The Expert Podcast

Before you buy an electric vehicle Here's three very important things you need to know about You need to know what your future expense is going to be for replacement battery where you can charge and what that Availability is going to look like and also at the end of life what's going to happen with your vehicle and your batteries First of all what do batteries costs for an electric vehicle And why do you care about that Well your vehicle when you buy an electric EV or even a plug-in hybrid is going to have a battery in it If it's a brand new vehicle or used vehicle it doesn't matter at some point You're going to need to replace that battery How soon Well many estimates Calculate about 10 years or a hundred thousand miles And we'll take a look at the data on that one materially but if you fast charge a or if you live in a hot climate or a cold climate and you use the vehicle to an extreme usage where you charge it Top it off in high heat or you drain it down and cold It could discombobulate that battery much much quicker where it's going to fade out and not have the same capacity that it did in the past The way that this article talks about it says over time battery packs can lose their magic and not be able to recharge at the same level Battery capacity drop with use especially if the car has driven hard and not well-maintained unlike your battery in your cell phone or laptop you can't swap it out Right When your battery life drops you may be for a shocking time The good news is that most manufacturers provide warranties A hundred thousand miles or 10 years Electric vehicles generally cost less Well That's not true We did an article yesterday where they're actually costing more These vehicles are breaking more often but it's still going to need a battery In 2016 studies found that the cost of a typical battery replacement was 10,000 on more or more And that was six years ago It's much higher now we're seeing 20 $25,000 battery placements So the question is Is it worth buying a vehicle That's kind of need a 15 or $20,000 Upgrade in a hundred thousand miles Even a gasoline vehicle manufactured in the last 10 years a hundred thousand miles does not Represent a large risk of serious financial investment in that vehicle Most gasoline engines last well beyond a hundred thousand miles Really now the benchmark is 200,000 miles And even then A complete engine overhaul is going to be much less than 10,000 You may have to do brakes and shocks in the meantime but it's not going to be an engine So there's one thing you need to know about with an electric vehicle Number two is where can you charge this vehicle There's a big difference between regular charging and fast charging Fast charging is where you can plug in And in less than an hour you can have your battery topped off And still an hour's a long time compared to filling up a gas vehicle Well there's only 6,000 fast charging sites in the us That's not a big number
It's about a hundred or so per state How many gas stations are there Well let's take a look According to the article there are 150,000 gas stations But only 6,000 fast charging stations It's a big difference Now granted there's many fewer electric vehicles However it doesn't matter The problem with gas stations versus EV charging is not the Their folder clogged up with cars Look when you go to a gas station it's very rare that all the pumps are full Most of the time if you're driving down the street the gas stations only have one or two cars in it So it's not a matter of you need more Because there's so many more cars you need more because people need to recharge to get to the next stop So knowing what your availability is for charging stations is important Number three is what's going to happen to your battery after your vehicle after the battery runs out Toyota the biggest seller of new vehicles In the U S In growth for EVs So this E V batteries won't last forever Basically what they're doing is they're putting in a system of collection testing and recycling of batteries into raw materials Here's why You know Right now they have in many states a recycling program for Bottles and cans you know if you buy The six pack of Coke at the grocery store You have to pay bottled deposit And the reason why is because recycling is required in many states and you pay a deposit And it comes back If somebody recycles those even purchasing some auto parts like if you buy a battery an automotive battery regular 12 volt battery You have to pay an extra fee for recycling because they don't want that battery going into a landfill At some point There will be government regulations requiring that the manufacturer of a vehicle Accounts for this battery in the electric vehicle becoming waste at some It's going to require them to factor that into their cost up front The government's going to say look you're putting all these toxic materials out into the marketplace in cars At some point they're going to have to come back So you need to figure that out So there Baking that into their manufacturing process They're also baking it into the cost of the vehicle because they know there's going to be an expense for this So as you're buying an electric vehicle remember not only are you buying the vehicle but you're also buying the cost of that battery Being recycled at a later date hopefully that's helpful for your decision-making on an electric vehicle And what all goes into the cost and what all goes into the viability of the expense of electric versus gas