Most out-of-warranty service isn't done at dealers, because they tend to massively overcharge compared with independent garages. Most out-of-warranty repairs are done with parts salvaged from wrecked vehicles, i.e. they are factory parts.
Repair for $4k + labor or replace for $9k. Still not a write off.
Ok, so what does it take to replace a battery on a popular non-Tesla EV? Please cite full costs (battery + labor) vs. market value of the vehicle on warranty + 1 day.
Nissan Leaf batteries can be obtained for $4,000 to $14,500, depending on capacity. I assume that is plus installation, but not certain. That's considerably less than what the resale value would be after the repair, so not a write-off.
The number of EVs written off because of battery repair costs should be within the margin of error of being zero,
This is not the case. There are case of 1 year old EVs getting written off.
Okay, sure, in Canada, where the number of EVs is already low and access to used parts is almost nonexistent, someone scrapped a single copy of an extremely unpopular toy EV with a tiny battery that sold only 22,000 units in total that model year worldwide.
That's not an EV problem. It's an ultra-rare car problem. Rare ICE cars have the same problem.
FWIW, when you can actually get them, used batteries for that model of car cost only about $4k. But you'll probably spend another $2,000 on shipping it by boat from Europe, because there are more people living in my immediate neighborhood plus the one across the street than there are 2017 Ioniq EVs in all of North America.
So let me restate that. There are no *popular* EVs that are getting scrapped because of the cost of battery replacement. After all, you could make that battery from scratch today for about $3,000, give or take, if somebody actually cared to do so. But they don't, because there's no market for it. You could also replace all the cells in that battery for under $3k, not including the labor. So a $50k estimate falls into "don't make me laugh" territory. It's a ludicrously inflated price, probably because they don't actually have any of the batteries left, and would have to spin up a production line just to build more.
In a World where electrical tape and black markers don't exist
More to the point, a permanent alteration seems dumb, especially if you ever want a working light or want to resell them.
...but Fox said that California is bad! How many of the Fortune 500 companies now in Texas actually started in California and then moved to Texas and still have a substantial California presence? The game is called talent, and talent doesn't want to move to Texas, especially female talent.
I imagine they (are told to) say that because Texas gives preference to corporations over its citizens while California doesn't, but that's just a guess. For example, Public School Rankings by State 2026 has CA at #8 and TX at #34 - surprisingly, the latter is lower than FL at #24. (New York is highest at #1, btw.)
except for maybe two specific use cases.
Something like 5 minutes refill when in a hurry and being able to carry a can of gas to your stranded car?
These are not use cases. These are driver incompetence.
First, modern EVs typically have support for telling you how much range you have left at your current speed, and telling you whether you need to slow down to reach a supercharger without running out of juice. The number of times I've had range anxiety in almost a decade of driving my Model X is in the single digits, and I've never run out.
Second, most people charge their EVs overnight, which means you aren't ever waiting for for the vehicle to charge. Or they charge at work while they are working. Five minutes for a refill is an eternity compared with the roughly zero minutes that the average EV user spends.
No, the problematic use cases are:
For approximately every other use case, EVs are better hands down.
Catastrophic depreciation is one of the key reasons EV total cost of ownership is so high. This depreciation is so high for multiple, largely unsolvable reasons, key being that EV battery problems usually means write-off for the entire EV due to OEM battery costs
WTF are you talking about? People replace EV batteries all the time. They also rebuild packs by swapping out modules. There are companies that specialize in doing so, and have a high rate of success. They charge single-digit thousands of dollars to rebuild a Tesla battery, depending on how many modules have to be replaced and other factors.
The number of EVs written off because of battery repair costs should be within the margin of error of being zero, because there are no used EVs that are worth less than $10k at this point. Even the cheapest, low-end EVs with a tiny battery are worth that much.
And if the number isn't zero, it is likely because some cars have such an undersized battery pack that nobody would want the car even with a refurbished pack, and therefore it isn't worth the effort to do so. While this might be a good reason not to buy short-range EVs (under 200 miles of range), it isn't a reason to avoid EVs in general.
Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them.
