Ev Delay
- Thread starter mbeadnell
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EVs don't make sense to own outright unless you pay cash for one, or you plan to keep it for 10 years and drive it until it's dead...or there are huge subsidies that make them a better choice than an ICE, hybrid, or EREV. With battery and motor tech advancing rapidly, I would much rather give it back and let someone else deal with battery replacement, recycling, etc. Even with an ICE car or hybrid, you can drive well past the tech lifespan of the parts and it's useful for someone as long as it starts and runs. BEVs, no matter how well you care for them, have an expiration date, and when the battery is kaput, the cost to replace it is more than the salvage cost of the car.
I'd also much rather have an EREV for the function I'll use it for. Our BEVs are town cars, not road trippers or overlanders. I want the flexibility to carry my energy in liquid form, in a can or two, so I can have the freedom to go wherever I want when I want and add a hundred miles of range in a couple minutes if I need to.
This is why I’m glad they are making both. What works for one person may not work for another.
It is true there is a LOT of battery anxiety. I am hoping that as the market matures, this will be reduced. Cell prices have dropped like a rock over the last 10 years. Life has improved. As a battery swap market matures with luck this will become more and more of a non-issue. Growing up, we generally put a sub 100k mile life span on vehicles. They were going to need substantial work to keep them going past that in any reliable way. Now we don't bat an eye at vehicles routinely lasting 300k.
Hopefully in 10 years we will be seeing 80% life left in batteries and swaps under 20% (maybe under 10%) of new car value. Plus swaps will hopefully be granting a new benefit - they will improve from the original.
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I really don't want the worse of both worlds with a EREV. Needing to maintain an engine, reduced towing capacity, reduced electrical range. I have trouble believing it would be easier for Scout to start with the EREV. Really 2 major questions. Can Scout sell more BEV's than they can make out of the gate - then there is no real need to delay production of the BEV. If they can not sell them, then going with the Harvester first makes economic sense. Likewise, is there a technological reason to delay BEV production (needing time to get better batteries for instance). I guess there is a third reason, politics. Is a political reversal on credits expected just around the corner? Depending on when production actually starts, I could see waiting for an election.
Hopefully in 10 years we will be seeing 80% life left in batteries and swaps under 20% (maybe under 10%) of new car value. Plus swaps will hopefully be granting a new benefit - they will improve from the original.
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I really don't want the worse of both worlds with a EREV. Needing to maintain an engine, reduced towing capacity, reduced electrical range. I have trouble believing it would be easier for Scout to start with the EREV. Really 2 major questions. Can Scout sell more BEV's than they can make out of the gate - then there is no real need to delay production of the BEV. If they can not sell them, then going with the Harvester first makes economic sense. Likewise, is there a technological reason to delay BEV production (needing time to get better batteries for instance). I guess there is a third reason, politics. Is a political reversal on credits expected just around the corner? Depending on when production actually starts, I could see waiting for an election.
I was with you until waiting for the election. If they are ready to go end of 2027, why would they have an idle factory for a year waiting for an election? Thats the only part I’m not quite seeing, but the rest I’m with you. I started all in on EREV and now am totally onboard with the BEV for all your stated reasons.
And if they did start with the BEV what about some sort of incentive for people to convert to the BEV. Doesn’t even necessarily have to be monetary. Maybe a special edition color that’s only available in the BEV, a BEV launch package that includes some free fun accessories. Something like that.
Well I have good news for you then! EVs have been around for more than 15 years already so there's lots of data available on their longevity. It turns out they last well past "10 years" and the vast majority of 10 year old EVs have well above 80% life left. (https://electricautonomy.ca/ev-supply-chain/batteries/2024-09-18/ev-batteries-longevity-geotab-data/)
I myself bought a used EV that was five years old at the time, it's still going strong with its third owner and is now 14 years old.
Battery swaps aren't really a thing. Owners shouldn't expect to or need to replace EV batteries. For one if the battery does need to be replaced due to defects those will likely appear well within the 8 year/100,000 mile EV battery warranty period. Realistically EV batteries last the life of the vehicle if not longer as the linked article states. Battery replacements aren't really a thing anyone needs to worry about. That's a fossil industry myth that just refuses to die despite the overwhelming evidence that shows it's BS.
Excellent. One less this to worry about. Thanks!!
I can see the midterms next year being a big indicator on where things are headed and that could play a role in SM decision making but at $2B on the factory I just can’t see SM sitting on that and all reality is they are operating in the red right now so I don’t see VWAG wanting that clock ticking any longer than necessary. With BEV being the initial design and being the smaller batch of production I see logic in that starting first to gear up to speed then really start stamping out the EREVs but just my thinking knowing the real estate industry and what I know from my wife’s role in commercial bank lending.
Yeah I agree on the election part. I think as long as people will buy them if they are ready to go in 2027 or early 2028 which I'm sure they will then it won't be an issue. If no one was willing to buy them until after the election that would be another thing but I don't see that happening. I'd be surprised even if there was a change at the election if EV tax credits or anything like that came back in anyways. Although if I buy mine and they come in afterwards I'll be annoyed as that's what happened when I bought my car in 2022 so I missed out on them back then.
This. If you look at costs on ebay, whole EV batteries are incredibly cheap compared with the retail cost of batteries. And it’s because there’s no swap market for them—there’s no demand. They’re so cheap that buying them, pulling all the cells out and rearranging them into 48V, 3 kAh whole-home batteries is almost worth the effort.
Replacement EV batteries are far from plug-and-play, DIY swap em in your garage replacement items. Sure, you can buy cells and packs and maybe an entire unit, but good luck swapping out any of those things in your EV if you need to. This is why full battery replacements are still five-figure costs.
Someday, recycling will be common, design-for-maintainability/serviceability will be table stakes, and the built in ability to upgrade battery or motor tech will be standard, maybe even with aftermarket options. But none of those things are common today - most EV service centers can't do it themselves now, vehicles have to be shipped to specially-configured locations.
When my first Polestar 2 got totaled, the battery pack was undamaged except for the auto main bus cutoff that got triggered - the battery pack was fine. I called COPART to see what they would do with it and they said nothing - it will get junked because there are no recycling or refurbishment centers that could handle it. The car had less than 3,500 miles on it.
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