The Expert Podcast

…When you're buying an electric vehicle it's important to notice the difference between buying an electric vehicle and buying a gasoline historical legacy vehicle. The two vehicles may look essentially the same If you park an EV next to a traditional gas vehicle. They're going to look about the same Yeah You can tell an EVs a little different because the nose is normally pointy It usually doesn't have a grill because you don't need to have air coming in the front to cool The engine. It's usually a little more sleek and streamlined, but they both look like vehicles right Four doors four tires windshield glass right. But essentially when you're buying in a low.

vehicle, you're not buying a traditional car. In the sense of what prior vehicles were You're buying basically a battery with…a, body around it. Right You're buying a battery That's really what you're buying with an electric vehicle. Now that's a little bit of oversimplification but it's important to recognize that. When you're buying an electric vehicle So you know what, how you need to approach that purchase differently when you're buying a gasoline vehicle.

It's important to think about the.

reliability of the gasoline engine the transmission. the drive line the axle. There's a lot of what's called internal lubricated parts in a gasoline engine type vehicle. That engine is. Reciprocating back and forth There's pistons valves crankshaft, all kinds of metal parts with explosions happening inside the engine That's where the high value of the engine of the vehicle is There's a lot of engineering in that.

in that motor. With an electric vehicle, you don't have all those moving parts. The battery is the heart and soul of that vehicle That's the most expensive part of the vehicle. Look, I know almost every car. The body the sheet metal the things you see on the outside is not the most expensive part of the car.

Right That's actually relatively inexpensive to stamp sheet metal put some glass on. It's not free but it's not the most expensive part. And electric vehicle. The battery is a very very expensive part of the car In fact, we've seen battery replacements cost 20 or $30,000 just for a battery. And that's because it's a very highly engineered.

Piece of equipment with a lot of rare earth metals and materials built into it. What does that mean Well when you're buying a new electric vehicle, make sure that the reliability and the engineering of the battery is what you're focusing on. Because that's going to be what you're relying on Number one to get you your range Number two to last because batteries over time degrade, just like.

gasoline engine over time will wear out and you might need a new engine or new valves or new pistons or maybe new gaskets…

A battery and electric vehicle also gradually degrades The difference is. With a gasoline engine the car's going to run exactly how it did from day one right up until the day it breaks Right So if you have a, a car that has a hundred 150 200,000 miles on it and it's gasoline, it's going to run and get you where you need to go just fine until the day that it blows up the engine quits and you're done. A battery electric vehicle. Starts to degrade the range little by little as you own it So the first has a range of 200 miles After a couple of years it might be 180 and then 1 71 60. You know five years old it might be down to close to half its range.

Now that's a little bit of an exaggeration Most batteries have a. warranty of eight years but that eight years also has a mileage limitation It might have a hundred thousand miles limitation. Many people drive 20,000 miles a year…

And that could be five years Your warranty's out on the battery. If you're buying a used electric vehicle it's even more important to have that battery tested. To make sure that it's in a condition that holds its charge It's not worn out, that it still has a lot of life left in it because unlike a gasoline vehicle where you can check the engine make sure the engine light doesn't come on or there's compression in the cylinders. A battery. Has no real outward signs that it's worn

out It doesn't smoke It doesn't make noise It doesn't rattle. When you have a gasoline engine with problems, you could pretty much tell just by starting it up and it runs rough. A battery vehicle It's hard to tell unless you do some specific testing. So whether you're buying new or used on an electric vehicle, remember you're buying a battery that happens to have. body and some seats and some tires.

You really want to look at the. Purchased. due diligence on the battery more so than on the rest of the car when you're buying an EV new or used…