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. You can tell an EV is a little different because the nose is normally pointy, and 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—four doors, four tires, windshield glass. Essentially, when you're buying an electric 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. That's really what you're buying with an electric vehicle. Now, that's a little bit of an oversimplification, but it's important to recognize that when you're buying an electric vehicle, so you know how 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 driveline, the axle. There are a lot of what's called internal lubricated parts in a gasoline engine-type vehicle. That engine is reciprocating back and forth; there are pistons, valves, a crankshaft, and all kinds of metal parts with explosions happening inside the engine. That's where the high value of the vehicle lies. There's a lot of engineering 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. On almost every car, the body, the sheet metal, and the things you see on the outside are not the most expensive parts of the car. They're relatively inexpensive. The stamp sheet metal, putting on some glass—it's not free, but it's not the most expensive part. In an electric vehicle, the battery is a very, very expensive part of the car. In fact, we've seen battery replacements cost twenty or thirty thousand dollars just for a battery. 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 a gasoline engine over time will wear out, and you might need a new engine, new valves, new pistons, or maybe new gaskets, a battery in an electric vehicle also gradually degrades. The difference is that with a gasoline engine, the car is going to run exactly how it did from day one right up until the day it breaks. So, if you have a car that has 100, 150, or 200 thousand 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 the engine blows up and you're done. A battery in an electric vehicle starts to degrade the range little by little as you own it. So, if the car's first range is 200 miles, after a couple of years, it might be 180, and then 170, 160. By the time it's 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 100,000-mile limitation. Many people drive 20,000 miles a year, and that could be five years. Your warranty is 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 and isn't 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 check for 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, and it doesn't rattle. When you have a gasoline engine with problems, you can pretty much tell just by starting it up and hearing it run rough. A battery vehicle is 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 a body, some seats, and some tires. You really want to focus your due diligence on the battery more so than on the rest of the car when you're buying an EV, new or used.