Buying a used EV today - beware.

Grumpy_chap

DrEskimo said:

The warnings themselves don’t mean much. It’s whether ignoring those warnings have led to damage to the battery and it’s overall health. 

As mentioned. Incredibly easy to check the battery health before you buy. 

OK - so I can buy a OBD reader and establish the battery health, assuming that particular car gives that data from the particular OBD reader.  Sorry - I've never used an OBD reader nor checked EV battery state of health.  Can any reader get that from any car?

It seems as though it may be just whether the warnings led to any damage to the battery.  A previous poster indicated that the warnings or ignored notifications would invalidate the warranty.  How can one establish whether the manufacturer's warranty remains valid?

JKenH

DrEskimo said:

My mother-in-laws 22kWh Renault Zoe we bought was 2-yrs old and had only 68 miles on the odometer. Think it was owned by a lease company and then due to the new 41kWh model being released, never leased it out, must have been bought by the car supermarket and then sold to us.

Given it's mileage and age it clearly had been sat unused for over a year or two.

We did a simple battery health check before we took it away that said it had 100% State of health in the battery.
 5-years later and not a single problem....

It's very easy to do a batter health check yourself with a phone and a simple OBD dongle. That or ask the dealer/garage to arrange it for you before buying.

You say it is very easy to do a battery health check yourself but for the man in the street is that really true? I could do one on a Leaf but wouldn’t have a clue on another make. Not all OBD dongles work with all apps. You would have to download a model specific app to your phone and then buy the right dongle and know what you are looking for. That’s not “very easy” for the average customer, particularly if you have gone out to look at a few EVs and have no technical know how. I am reasonably into EVs but what about the average man in the street buying an EV for the first time?

Is it actually possible to do a battery health check on all EVs with an app and dongle? VWs, Hyundai/Kia’s/ or MGs for instance? I ask because I only have experience of Nissan. The battery health check a Nissan dealer will do will tell you very little - a battery heath check is supposedly done when the car is serviced but it doesn’t give you any real indication of condition - just red/amber/green. 

When I bought my brand new Leaf, a bit of research involving the VIN revealed it had been built a few months earlier so I asked for a battery health check. The dealer was puzzled at this request and a technician appeared with a meter that didn’t tell me anything. The dealer let me do my own LeafSpy check via the OBD. I could do that because I had the app and dongle from an earlier Leaf I owned.

if you are buying from an independent dealer/car supermarket  rather than a main dealer or EV specialist they just aren’t going to be able to do a meaningful battery check. 

I don’t know if this is still an option but in the past you could get an RAC inspection report on a car you were buying. Is there a reliable service available for inspection of EVs which covers battery health?

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

You say it is very easy to do a battery health check yourself but for the man in the street is that really true? 
what about the average man in the street buying an EV for the first time?

Thank you.

Say someone was choosing between an MG4, brand new, or a TESLA, or an iPACE:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202302033904584

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202212132496465

How do you assess which one is in the better "mechanical" / battery condition? 
Which one was abused by either the owner or the Dealer?

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

You say it is very easy to do a battery health check yourself but for the man in the street is that really true? 
what about the average man in the street buying an EV for the first time?

Thank you.

Say someone was choosing between an MG4, brand new, or a TESLA, or an iPACE:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202302033904584

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202212132496465

How do you assess which one is in the better "mechanical" / battery condition? 
Which one was abused by either the owner or the Dealer?

The Jaguar is being sold by a Jaguar dealer so presumably there is a chance that you could get some technical input from them and a bit of history. You could possibly ask if they can confirm that there is nothing apparent it’s the history of the vehicle that might invalidate the battery warranty. 

It’s really hard buying a 3 year old EV compared to a petrol car. There are lots of little unknowns with a petrol car., that you ask yourself can I deal with if it goes wrong.  With an EV it’s one very big one -batteries don’t usually just fail suddenly - they degrade and you can’t get them replaced until they drop to 70%. Until then if you are unlucky enough to have bought a bad one you have to live with the reduced range and you have that nagging worry as to whether the warranty will be honoured. 

I really don’t know which of the three I would go for. I think I know which car you want - it’s a nice place to be while you wait for the recovery truck. If it’s just transport you want buy with the head. If it’s a car you want buy with the heart. Whichever you buy there will come a time when you wish you’d bought one of the others. When I bought my Golf estate I was going into look at a completely different car costing less than half the price. I knew once I sat in the Golf that if I bought anything else I would have buyer’s remorse.

DrEskimo

JKenH said:

DrEskimo said:

My mother-in-laws 22kWh Renault Zoe we bought was 2-yrs old and had only 68 miles on the odometer. Think it was owned by a lease company and then due to the new 41kWh model being released, never leased it out, must have been bought by the car supermarket and then sold to us.

Given it's mileage and age it clearly had been sat unused for over a year or two.

We did a simple battery health check before we took it away that said it had 100% State of health in the battery.
 5-years later and not a single problem....

It's very easy to do a batter health check yourself with a phone and a simple OBD dongle. That or ask the dealer/garage to arrange it for you before buying.

You say it is very easy to do a battery health check yourself but for the man in the street is that really true? I could do one on a Leaf but wouldn’t have a clue on another make. Not all OBD dongles work with all apps. You would have to download a model specific app to your phone and then buy the right dongle and know what you are looking for. That’s not “very easy” for the average customer, particularly if you have gone out to look at a few EVs and have no technical know how. I am reasonably into EVs but what about the average man in the street buying an EV for the first time?

Is it actually possible to do a battery health check on all EVs with an app and dongle? VWs, Hyundai/Kia’s/ or MGs for instance? I ask because I only have experience of Nissan. The battery health check a Nissan dealer will do will tell you very little - a battery heath check is supposedly done when the car is serviced but it doesn’t give you any real indication of condition - just red/amber/green. 

When I bought my brand new Leaf, a bit of research involving the VIN revealed it had been built a few months earlier so I asked for a battery health check. The dealer was puzzled at this request and a technician appeared with a meter that didn’t tell me anything. The dealer let me do my own LeafSpy check via the OBD. I could do that because I had the app and dongle from an earlier Leaf I owned.

if you are buying from an independent dealer/car supermarket  rather than a main dealer or EV specialist they just aren’t going to be able to do a meaningful battery check. 

I don’t know if this is still an option but in the past you could get an RAC inspection report on a car you were buying. Is there a reliable service available for inspection of EVs which covers battery health?

Not everyone in the UK wants or needs one. Its an option for those paranoid about a supposed battery health issue for cars standing a long time without use.

I personally have no such concerns, as I have seen no evidence that this is something I should be concerned about. It's just your speculative theory. In my first hand experience, it wasn't an issue.

If you're that worried check it. If you can't, have it checked by the dealer/garage. If they can't do it, buy from somewhere that can.

Herzlos

Battery health checks will become one of the things garages will be able to do. I'm pretty sure anywhere that already deals with EVs will be able to do them.

If it isn't already possible to get a mobile mechanic to do a battery check, then it will be soon as someone discovers the gap in the market. I also wouldn't be surprised if it because a part of the RAC/AA car buyers check for EV's, because it'd be pretty terrible if they didn't.

The difficulty you may have is that if the car is at a non-franchise garage or a car supermarket is that the garage may not be able to do a check themselves, and obviously it's up to you to decide how much you trust a report generated by the people trying to sell the car.

As for ODB use, once you find the correct App it's pretty straightforward. You plug it in to a port under some trim around the steering wheel and then follow the prompts.

Martyn1981

Yeah, I'm a bit of a technophobe (Wifey is the Alpha geek), but we got an ODB and the Leaf Spy app when shopping for a SH Leaf back in 2019. Really easy to use. The car we bought had all 12 bars on the screen, and showed a state of health of 92% (I think from memory), but that improved a bit after only granny charging, which was suggested to help balance cells(?)

With early days fears calmed, we haven't bothered since, though I note that all of the car reviews, looking at efficiency, like Bjorn Nyland, all seem to plug in kit to monitor the battery and cells. [Useful as it can give discharge rate in kW, so you can see if the BEV is suffering from 'rapidgate' or 'coldgate' issues, reducing the power.]

Co-incidentally, watched a recent vid on an older IONIQ 28kWh (as we have one). This vehicle was a 2016 with 100k miles. Again it was plugged into a device, and surprisingly showed 100% SOH. I'm shocked at how good the IONIQ is, gives 130-150 miles from such a small batt, but still ... 100%! His guess (and mine), is that it's using the spare capacity of the whole battery (~31.5kWh), to maintain range. That fits with advice we got from the owners group before buying, which was not to worry about 100% charging, which seems true.

Of course, with the Tesla, that allows you full use of the battery, hence recommendations not to fully charge or discharge all the time, and why the LR 3 and Y will typically drive around 20-30 miles after reaching zero.

I'd suggest that a diagnostic check of a battery is far easier than trying to guestimate the wear and tear on an ICEV's engine, clutch and gearbox.

Flight3287462

Herzlos said:

The batteries have shown to last better than expected, and at some point can be sold for house storage and reconditioned batteries can be fitted to the car.

Nobody in their right mind would fit second use EV batteries in their homes, unless they are a high stakes gambler.

https://www.energy-storage.news/opposing-views-emerge-on-safety-of-second-life-ev-batteries-for-home-energy-storage-uk-study/

Herzlos

Flight3287462 said:

Herzlos said:

The batteries have shown to last better than expected, and at some point can be sold for house storage and reconditioned batteries can be fitted to the car.

Nobody in their right mind would fit second use EV batteries in their homes, unless they are a high stakes gambler.

https://www.energy-storage.news/opposing-views-emerge-on-safety-of-second-life-ev-batteries-for-home-energy-storage-uk-study/

It sounds a bit scary, but it certainly doesn't seem high stakes. It's not going to be much different to having the car parked next to the house. It'll need some additional thermal monitoring and management for sure, though.

But yeah, I suspect most of the people buying 2nd life batteries will be for industrial uses rather than domestic.

Grumpy_chap

The prices of used TM3's seems to have firmed up a bit in the past week - I wonder whether that is because of the monthly cycle.