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 cost 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 100,000 miles, and we’ll take a look at the data on that momentarily. But if you fast charge a lot 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 in 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 is dropped with use, especially if the car is 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 shocked for a time. The good news is that most manufacturers provide warranties — 100,000 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 or more, and that was six years ago. It’s much higher now. We’re seeing $20,000-$25,000 battery replacements. So the question is, is it worth buying a vehicle that’s going to need a $15,000 or $20,000 upgrade in 100,000 miles?

Even a gasoline vehicle manufactured in the last 10 years, 100,000 miles does not represent a large risk of serious financial investment in that vehicle. Most gasoline engines last well beyond 100,000 miles — really, now the benchmark is 200,000 miles — and even then a complete engine overhaul is gonna 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 that they’re full or clogged up with cars. Look, when you go to the 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, or your vehicle after the battery runs out. Toyota, the biggest seller of new vehicles in the US in growth for EVs, says EV 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 how 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 bottle 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, a regular 12v 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 point, 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 they’re 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.