use cases and duty cycles you can put a battery through.
So yes, some combination of that will make batteries die in a few years. Most won't.
HN downvotes are not signal for truth, just popularity.
Discussion (33 points, 3 days ago, 14 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42207110
This is why I opted for a hybrid Camry over a new Tesla. I kept my previous car for 13yrs and still sold it for $11k.
This was always "expected" by people in the know ever since the Model S came out in 2012 and there was real world data on cars with 100K+ miles.
Didn't stop the oil lobby anti-EV myths from spreading far and wide. And now both political factions hate EVs so expect even more people to continue to think batteries die in a few years.
EV companies wouldn't be warranting the battery degradation for hundreds of thousands of miles and several years if batteries died easily.
> And now both political factions hate EVs
A significant fraction of people have now actually driven them. It's going to be increasingly tough to tell spooky stories about EVs when your neighbor/friend/coworker has been driving one uneventfully for 4 years.
2014 Tesla S, 80k miles, battery still getting me 230 range - not too much drop off.
99% of charges are at supercharger (which is also not supposed to be good for the battery)
We have been cut off from Chinese vehicles right when we need them the most.
After break pads, another good news I see :)
Great, now put them on busses and trams. Cars suck.