We should probably try to have a productive EV thread.

In reply to Tom Suddard :

That's fairly reasonable but it takes 16 of them to build a Model S battery pack. Call it $8500. That's not that good of a bargain for a used battery which is only as good as its weakest cell.  

I agree it will end up being cheaper than I probably think but electronic parts have always been the more expensive and fragile parts of most cars. It will be interesting to see how things develop through the years. The disposable nature of new stuff doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. I see disposable cars on the horizon, much like the Chevette and Yugo. 

Right, but it's very rare for more than one or two modules to fail--whole batteries are available around $4000 based on a few minutes of searching.

Boost_Crazy said:

I'm also curious about how used EV's will be treated in the future. I think it depends on how much they advance. If there is not a battery breakthrough and future EV's are only incrementally better, I'd expect older ones to hold their value longer. If there are significant advancements,  I'd expect it to be somewhat  like we treat all electronics- the value and support will drop as older tech becomes obsolete. 
 

I've thought about the air cooled 911 thread as compared to EV's. I predict that once transitioned to EV's, the practice of older cars (older EV's) becoming more valuable and sought after will end. New cars will just be better than old cars in every way, and EV's will be disposable once they have reached a certain age. But who knows, maybe some nostalgic early adopters will miss the thrill of trying to get home with their charge near zero and pay $50k for a gen 1 Leaf. 

What you're describing really isn't all that different for EV's than it has traditionally been for ICE's. The only ICE's that have traditionally gained significant inflation adjusted value over time, are the 'special' ones. You can still buy a Dodge Aries without breaking the bank. If you want a more equivalent EV basis of comparison to air-cooled 911's, look at Tesla Roadster values.

In all honesty all any of us are doing are running the numbers for ourselves with what is available and making the best decision we can. We won't know if any of our decisions were "right" for another decade. So while we can post away and up our counts we aren't settling anything. The best we can do is provide ACCURATE and REAL information to each other to help us make the best choices we can.  Posting bad and misleading information is only going to hurt everyone.

In reply to Driven5 :

What you're describing really isn't all that different for EV's than it has traditionally been for ICE's. The only ICE's that have traditionally gained significant inflation adjusted value over time, are the 'special' ones. You can still buy a Dodge Aries without breaking the bank. If you want a more equivalent EV basis of comparison to air-cooled 911's, look at Tesla Roadster values.
 

I'm not just talking about big money cars, but cars in general. Maybe the 911 wasn't the best example, but it was what made me think. Besides, not long ago 911's were just cool old cars that were affordable, before people realized that they will never make them like that again. Nobody wants an Aries now, but nobody wanted them when they were new either. There are plenty of other desirable cars that are going up in value now. I don't see that happening with say, a 2012 Tesla Model S. A newer comparable EV would do everything better without giving anything up.  No one is going to say "I prefer the light weight feel of the 2012 Model S. The sounds, the smells, the feel of the drivetrain." 
 

Edit: I'm not really talking about money either, it's just a good indicator of desirability. We keep old cars going despite not being the most financially prudent choice, because we like them. While very few cars ever become valuable, most desirable cars hit the bottom of the depreciation curve and trend back up. I don't see that happening with EV's. 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

That's good news. I'm hoping the costs continue to come down. It will make buying a used vehicle a lot easier. 

Well, if looks are all that count, when I can afford a SUV, they will be dirt cheap. 

The worries about battery packs being trash on ten-year old used EVs makes me think of how engines and transmissions weren't expected to last more than 100k miles not that long ago. People like us still buy these "old, worn out" cars and put new drivetrains in without complaint. I see the same thing happening with EVs. Honestly, what's the difference between a battery and a new motor+transmission for making a car go?

Costs will come down as the technology progresses, just like it did with ICE cars. In my opinion, we're just living through a very accelerated development period. Like how cars got dramatically better from the Malaise Era to now, except in like a third of the time. 

thatsnowinnebago said:

 Honestly, what's the difference between a battery and a new motor+transmission for making a car go?

The difference for this group is that we can buy the parts cheaply to rebuild the motor and transmission.

In the case of EVs the parts bill is higher than the parts bill for an ICE.

In reply to Tom1200 :

For now. Aftermarket parts and rebuilders haven't caught up and begun operations that have the economy of scale to bring prices down. The comparison to buying a replacement engine is fairly valid. Buy from a dealer and it's going to be very expensive, get a jasper or wherever rebuild is likely the way to go. And yes, we are a group that might rebuild our own and there are barriers to going past module replacement and a whole lot of safety to learn along the way. 

Things will get developed in time, with demand there will be competition driving the price down. 

One thing to note, at least one OEM incorporates a pyrotechnic fuse within their battery pack that gets triggered any time an airbag is deployed. This would require dropping the battery and removing the sealed lid to replace (currently a dealer only operation in the industry).

In reply to Apexcarver :

I'm sure the prices will come down and some clever folks will figure out more economical ways of repairing them. I still expect GRM type folks to be able to rebuild ICE drivetrains much cheaper for quite some time.

Yeah, I was trying to emphasize the "for now" situation of replacement part prices. EVs don't yet have the decades of parts availability that our ICE cars are blessed with. We're basically in the 50s hot rod era of EVs right now where nothing is really established so folks have to try harder to do stuff. 

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Apexcarver :

I'm sure the prices will come down and some clever folks will figure out more economical ways of repairing them. I still expect GRM type folks to be able to rebuild ICE drivetrains much cheaper for quite some time.

For sure. The same thing applies to rebuilding a Chevy 350 vs whatever turbocharged hybrid thing is in the new Toyota trucks and SUVs. 

Boost_Crazy said:

No one is going to say "I prefer the light weight feel of the 2012 Model S. The sounds, the smells, the feel of the drivetrain." 

No one is going to say that about EV's, because those are the imperfections relative to the newer equivalents that give older ICE cars their relative character and nostalgia. EV's will have their own entirely different imperfections relative to the newer equivalents that will give them their own separate character and nostalgia that can only be identified retrospectively. Perhaps it'll be more like: "I prefer the direct control from the 2012 Model S. The sound of an old fashioned single motor, the sight of being able to exceed the autonomous speed limits, and the feel of being allowed to manually control something so massive yourself through an actual wheel and pedals." 

Nostalgia always has been, and always will be, a largely generational dependent construct. I have zero nostalgia for points ignitions and carburetors, let alone crank starters. I foresee future generations feeling the same about ICE cars in general. But I see no reason to expect that they won't be nostalgic for the desirable EV cars from their youth.

The reason today's EV's might not trend up much in the future is because there are few EV's still that aren't generic appliances or luxury cars. With the exception of the truly 'special' versions of luxury cars, neither is a category that historically trends up very strongly in ICE either. What does a 20 year old 7-Series, a 30 year old 7-Series, and a 40 year old 7-Series have in common? The price.

Speaking of price: Using the 2012 Model S example, look at the current price of the T-bag and then look at the current price for any of it's direct market/price competitors from 2012. I'd say EV's are proving capable of doing just fine from a 10+ year old car desirability standpoint. The leaf is the K-car of EV's, and resales accordingly.

In reply to Driven5 :

Uh oh.......I am now officially a crumudgeon; I don't see the younger generation being nostalgic about EVs based on the reaction I get when I bring the race car to school events.

In reply to Tom1200 :

The number of people that get excited now over a beige 90's Camry would say maybe there's a chance.  People like what they can relate to.  

In reply to Tom1200 :

There's an ass for every seat.

I think time will catch up and there will be some EV's that people get into the programming and mechanicals and make faster. We are in the infancy of EV modding and at a point where even the racing orgs are afraid of figuring out how to do modifications safely. Its not to say that it wont get figured out. 

We already see some "pull  tesla parts and put it in an old car" modding going on, so I think there will at least be some popular for junkyard diving.   It reminds me of the early days of hotrodding. 

I mean, this is 4 years ago...  

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

I have never not had an engine not go 200+k miles and I've put close to half a million on several. Very few transmissions haven't made it to 200k. Engines wearing out at 100k was a thing in the 50s and maybe into the 60s but that was 60-70 years ago. Anything still on the road today will go 200k-400k if you do any kind of maintenance to them. 

In reply to Toyman! :

I've never had an engine failure, all my cars have come close to 300k before rust or collisions took them out. 

Has there been any success in cracking the Tesla ECUs? I know they don't like people playing with their systems. Cracking their code may be the future of hot rods. 

Is anyone working to build an aftermarket controller for OEM motors or is that even possible? 

Maybe what we need is HP Tuners for EVs. 

Toyman! said:

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

I have never not had an engine not go 200+k miles and I've put close to half a million on several. Very few transmissions haven't made it to 200k. Engines wearing out at 100k was a thing in the 50s and maybe into the 60s but that was 60-70 years ago. Anything still on the road today will go 200k-400k if you do any kind of maintenance to them. 

 

and some don't even require that. The old SOHC Alpha was a beast. Wife ran that car for 2 weeks with 1/2 to 3/4 of a qt of oil, driving 75 miles a day. Only remembered to ask me about genie light that flickers on hard corners (she learned that 90hp merging required maintaining higher speed through the onramps) one night. Sold that car at 250k and saw it 18 months later still on the road. 

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Driven5 :

Uh oh.......I am now officially a crumudgeon; I don't see the younger generation being nostalgic about EVs based on the reaction I get when I bring the race car to school events.

 

I'm not sure I'd have a big reaction to your race car either and I'm 34. It depends on what they like. For me, if you brought a clk gtr or mazda 787b I'd geek lol. The younger folks are going to like what was cool during their childhood/teen years. 

We usually drew a pretty good crowd with the Abomination at school day and at autocross. The kids loved it. 

Ev battery costs are decreasing drastically at the same time as the vehicle energy usage efficiency is increasing drastically.

The tipping point is supposed to be $150/kwh at which point it costs the same to build an EV as it does to build an ICE vehicle.

The lifecycle of the Teslas and Leafs (The only things on the road long enough to be an objective measure) is in the 300k mile range.  At which point the replacement costs are comparable to an ICE motor.

In reply to 84FSP :

Where are you finding the 300k number? I can't find any hard data for numbers beyond a few standouts.

Lots of should last, and will last, but those are from places that fairly obviously have skin in the EV game and the same people saying ICE cars only last 100k and 5-8 years. 

Here is a graph with some actual battery cost numbers. It's fairly common to see prices come down as the economy of scale kicks in. There is some talk and indication that prices are on the rise due to shortages. There is a battery plant coming to Charleston SC soon. As production comes on line prices should settle again.