Didn't stop the oil lobby anti-EV myths from spreading far and wide. And now both political factions hate EVs so expect even more people to continue to think batteries die in a few years.
EV companies wouldn't be warranting the battery degradation for hundreds of thousands of miles and several years if batteries died easily.
A significant fraction of people have now actually driven them. It's going to be increasingly tough to tell spooky stories about EVs when your neighbor/friend/coworker has been driving one uneventfully for 4 years.
99% of charges are at supercharger (which is also not supposed to be good for the battery)
Even for consumer devices, battery aging and capacity loss is very slow after 70%, and they are exposed to much harsher conditions than EVs (no temp control, daily full cycling, etc).
Not sure that's true. I have seen comments on HN multiple times over the years claiming batteries die in a few years and were almost never downvoted.
Car batteries - very unlikely. Cheap portable electronics made in China - all the time.
The problem with these comments is that there are at least 10 different battery chemistries, and dozens of potential use cases and duty cycles you can put a battery through.
So yes, some combination of that will make batteries die in a few years. Most won't.
But I think that the situation you are posing: quasi regularly driving a trip that is >100 miles with no ability to charge at all is actually pretty uncommon. And even in your case, since you are driving that far (and visiting family), I assume you are staying overnight. You can get a portable lvl 2 charger for a couple hundred bucks that will plug into a dryer plug and charge your vehicle back to full overnight. (admittedly. this assumes the drive is in ideal conditions and you get the full 210 miles; given where you are going and the apparently lack of infrastructure, if this is mountainous at all, then yeah....very well might not make it)
To me, the issue that actually affects more people is that if you need a family sized vehicle, your options are A) pretty limited and B) almost all >$60,000. For a single person, or a childless couple, EVs are pretty accessible, for families, that's much less true.
For anyone not trying do to both kids + dogs, there are probably a lot more options.
Not everyone's use case is the same.
My laptop, power tools and iphone beg to differ....
But in reality it's comparatively very rare for those full cycles to happen. People overwhelming drive <40 miles a day and top off the battery regularly.
A large battery with proper charge and thermal management will last much longer under light service. Which is exactly what you have with longer range EV's. A battery rated at a 1000 full discharge cycles will probably last 5,000 light duty cycles.
However people are mostly used to batteries in consumer products which utterly abuse cheap batteries to save money.
All my Chevy based EV/PHEVs have had great battery life (so far) - knock on wood.
Some manufacturers limit this, but in a few years we will see a lot of hybrids that have batteries that barely work and will not deliver the expected ev only distance by a lot.
When used in the same duty cycle, most lithium cells/packs should last longer than the same capacity NIMH cells/packs.
If you want a real world opinion, check the EVClinic blog…
even though most people don’t do it, on more expensive cars it actually makes serious financial sense to replace the battery but on cheaper cars it does not!
It dropped because Teslas in general have a high maintenance cost associated and a high insurance cost (because insurers also see it as costly to maintain). High maintenance cost tends to sink a car's resale value.
I know the car does not need oil changes or have the possibility of various failure modes an ICE car has, but when it does have an issue, like a dent or a scrape, etc. the cost to repair is much higher.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/the-cos...
When I researched evs, I couldn't make the economics make sense. 7 years for a car lifetime seems outrageous.
Just replace the car, as much as that sucks.