[th2]

What if cars go the way of other electronic items? i.e., with increased "electronification" of the vehicle - software as well as hardware - the average lifespan of an automobile reduces in the future. From 15-20 years today to 8-10 years in the near future. So vehicles get recycled once the battery dies - we don't really replace the batteries.

On the other hand, a very valid case can be made out to actually build vehicles that will last forever. There is no need to scrap 15 year old vehicles - replace batteries and you are set. Though I doubt manufacturers will go down this route. Cars will become a bunch of electronics and software on wheels - and we will be forced to buy new cars. Like most people change their mobile phones every 2-3 years - though the old ones are perfectly fine for basic calling, messaging or browsing.

[Lalvaz]

Batteries are part of the running costs. For a price conscious market like India, where the common sentiment is "Kitna Deti hai", I'm surprised that people even feel that cost of batteries are not material.

Post warranty (8 years), the cost of replacing your battery bank will make your car unviable, so basically one is saying that the car is scrap value in 8 years. How can that even be acceptable to Indians?

I for one would much prefer a fossil fuel car, since it pollutes less, and still remains workable with the same range and still commands some resale value after 8 years.

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

Post warranty (8 years), the cost of replacing your battery bank will make your car unviable, so basically one is saying that the car is scrap value in 8 years. How can that even be acceptable to Indians?

Simply because by the time you have run 100 kms in 8 years, you probably would have recovered a big portion of the cost of the whole car.

I don't think anyone feels the car will be scrap at the end of 8 years. It is likely to be less usable than when new - meaning a 180km range Nexon may give only about 100km range (worst case being discussed here). That would still be decently usable. Which means it will have resale value.

Let's look at it this way. Cars are appreciating year over year as per inflation. An xuv that would have costed 14L in 2013 costs about 28L today. A Nexon EV is about 18L today. So, in about 10 years a new Nexon class car may cost about 36L. Now, imagine a person having a choice of a 400km Nexon for 36L versus a 100km 10 year old Nexon for say 7L. There is always a market for the old cars due to a huge price difference between buying new and used. So I don't think your fears are as bad as you make it out to be.

[Holyghost]

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

Batteries are part of the running costs. For a price conscious market like India, where the common sentiment is "Kitna Deti hai", I'm surprised that people even feel that cost of batteries are not material.

Post warranty (8 years), the cost of replacing your battery bank will make your car unviable, so basically one is saying that the car is scrap value in 8 years. How can that even be acceptable to Indians?

I for one would much prefer a fossil fuel car, since it pollutes less, and still remains workable with the same range and still commands some resale value after 8 years.

Why do you think the car becomes scrap after 8 years? I am still driving an 8 year old E2O with 85% of the original range.

[antz.bin]

Voted No (the 1/3rd minority).

Everyone here has a mobile phone, isn't it? Do you know the battery warranty terms of your cellphone? If not, let me pull it up from the Samsung website.


Do we scrap our phones after this warranty ends? I don't! I use my phones on an average for 2 years at least. And even after that happens, I sell it off for 25-30% of what I bought it for. Thats certainly more than scrap value, and I don't remember buying a spare battery in the past 10 years.

Moving on to cars, the Tesla Model S was launched in 2012. We already have 10 year old Model Ss with data showing that these batteries, built on technology which is now 10 years old can last about 300k+ miles before these needed to be replaced. And this was on an edge case for a car belonging to a Taxi company which was exclusively supercharged.

Early Tesla Model Ss launched with 75 Kwh batteries. That is less than twice the size of the Nexon EV MAX battery. These batteries had a warranty of 8 years and were rated to do 1500 charge cycles. Assuming that a modern Nexon EV Max battery is at least as good as a 10 year old Tesla battery, (what good is it if it can't even do that!) we can make the following calculation.
1500 charge cycles is roughly 1 full charge, 6 days a week (sundays off maybe?), for about 5 years. I doubt anyone drives that much apart from taxis. 1500 charges will take a Nexon EV Max about 4,50,000 km to go through (at an estimated 300km / full charge). Take note that these stats are for batteries manufactured in 2012. The game has moved on since then.

Even if the battery fails at half the above estimate (edge case), I am good with it. I will happily buy a new car/battery (depending on the state of the rest of the car) after it has done 2.25 lakh km. It would have given me back enough savings over a Petrol / Diesel Nexon that I can go ahead and buy a new one from just the savings.

[Lalvaz]

Originally Posted by Holyghost

Why do you think the car becomes scrap after 8 years? I am still driving an 8 year old E2O with 85% of the original range.

Well, I'm happy to know that you still drive an 8 year old E20 with 85% of the original range. However most other E20 owners have not been as lucky with their battery lives. I was toying with buying a used E20 some years ago, and the cost of changing the battery bank was prohibitive. It simply made it unviable. And I think its fair to say that this is the same experience of many other users, hence they tend to scrap the car once the battery goes kaput.

For example: The replacement price of the Tata Nexon EV Battery Pack (31 kWh lithium-ion battery pack) will be around Rs 5.50 lakh to Rs 6.20 lakh in India. Warranty for the battery is 8 years, so if it requires replacement post that, one has to spend 5.5 to 6.2 lacs for replacement. Will people be willing to spend that much money? Won't it wipe out all the so called "fuel savings" over the last 8 years?


Another thing that you probably need to keep in mind is that the newer EV's are going to be using fast chargers much more often than your Reva. Fast chargers are a boon and resolves range anxiety to a large extent. However it also causes batteries to wear out faster due to the excessive heat generated by rapid charging. See link here for more information: https://www.midtronics.com/2021/07/2...ade-over-time/

[IP_Man]

Originally Posted by pedrolourenco

Specially if you are not doing much running daily. But you also have to keep in mind that earlier you were getting 300 Km on a full charge and now you are getting 200 km. The cost of the full charge is same but the range is less so your running cost is increasing

I would differ here. When battery becomes old, charging time also decreases. So technically, less electricity is consumed because charging process is shutdown after battery attains full voltage.

[Lalvaz]

Originally Posted by IP_Man

I would differ here. When battery becomes old, charging time also decreases. So technically, less electricity is consumed because charging process is shutdown after battery attains full voltage.

Er No, that's incorrect. Older batteries, especially Li-ion do not experience decreased charging times as their capacity reduces.

Please check this: https://www.grepow.com/blog/why-does...attery-monday/

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by shancz

Voted Yes.

Low Quality batteries and components :
The biggest concern IMO. While the reputed manufacturers will have a certain quality target to meet but what's stopping the cheap and low quality battery and components to swamp the market and with the quality stuff still steeply priced those would become a hit in no time as the primary reason for people going electric, en masse, is to lower costs in the near future.

Just take a look at how the EV scooter market is doing.

TL;dr
Tesla owners - no problem
Ola car owners - big problems!

We've seen this with all goods. Products sold in first world markets will be supported properly and the warranty terms will be enforced by consumer friendly laws. In fact, the lucky owners of cars with failed batteries will end up with replacement batteries that are better than the original.

In the third world, manufacturers will be able to get away with substandard batteries and even selling lithium bombs without repercussions.

This quality gap will get worse as new battery technologies come into the market. What if EV manufacturers decide to go with cheaper sodium batteries for India, but with proven lithium batteries in the first world? Samsung does it with its smartphones - Exynos for India, but Snapdragon processors for other markets.

A similar situation can be observed with automatic transmission cars. Actually, if we look at automatic cars as an example, they are not all that bad with AMT gearboxes. Those who could afford torque converter automatics are singing praises of automatic cars, the rest, not so much.

In India, we will not be able to generalize about EV batteries. Batteries could last a long time for some lucky EV (car) owners, but it is most likely that EV scooter owners will be stuck with highly unusable vehicles after 800 recharge cycles (provided their scooters do not fail catastrophically before that).

[IP_Man]

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

Er No, that's incorrect. Older batteries, especially Li-ion do not experience decreased charging times as their capacity reduces.

We are discussing about power consumption to charge new v/s old battery.

If you observe the graph bellow, old battery attains full cell voltage quicker than new battery. After that charging current falls to minimum value whereas new battery takes longer time to attain full cell voltage.

[Lalvaz]

Originally Posted by IP_Man

We are discussing about power consumption to charge new v/s old battery.

No, that's not what you said in your earlier post. to quote your words, "I would differ here. When battery becomes old, charging time also decreases."
This statement of yours is factually incorrect.

Originally Posted by IP_Man

If you observe the graph bellow, old battery attains full cell voltage quicker than new battery. After that charging current falls to minimum value whereas new battery takes longer time to attain full cell voltage.

Can you point me to some reference material which shows that the charging current falls to minimum value in an old battery faster than in a new one?

[prasanna_indaje]

My Nexon EV has covered ~7500 kms in 6 months and I have already recovered ~4% of the investment (my calculations show that I used to spend ~12 Rs per km on Figo 1.5 AT which was replaced by Nexon EV). If the car gives me 6 years of trouble free service, I will be able to recover 50% of my investment by savings from fuel cost.

And assuming I will be able to sell the car at 30-40% of the purchase value after 6 years, I am not worried about battery replacement cost.

In worst case scenario, assuming battery will fail immediately after warranty period, I would still have recovered ~64% of the purchase value. Numbers may look even better with time as fuel cost and usage increases. (Energy charges will increase too, hoping not to the extent of fuel )

Not : I hardly use fast charging. Car is slow charged at home, once or twice a week as needed.

[RM Motorsports]

EV Battery replacement costs more than vehicle list price.

[sharathkamath04]

Voted a No.

As Nexon EV owner, I am confident of the vehicle to say a No.

Do we think about engine replacement when we buy a Petrol Car? We only consider smaller parts replacement (after a good usage of 5-7 years).

Similarly, I believe battery replacement will be a replacement of a few faulty cells. Again as already mentioned covered for 8 years which is very much more than any ICE car insured.

[Seeler_Rebeiro]

Here is a link to a post that shows new tests that replicate real life scenarios result in EV batteries may have 40 percent longer life than earlier anticipated.
The main reason for this is the earlier tests were done on a regular rate of charge and discharge which does not replicate real world driving conditions.

https://www.rushlane.com/ev-batterie...-12513901.html