How will EV manufacturers "end of life" a vehicle to make you buy another vehicle.

Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
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ICE cars all have a finite shelf life. Not because it can't run, but because things become too cost-prohibitive to contain keeping the old dog alive. In certain areas, rust can also kill the body or vital piping before the engine


EVs do not have some of the major failure points that ICEs have. There is no exhaust system or related emissions equipment. No complex engine that can die via simple neglect of oil, overheating, etc.

I think software bricking is on the table, but it would probably be some form of "no more updates" rather than complete bricking.
 

thedarkwolf

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 1999
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The same way most vehicles reach "end of life". People get bored and want something new. They may not have some of the major failure points but they have new ones the battery being the big one and tons of expensive electronics. Twenty years down the road it will be just like with a 20 year old toyota corolla it isn't cool anymore, it isn't worth much, and something expensive will die and not be worth fixing.
 
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ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
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Batteries die, electric motors eventually burn out. You might be able to get 10-15 years out of a Tesla, but they'll eventually need to be replaced like any other car.

I'd imagine that mid-lifecycle computer refreshes will become common, though. People will want to upgrade to things like full self-driving or faster wireless modems long before their car needs to be replaced.
 

_Rick_

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2012
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Batteries are probably the main limiting factor.
Depending on how intense your usage is, battery detoriation will start to be felt after 2-3 years, and battery life will probably be halved at ten.
Also battery tech/charging may yet improve, in which case you may not be willing to wait for 30 minutes, to go another 300 kilometers, when you could be waiting 5, or not have to stop at all, because of significant energy density improvements.

Then you have the usual wiring/electronic component issues.
And of course interior wear and tear, smells, dings, scratches, paint deterioration, lack of features compared to the state of the art.

And potentially down the road, particulate emissions might become an issue. Currently, it looks like brake dust and tire dust needs to be filtered out in the 2030s, in some jurisdictions - and this may be enforced by bans on older vehicles.

No need for software bricking yet, and given the cell shortage, I doubt that demand is going to be the key limiting factor for electric car adoption.
 

drnickriviera

Platinum Member
Jan 30, 2001
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Batteries are probably the main limiting factor.
Depending on how intense your usage is, battery detoriation will start to be felt after 2-3 years, and battery life will probably be halved at ten.

Where in the world are you coming up with those numbers? Tesla's are showing 5%-10% over 100k miles. The company in CA that runs tesla's as shuttles got 300k miles on a battery before it was replace due to an issue not related to degradation. News Coulomb checks his Bolt battery, most of his degradation occurred in the first few years of his 2017' model. He had 7-8% at 70k miles. Now at 130k miles, he's still showing 7-8%. He does a lot of fast charging too. If you are talking about the Leaf, which no one should, then it's a matter of thermal management. In cooler climates, the Leaf does quite well as far as degradation. Less than 15% over 100k miles
 

ondma

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2018
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I think EVs will be replaced for pretty much the same reasons as ICE cars. Really, in most cases these days, a well maintained ICE vehicle will usually be replaced before the engine fails. Most times, failure comes from deterioration of other hardware, or just that the owner wants something newer with the latest features. For instance, I have a 2005 Honda Civic with 150k miles. The engine and transmission still seems rock solid. However, it lacks a lot of features that my newer car has, and the body (and I assume a lot of other underbody components) are starting to deteriorate from rust.
 

_Rick_

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2012
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Where in the world are you coming up with those numbers? Tesla's are showing 5%-10% over 100k miles. The company in CA that runs tesla's as shuttles got 300k miles on a battery before it was replace due to an issue not related to degradation. News Coulomb checks his Bolt battery, most of his degradation occurred in the first few years of his 2017' model. He had 7-8% at 70k miles. Now at 130k miles, he's still showing 7-8%. He does a lot of fast charging too. If you are talking about the Leaf, which no one should, then it's a matter of thermal management. In cooler climates, the Leaf does quite well as far as degradation. Less than 15% over 100k miles
If you use it as a taxi, which is quite popular, for exactly the maintenance reasons mentioned, 100k miles are often reached quite soon. And 10% degradation is pretty noticeable.

So not so much an issue for the consumer, but then neither should maintenance be an issue for them, with most modern internal combustion powertrains, unless the design has cut corners.
 

thecoolnessrune

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2005
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As already called out, Batteries will be a large limiting factor for current EVs, as currently the battery makes a large amount of the BOM, but likely won't benefit from cheaper continued manufacturing as new battery packages are produced (your 2015 Model S is not going to see a cheaper pack from a 2025 Model S, and they aren't going to keep building new packs for the 2015).

Also Software. While Tesla does pretty great here once they released AP, pre-AP cars and cars less than AP 2.0 are still missing out on features that they can't have installed in the car (mostly around cameras). Once Tesla no doubt does it again with their RADAR or Camera array, the same gap will be generated, and people will need to upgrade their car to experience the new features. That's still lots better than other manufacturers that don't offer any sort of upgrades at all, but all the same there will be a day when my Tesla will either have a dead battery, or not have the newest AP requiring 25+ cameras, RADAR delivered by a new array distributed by NORAD, and an AI engine trained on the ripples of J.Lo's backside to navigate all of the minutia of day-to-day traffic. In that case, it would be very appealing to simply sell the car at the same discount (or more) as you would any other car with a failed Engine.
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,688
2,810
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Current EVs are like iPhone 1-3. We're not even at iPhone 4 stage yet. I view Tesla 4680 batteries as iPhone 4 moment. Tesla is moving away from battery packs to actually making the batteries as part of the structure. Unless other manufacturers follow Tesla down this path, they will fall behind. My guess is Tesla Model S Plaid+ will be the first with the 4680 battery cells, but I don't even know if the Plaid+ will have the batteries as part of the structure. I'm hoping Plaid+ and Cybertruck are the first ones with others model quickly adopting it.

EVs, especially Tesla, are like giant computer on wheels. People don't upgrade their computers that often anymore but people used to upgrade every couple years because of new technologies. It will be the same for EV. These are still early innings for EV. We're going to have some amazing EVs in the next 10-20 years.
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,688
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I finally got the chance to watch Elon's interview with Sandy Munro. In the interview, Elon confirmed the new Model S and X will finally ditch the 12v battery for lithium ion one. So the new lithium ion one will have the same expected life as the main battery. Awesome news and long overdue.

I'll link the whole interview because it's good interview. You can get an idea what else Elon wants to do with the Tesla cars in the future. It sounds like single car casting is coming in the future, and they will tackle that problem once Berlin and Austin are up and running and in good place.