EV Discussion thread

1961Nick

JKenH said:

Study Finds Just 2.5% Of EVs Have Had Their Battery Replaced

Recurrent Auto has looked at over 20,000 EVs and found that, on average, just 2.5% of vehicles had their batteries replaced. This is highly dependent on the year of manufacturing, and, unsurprisingly, the older the EV, the more likely it is to need a new battery. An older Recurrent study said 1.5% of EVs had their batteries replaced.

The new study found that battery replacement rates for EVs built before 2015 are as high as 13%, but for vehicles from 2016 or newer, they drop to 1% or less. The oldest EVs included in the study were from 2011, and about one in three needed a new battery, but this was due to several factors, not just their age.

https://insideevs.com/news/720398/study-battery-replacement-rates-evs/

TBH, I was quite surprised at the level of batteries that have been replaced. One would expect the overall % of batteries that have been replaced to be low given that the vast majority of EVs have only been put on the road in the last 3 years but the % needing new batteries is (according to the Recurrent surveys) increasing just when one might have expected it to decrease as the average age of the fleet is reducing.  Is it significant that over 3% of 2020 EVs have had their batteries replaced? (Numbers in previous years were higher but these were down to battery recalls.)

InsideEVs warn: 

“If you own an EV and plan to keep it for a long time, you have to prepare for the moment when you'll have to swap its battery pack for a new one when it loses capacity below a point when it becomes impractical.”

Fortunately for owners the now typical 8-10 year battery & drivetrain warranty will cover the cost of most of those replacement. I guess there will also be a few that are paid for by insurance following an accident. To gain any meaningful information from the overall figure you'd really have to break the figure down by manufacturer & possibly model/battery. I'd guess that the figure is initially high due to the 24kWh Leaf & latterly it's skewed by problems with LG Chem packs fitted to the iPace & VAG group vehicles - particularly the Taycan.

JKenH

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

Study Finds Just 2.5% Of EVs Have Had Their Battery Replaced

Recurrent Auto has looked at over 20,000 EVs and found that, on average, just 2.5% of vehicles had their batteries replaced. This is highly dependent on the year of manufacturing, and, unsurprisingly, the older the EV, the more likely it is to need a new battery. An older Recurrent study said 1.5% of EVs had their batteries replaced.

The new study found that battery replacement rates for EVs built before 2015 are as high as 13%, but for vehicles from 2016 or newer, they drop to 1% or less. The oldest EVs included in the study were from 2011, and about one in three needed a new battery, but this was due to several factors, not just their age.

https://insideevs.com/news/720398/study-battery-replacement-rates-evs/

TBH, I was quite surprised at the level of batteries that have been replaced. One would expect the overall % of batteries that have been replaced to be low given that the vast majority of EVs have only been put on the road in the last 3 years but the % needing new batteries is (according to the Recurrent surveys) increasing just when one might have expected it to decrease as the average age of the fleet is reducing.  Is it significant that over 3% of 2020 EVs have had their batteries replaced? (Numbers in previous years were higher but these were down to battery recalls.)

InsideEVs warn: 

“If you own an EV and plan to keep it for a long time, you have to prepare for the moment when you'll have to swap its battery pack for a new one when it loses capacity below a point when it becomes impractical.”

Except that's not what the study shows. It's the opposite.

https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last

The study is of the Recurrent uses, which is skewed to older models. Using it as a fleet average is misuse of the data.

In response to your edit added after my earlier reply, Recurrent say the opposite:

 However, it is important to note that the cars in the Recurrent fleet may skew newer than the average age of cars on the road. 

JKenH

This could prove a boost to brands like Tesla, providing FSD can adapt to driving on the left.

Self-driving cars could be on UK roads within two years as Bill becomes law

Britain’s roads could be seeing self-driving cars within two years a Cabinet minister has claimed, as a Bill outlining the legal framework for autonomous vehicles became law.

The Automated Vehicles Bill received royal assent on Monday (May 20), and it applies across the country. It’s the ‘most comprehensive legal framework of its kind worldwide’, said the Department for Transport (DfT).

It means drivers will not be held responsible for the action of a vehicle in self-driving mode, with businesses such as insurers, manufacturers and software developers liable when something goes wrong.

https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/self-driving-cars-could-be-on-uk-roads-within-two-years-as-bill-becomes-law/302157

JKenH

Electric vehicle acceleration poses 'risk and cost issues' for fleets

Greater rates of acceleration for electric vehicles (EVs), compared to their internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts, is creating potential fleet risk management and cost issues, FleetCheck is warning.

However, Golding says that, with the market now producing rapid EV hot hatches, providing a very high level of performance at relatively accessible prices, they raise a fundamental question of whether they should be added to fleet choice lists.

“However, there is a fundamental question to be asked about whether anyone driving on company business needs access to this kind of speed? Should they be added to company choice lists at all?”

From FleetCheck’s perspective, the answer would be no and Golding says it is difficult to envisage a serious and informed risk management conversation that concludes otherwise. However, he says this does seem like a conversation that the fleet sector needs to be having.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/electric-vehicle-acceleration-poses-risk-and-cost-issues-for-fleets

JKenH

Lots of caveats but indications are that pedestrians, particularly in urban areas where there is more background noise, are more likely to be involved in collisions with EVs/hybrids than pure ICE cars. I imagine this will prompt a call for EVs to be made more noisy. Personally, while I can usually distinguish between an EV or hybrid in electric mode and a petrol or diesel car, I find that at low speeds tyre noise is more noticeable than engine noise. 

Pedestrians may be twice as likely to be hit by electric/hybrid cars as petrol/diesel ones

Based on these data, the researchers calculate that between 2013 and 2017, the average annual casualty rates of pedestrians per 100 million miles of road travel were 5.16 for electric and hybrid vehicles and 2.40 for petrol and diesel vehicles.

This indicates that collisions with pedestrians were, on average, twice as likely with electric and hybrid vehicles as they were with petrol and diesel vehicles, and 3 times as likely in urban areas than in rural areas, say the researchers.

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/pedestrians-may-be-twice-as-likely-to-be-hit-by-electric-hybrid-cars-as-petrol-diesel-ones/

michaels

For some reason I can't quote

Ice fires are a known quantity because we have seen loads of them for many years.

We know less about EV fires as they are less frequent and EVs are 'new'. 

There is some evidence they are harder to contain (perhaps due to a lack of experience?)  Precautionary principle is that we consider what the risks of a harder to control fire might be and err on the side of caution until there is more certainty/data.

[We run a v2h charger in our integral garage.  There is not nearly enough experience of this tech to categorically say it is safe.  I take the risk as that is part of learning and because our garage had to pass certain fire regulations when it was built, pls the fact that Nissan leaf batteries (by what little data is available) are extremely unlikely to catch fire.  However thinking about it I should probably install a fire alarm in the garage linked to the other ones in the house rather than just rely on the one directly outside the garage internal door.  If there were a garage fire I don't know if it being an EV fire rather than an ICE fire might make it harder for the fire service to deal with?]

JKenH

I was listening this episode of Fully Charged https://youtu.be/mVGuRPSKb3U?si=0xx6qIt2N_mvAu1Z and was struck by the paranoia exhibited by the presenter formerly known as Kryton. Currently in his sights is the BBC (approx 1:50 into the video)

 “I will say this here and now, the BBC News editorial unit, it’s a very specific group of people and a very small group of people, is on a mission to bolster and maintain the fossil fuel industry’s dominance in the world and I don’t know why”.

Do others see it this way? The BBC has never struck me as a champion of the fossil fuel industry - rather the Beeb has always seemed to me to be keen to push the message of climate change and the need to act to limit its effects. That however may just be my perception.

Edit: perhaps this is the BBC story that has upset Kryton

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-69022771

JKenH

EV scrappage rates far lower than feared, finds Cap HPI

Contrary to industry fears, there is no evidence that electric cars are being scrapped at a higher rate than ICE vehicles due to significantly higher repair costs, according to data experts Cap HPI.

In fact, petrol and diesel cars are being written off and scrapped by insurers at double the rate of electric vehicles (EVs),

https://www.am-online.com/news/evs-scrappages-rates-far-lower-than-expected-finds-cap-hpi

shinytop

JKenH said:

I was listening this episode of Fully Charged https://youtu.be/mVGuRPSKb3U?si=0xx6qIt2N_mvAu1Z and was struck by the paranoia exhibited by the presenter formerly known as Kryton. Currently in his sights is the BBC (approx 1:50 into the video)

 “I will say this here and now, the BBC News editorial unit, it’s a very specific group of people and a very small group of people, is on a mission to bolster and maintain the fossil fuel industry’s dominance in the world and I don’t know why”.

Do others see it this way? The BBC has never struck me as a champion of the fossil fuel industry - rather the Beeb has always seemed to me to be keen to push the message of climate change and the need to act to limit its effects. That however may just be my perception.

Edit: perhaps this is the BBC story that has upset Kryton

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-69022771

you mean him?

Grumpy_chap

Grumpy_chap said:

I actually have the opposite "problem".
When I purchased my TM3, the price included 6,000 miles free supercharging. 
In 3/4 year I have only charged away from home 4 times, at least one of which was because I purposefully did not charge before departure as I knew there was a nice supercharger station at a convenient place for my return journey so I could make use of that, the free miles and the lunch-stop as a package.
I now have 5,459 miles of free supercharging to try to use up within the remaining three months before it expires.  My challenge is managing my car use to be able to use the supercharger free miles.  I doubt I will get to use all the miles before they expire.

When I bought the car, the free SC miles were valid until 6th July 2024 - a few days over a year from purchase.  The "few days" was just Tesla processing the incentive to make the free SC miles available.

I have been using free SC charge totally for the past month and, it so happens, business mileage has been higher so I covered around 2.5k miles in the past month.
Regardless, I still only used just over half the free SC miles.

This evening, I have been on the app and note that the expiry date for the miles has extended by a year, so expiry 6 July 2025.
Is that a blip that will correct, or does the Tesla algorithm allow the free miles to prolong?