alt Hacker NewsHow are EV's going to get to econobox/shitbox levels when the batteries go bad in less than half the time you mentioned and it costs ~£5000 for a new one?
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Because newer batteries are not degrading as fast due to better thermal and load management. Because newer cars use newer chemistries that are less prone to degradation.
Moreover, just like some cars are good enough for people now, the cars with some degraded batteries will be good enough for some second hand buyers.
This is a conception primarily based around the Nissan Leaf battery, which combined poor BMS, a badly chosen chemistry and no thermal management. (People sometimes claim that the batteryleaftime is because they're passively cooled, but there are other, similarly old EVs, with passively cooled batteries, that have nowhere near the battery degradation that the Nissan EVs had).
I saw a Nissan Note ev around here for £600 - the battery is good for around 24 miles - which exceeds what I'd do in a day on school run, gym run and shopping.
I would need to pay for a home charging point, but that would be a long term investment.
For me that Note would likely do me another 4 years of easy and cheap driving. An ice car of the same price would have more to go wrong and I'd be lucky to get 2 years driving from it. We are getting to the usable 2nd hand market already, and it is only going to get better.