What will wear items be in electric cars once common?

[CharlesInCharge]

The dead battery will kill the value of the car, so that's the first major obstacle.

Labor to "fix" these will be the next, since the learning curve is apparently quite high.

All electrical items. All computer items. Modules, firmware updates, and so forth.

I'll keep my 20 year old cars and trucks, ICE vehicles, thanks. Probably 10,000 mechanics locally and endless parts for all issues as they occur.

 

[mightymousetech]

They're all brushless and I can't quite see that the electronics are going to "wear out."

What has been happening in practice is not so much wear but water and dirt ingress to electronics and latch mechanisms on EVs with front-mounted charge ports. Not only the door latch itself but the motor-powered charge connector latch.

The majority of EVs now use liquid cooled batteries. I think the Hyundai Ioniq EV (the original one) is air cooled.

BMW batteries are cooled using AC refrigerant. There is a network of evaporators inside the battery compartment between the battery packs.

 

[PandaBear]

The dead battery will kill the value of the car, so that's the first major obstacle.

Labor to "fix" these will be the next, since the learning curve is apparently quite high.

All electrical items. All computer items. Modules, firmware updates, and so forth.

I'll keep my 20 year old cars and trucks, ICE vehicles, thanks. Probably 10,000 mechanics locally and endless parts for all issues as they occur.

Let's separate out bad design from bad companies (Nissan, Tesla, BMW) from what can be achieved in theory (Prius):

Yes dead batteries would be the major value killer of the car, so depends on how well the battery is designed it can be expensive or cheap to replace.

Labor wise we already know how much it cost to repair a Prius, and how "reliable" an EV can be if done right (Prius' battery and motor portion). Firmware / modules / etc should last long just like any other car, except the power electronics which in Prius are not dying left and right before the rest of the car is worn out. Heck, some German gas vehicles have ECU worn out because engine oil get wisked up a cable from engine back to the ECU's connector, ruining it and result in a thousand dollar replacement, while Prius have no problem with the electric motor controller and inverters regardless of how many miles they go.

You probably would save more money by switch to a hybrid over 20 years if you drive a lot, and Prius is probably more reliable than the rest of your fleet too (it is the most reliable ICE vehicle in the last 10 years or so). At the moment EVs aren't there yet but hopefully everyone will try to make a Prius like EV in quality, instead of Nissan Leaf like in quality.

 

[Badgerstate]

So things like brake pads, shocks, etc will be the same.

But like instead of fuel injector cleaning, might we need to clean brushes?

Instead of serpentine belts, pinion gears?

I can't image a decent electric motor ever wearing out, and the transmissions/transaxles are pretty simple correct? No torque converter to slip.

What do you think will be the most difficult item(s) to maintain as miles rack up?

Battery packs are one thing, as well as various switches. You probably will still also have to worry about things like radiators and cooling systems for the battery pack.
EVs certainly will be less of a hassle that ICEs are but they definetly arent maintenance-free.

 

[Jake_J]

Yes dead batteries would be the major value killer of the car, so depends on how well the battery is designed it can be expensive or cheap to replace.

There's no such thing as a EV battery that is cheap to replace, they're all very expensive. The cost of keeping the batteries running in the long term will be a huge issue that the EV makers need to address if they want to dominate the market. All batteries regardless of the design self discharge over time and they all gradually lose the ability to hold a charge as well. The batteries in EV's are essentially giant lithium-ion cell phone or laptop batteries. The average car on US roads is 12 years old (and they keep getting older), would you use a iPhone or laptop battery that is 12 years old? Would you even expect a lithium-ion battery to make it to 12 years?

 

[PandaBear]

There's no such thing as a EV battery that is cheap to replace, they're all very expensive. The cost of keeping the batteries running in the long term will be a huge issue that the EV makers need to address if they want to dominate the market. All batteries regardless of the design self discharge over time and they all gradually lose the ability to hold a charge as well. The batteries in EV's are essentially giant lithium-ion cell phone or laptop batteries. The average car on US roads is 12 years old (and they keep getting older), would you use a iPhone or laptop battery that is 12 years old? Would you even expect a lithium-ion battery to make it to 12 years?

I agree to a certain extend except: 1) production scale means batteries in general get cheaper over time, so maybe instead of $400 for the same kwh at new car time, you now can make them for $200 15 years later. 2) used batteries are "good enough" so people may replace a 15 year old batteries with a 5 year old one pulled from a collision salvage. 3) Some cheaper formula with shorter range may come up like LFP that gives you 50% of the range for 50% of the price, that is good enough for your used car but not for a brand new one.

It is hard to say, but look at junkyard today we will see people mix and match used vehicle with various problems and then send them either to 3rd world or back to a lower income neighborhood afterward. I believe EV will follow similar pattern.

 

[64bawagon]

I know my 48v golf cart is worth way more now with the 1 yr old batteries that it has vs the 7 yr old ones I replaced.

 

[Kiwi_ME]

... The batteries in EV's are essentially giant lithium-ion cell phone or laptop batteries. ...

It's not that simplistic. They're derated by the manufacturer to obtain the life requested in the automaker's RFQ to suit an EV application. Instead of operating between 2.50 and 4.20 volts, an EV lithium-ion cell may be restricted to 3.15 to 4.15 volts which allows about 1200 full-charge cycles to be completed down to 80% health instead of the few hundred that a smartphone can manage. If that car has a range of 450 km per full-change cycle you can expect that, without consideration of time-based deterioration you could get a lifetime of 0.9 x 1200 x 450 km = 486,000 km.

 

[wpod]

When I worked on electric forklifts the motor control parts and electronics would wear our of fail.

 

[Jake_J]

It's not that simplistic. They're derated by the manufacturer to obtain the life requested in the automaker's RFQ to suit an EV application. Instead of operating between 2.50 and 4.20 volts, an EV lithium-ion cell may be restricted to 3.15 to 4.15 volts which allows about 1200 full-charge cycles to be completed down to 80% health instead of the few hundred that a smartphone can manage. If that car has a range of 450 km per full-change cycle you can expect that, without consideration of time-based deterioration you could get a lifetime of 0.9 x 1200 x 450 km = 486,000 km.

I understand that the EV companies will use better battery management, derate them for longer life, etc but in the end they use the same Li-on batteries like in a iPhone just on a bigger scale. The 486,000 km life sounds good but expecting people to drive the full 450 km range every charge cycle is just not even possible except in a lab. Ignoring time-based deterioration can't be ignored as it will always happen so that will eat up the range of each drive cycle. Using the full 450 km driving range is also not practical since it is essentially assume that you will manage the equivalent of getting the official MPG number for every single fill in an ICE. And finally EV range drops in the winter and plummets in proper -30C winter conditions so unless you live in a ideal Mediterranean climate that has to be factored in.

 

[boom10ful]

I expect electric water pumps to be a common wear item. Also very $$.

 

[Jake_J]

I agree to a certain extend except: 1) production scale means batteries in general get cheaper over time, so maybe instead of $400 for the same kwh at new car time, you now can make them for $200 15 years later. 2) used batteries are "good enough" so people may replace a 15 year old batteries with a 5 year old one pulled from a collision salvage. 3) Some cheaper formula with shorter range may come up like LFP that gives you 50% of the range for 50% of the price, that is good enough for your used car but not for a brand new one.

It is hard to say, but look at junkyard today we will see people mix and match used vehicle with various problems and then send them either to 3rd world or back to a lower income neighborhood afterward. I believe EV will follow similar pattern.

Even if the price of batteries drops in half an EV battery will still be thousands of dollars, and given the ever increasing cost of the rare earth metals that go into EV Li-ion batteries that just might not be achievable regardless of how much you drive down the manufacturing costs. If you assume that EV sales will keep going up and take over the market in the next decade that will mean there will be few good used batteries to salvage from cars being parted out to keep up with demand for all the EV's on the roads that will need a replacement battery. But the biggest issue is that EV batteries are now built into the chassis of EV's which means they are very labour intensive (expensive) to replace, so if you have a 12 year old EV even if you get a cheap battery the replacement cost might quickly exceed the value of the vehicle.

 

[PandaBear]

Even if the price of batteries drops in half an EV battery will still be thousands of dollars, and given the ever increasing cost of the rare earth metals that go into EV Li-ion batteries that just might not be achievable regardless of how much you drive down the manufacturing costs. If you assume that EV sales will keep going up and take over the market in the next decade that will mean there will be few good used batteries to salvage from cars being parted out to keep up with demand for all the EV's on the roads that will need a replacement battery. But the biggest issue is that EV batteries are now built into the chassis of EV's which means they are very labour intensive (expensive) to replace, so if you have a 12 year old EV even if you get a cheap battery the replacement cost might quickly exceed the value of the vehicle.

Agree with most point except "build into chassis of EV which means they are labor intensive to replace".

This likely means they will be designed to be replaceable. You just cannot make it easy to build but hard to replace if you think warranty will never happen and people will never replace the battery (some law will require manufacturer to pay for dismantling if they are impossible to do). It just means the "car" will not be safe to crash in without the battery there to reinforce the chassis, not "too labor intensive to dismantle".

Also my understanding is as a car age their target audience may not want the same quality battery goes back in. Yes you are correct that Prius old batteries are all gone and new batteries are likely with brand new cells (rebuild is not worth it with old cells), but it also means an old beater / former Lexus (say Panasonic Li-Ion with Boron) for example, may end up swapped in a Corolla battery (say CATL LFP) that has 2/3 of the range, much heavier, slower to charge, and reduces the performance of the car's full potential (with some controller flash or adapter / translator in between).

The key is this will only happen with enough volume. Prius has the volume, many other lesser brands don't, Telsa would likely have the volume, but I'm not sure about Jaguar or Fisker Karma.

 

[Kiwi_ME]

... expecting people to drive the full 450 km range every charge cycle is just not even possible except in a lab.

Sorry, you're not understanding how this works. Every 450 kms driven is equivalent to one full-charge cycle no matter how it's drawn over the battery's capacity. If I drive from 100% to 50% then charge back up to 100% I've used up 1/2 of a full-charge cycle on the battery pack. If I use 10% of the capacity daily as I do, I use up only 1/10 of a full-charge cycle per day. The actual part of the capacity that provides that 10% is not primarily relevant.

Ignoring time-based deterioration can't be ignored as it will always happen so that will eat up the range of each drive cycle.

When I say "ignore" I'm clearly only disclosing that my numbers do not take into account that factor. No one is ignoring the reality of that contribution.

... but in the end they use the same Li-on batteries like in a iPhone just on a bigger scale. ...

But the only reason you're using an iPhone analogy is to suggest that the lifetime is similar. I'm giving you the lifetime numbers for an EV application directly off the LG Energy Solutions cell datasheet. The accuracy of those numbers will be bound by their contract with the EV manufacturer.

 

[SatinSilver]

Wiper blades.

 

[JavierH19]

Sanity

 

[Accent Abuser]

Tesla's have a 8 year -150,000 mile warranty. Anybody who can afford one isn't going to keep it that long. I don't keep my ICE vehicles that long.....

Would not work for me, I expect 300k+ out of my cars. This is my main concern with EVs, an internal combustion engine will run a very, very long time so long as the oil is changed and kept full, Li ion batteries, while much better than in the past, wear out fairly quickly.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Would not work for me, I expect 300k+ out of my cars. This is my main concern with EVs, an internal combustion engine will run a very, very long time so long as the oil is changed and kept full, Li ion batteries, while much better than in the past, wear out fairly quickly.

Curious... Of all the cars you have owned in the past 40 years, or whatever, how many lasted 300K ? And how long did it take you to put that much mileage on?
I am curious, because I have seen very few vehicles with much over, say 240K.

I believe the average car usable lifetime is thought to be 12 years or 200K.
Regardless, well done!

 

[mightymousetech]

Would not work for me, I expect 300k+ out of my cars. This is my main concern with EVs, an internal combustion engine will run a very, very long time so long as the oil is changed and kept full, Li ion batteries, while much better than in the past, wear out fairly quickly.

1.5 million km with basically one battery replacement, under warranty. And still going.

This Tesla Model S P85 Just Surpassed 1,500,000 Kilometers

On January 6, 2022, a Tesla Model S P85 (the oldest performance version) reached an impressive mileage milestone of 1,500,000 km (932,256 miles).

insideevs.com

 

[CKN]

There's no such thing as a EV battery that is cheap to replace, they're all very expensive. The cost of keeping the batteries running in the long term will be a huge issue that the EV makers need to address if they want to dominate the market. All batteries regardless of the design self discharge over time and they all gradually lose the ability to hold a charge as well. The batteries in EV's are essentially giant lithium-ion cell phone or laptop batteries. The average car on US roads is 12 years old (and they keep getting older), would you use a iPhone or laptop battery that is 12 years old? Would you even expect a lithium-ion battery to make it to 12 years?

There is at least one manufacturer that's talking about battery leasing. That would taker care of log term concerns. After a certain period of time-they would swap batteries-start lease over again.