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Comment by checktheorder | Hacker News Reader

>You're missing the point: There's basically a point sometime in the 2020s when an electric vehicle becomes cheaper than a gas car. We just don't know that date yet.

I think a case could be made for us already being at that point, if the total lifetime cost of car ownership is factored in. ICE vehicles are obscenely mechanically complex. That complexity inevitably leads to lots of repair bills over an ICE vehicle's lifetime.

Contrast that with the average electric car, which doesn't even have a multispeed transmission, just a single-speed step-down. About the most complex mechanical systems in an electric are differentials and shocks. I'm sure someone will pitch in here with a horror story about a high repair bill on an electric, but I'd suggest that's because economies of scale on electrics' parts haven't ramped up yet, and there isn't a large corps of electric-experienced mechanics.

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> if the total lifetime cost of car ownership is factored in

EVs lose out here because of battery degradation. You can quite happily buy a 10 year old ICE car and get good reliability at a good price. Trying to do the same with an EV just gets you a car with a worn out battery and low range.

The batteries for EVs need to get cheaper and more durable for the second-hand EV car market to be competitive with the second-hand ICE car market.

>> EVs lose out here because of battery degradation. You can quite happily buy a 10 year old ICE car and get good reliability at a good price. Trying to do the same with an EV just gets you a car with a worn out battery and low range.

Can you back this up with actual data? Because this is simply not true:

https://www.tesloop.com/blog/2018/7/16/tesloops-tesla-model-...

TESLOOP’S TESLA MODEL S SURPASSES 400,000 MILES (643,737 KM)

"Battery degradation over the course of the first 194,000 miles was ~6% with multiple supercharges a day to 95-100%, instead of the recommended 90-95%. Between 194,000 and 324,000 miles Tesloop experienced battery degradation of ~22% (see below for details)."

What's important to note is that the vehicle was mainly charged using dc fast chargers (often multiple times a day). Had this not been the case, degradation would have been even lower.

Additional data: https://www.tesloop.com/blog/2019/2/6/tesloops-high-mileage-...

The years aren't on it yet. Batteries degrade with use and with time. That car is only 3 years old.

Tesla warrants their batteries at 70% capacity for 8 years for the Model 3. The Model S and X have an 8 year warranty with no capacity guarantee:

https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty

So that's about what you should expect from a Tesla battery.

The time factor has already been solved by the battery management system (BMS) as it keeps the pack at an ideal temperature to vastly prolong the life. Battery chemistry will not change much over time as long as it does not get too hot/cold.

In addition, current data indicates that for the first 50,000 miles (100,000 km), most Tesla battery packs will lose about 5% of their capacity, but after the 50,000-mile mark, the capacity levels off and it looks like it could be difficult to make a pack degrade by another 5%.

There's a ton of data and anecdotes on this subject at the https://teslamotorsclub.com forums.

Everyone's got anecdotes. Here's one.

3% degradation after 35k KMs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avGUGFrLrVc

Then 8% degradation 1 year later at 100k KMs and the car now has a reduced rate of charge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loulJ3ResDg

So why would I buy a 10 year old Tesla? If it requires a new battery I'd be better off just buying a different or newer car.

>EVs lose out here because of battery degradation.

You're absolutely correct. That's why every Tesla with over 100,00 miles on it has been sent to the junkyard because it no longer takes a charge.

Oh, and one consequence of rapidly falling battery prices is that if at some point your battery capacity eventually does get too low, you can buy a replacement at a small fraction of what the original cost.

> you can buy a replacement at a small fraction of what the original cost.

For how much? If your future cheap battery costs $100 per kilowatt hour at the pack level, you're spending $8,000 for an 80 kilowatt hour battery. That's a large small fraction.

Ten years from now it will probably be more like 25$ per kilowatt hour. And don't forget that any capacity the old pack has means it can be sold for grid storage. But even if it is higher, you still will have saved a lot more in total operating cost.

An that is the basic point the OP was making. EV's are already a better deal, it's just that they are new and so most people don't realize it.

And one more point. Once the swing to EV's starts to happen in a few years, then the resale value of ICE's is going to plummet, and you would lose a lot more that way if you bought one than you would pay for a replacement battery.

> Ten years from now it will probably be more like 25$ per kilowatt hour.

You've fallen victim to wishful thinking. Show me even one projection at that price point.

> then the resale value of ICE's is going to plummet

Which makes it a buyer's market which is even more reason to buy a secondhand ICE vehicle over a secondhand EV.

>You've fallen victim to wishful thinking. Show me even one projection at that price point.

Battery prices have been falling rapidly. They went down 35% in the last year alone. This is partly due to improved technology and partly to increasing economies of scale. Those two trends are predicted to continue.

>Which makes it a buyer's market which is even more reason to buy a secondhand ICE vehicle over a secondhand EV.

The problem is that if ICE resale prices drop, then the effective price of buying an ICE new goes up, which steer people toward buying an EV instead. EV prices are predicted to reach sticker price parity with ICE's around 2024. And their total lifetime ownership costs are already lower. When that happens then ICE sales are going to drop rapidly and be replaced by ICE's.

Remember, the original article is about GM and VW giving up on hybrids and switching to battery EV's. They are doing this because they are aware of what is going to happen and realize they will go bankrupt if they don't switch as fast as possible (and they make their money selling new cars, so people buying used ICE's is not going to save them).

> Battery prices have been falling rapidly.

Show me a single projection that claims $25 a kwh at the pack level in 10 years.

Indeed.

Most of the longer term maintenance costs of Model S's seem to be down to luxury components that aren't necessary (like air suspension, funky door handles, big touchscreen).

An EV Civic could well be bulletproof.

You're right for total cost of ownership. But in a few years sticker price will be equal, and then the market is going to swing to EV's.

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