Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

You can spend $3.5-6k plus labor to replace a leaf’s battery with a reconditioned battery. It can work out to a reasonable investment.

View on HN

So 10k+ in for a 5+ year old car with a “reconditioned” battery that should last another year or two for 100 miles range on a good day? All the early Leafs suffer from short range along with terrible battery degradation. Where’s the value in that against my current paid for ICE car that will last me another 100k plus miles with no range degradation and that can charge to 400 miles in less than 5 minutes?

ICE used cars have similar problems, at least with the used EV I know mostly what I’m getting myself into. ICEs don’t degrade, they just break.

Sure, but they usually don’t cost so much to fix. Most engines don’t catastrophically fail and in the given scenario an ICE car would be a better choice than a used electric with a reconditioned batter.

Labor these days is super pricey. Like parent, they tacked on $6k to install a $4k battery. The same thing is happening in auto shops if you can’t DIY a cheap part repair.

What kind of similar problems are you referring to? A punctured gas tank? That seems fairly obvious to me.

What do you mean by break? Everything at some point breaks. If you do your research to buy a quality and cared for vehicle in the first place, keep it maintained, 300k miles is of minimal cost and effort.

If you compare "your current paid for ICE" to any other vehicle ever made, it's always a bad proposition. No calculation in the world will make it worth it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com