The Expert Podcast

So what happens when you have a used electric vehicle and you get towards the end of its life and have to replace a battery? How long does it take? How much does it cost? How can you tell when it needs a battery? It's an excellent article that gives you some of the information and we'll talk about that. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric vehicle and when do you need to do it?

Here's what the batteries look like in an electric vehicle. Now these are usually under the floor of the vehicle, it's in a flat section of the vehicle. And batteries like every other part of the car have a shelf life. Fortunately, unlike mechanical devices that wear out because they have motion and activity like an engine or transmission or brakes, batteries are static. They don't move, they don't have moving parts, and they last a lot longer.

How long do they last? Good proportion guarantee their batteries for eight years. Manufacturers so they guarantee it's going to be 70% good for eight years, okay? So what does that mean? And these are the different warranties from manufacturers - most of them are eight, seven, eight years for most manufacturers.

What does that mean for distance? Well this is all in kilometers because this article is from Australia, but let's say if you had a Nissan Leaf that goes 120 kilometers - it's about 80 miles - after eight years it could drop to 84 kilometers, maybe about 50 miles. Keep in mind that electric vehicles have been around now for seven, eight, ten years. Some of them are longer than that.

At that rate of decline their range could be diminished quite a bit. 2022 almost - if you have a 2014 vehicle that vehicle's eight years old. 2014 was not that long ago. Six thousand vehicle owners were surveyed and found that each of their EVs lose about two percent annually - annually - so five years it loses 10 percent or more. Observed degradation rates are maintained. The vast majority of batteries will outlast the usable life of the vehicle. So here's the good news: your battery is probably going to last longer than you will use the vehicle.

Well what does that mean? Most people use a vehicle for seven, eight years and then they sell it or trade it in. But there's a lot of old internal combustion engine vehicles still on the road - there's cars from the 90s, from the 80s, 70s, classic cars from the 60s. They always have rebuilt engines and rebuilt transmissions because those moving parts don't last that long. So how does that equate to an electric vehicle?

Well if you have a internal combustion engine vehicle and you have to replace an engine, it could cost six, seven thousand dollars to replace an engine. How much does it cost to replace the battery? Ten thousand dollars for a new battery on average. Failed battery packs that can go back, you can maybe get a credit for. Sometimes the battery might be under warranty if it's below 70% in eight years. Also as cars start to be recycled because they're in an accident or maybe they're just not used anymore, there's second-hand batteries that people can buy and maybe rebuild or refurbish aftermarket replacements. The major cost though is the labor - it costs a lot of money to replace these batteries.

So if you are looking at an electric vehicle and wondering how long it's going to last, for the most part your battery is going to last you more than you're going to use the vehicle. You may want to test a vehicle before you purchase it to make sure that battery still has a useful life, because there's a lot of other factors. If it's using cold weather, if it's run out, discharged to zero in cold weather, that can reduce the overall capacity of the battery. And if you're buying a vehicle, investing in a vehicle that's used, you don't want to buy something that already has a repair needed. Just like you wouldn't want to buy a car that has a bad transmission or a bad engine if it's a combustion engine, you want to make sure your battery is going to be good.

Here's the takeaways: batteries should last more than eight to ten years. New batteries will be under ten thousand dollars and maybe around four thousand dollars - that's in line with rebuilding an engine on a combustion engine vehicle. So takeaways are don't worry about the battery, but if you're buying a vehicle that's used, it's an electric vehicle, make sure you have the battery tested just like you would have an engine or transmission or brakes checked on a used vehicle before you purchase it to make sure you're not the exception to the rule that has a bad battery.

Because most cars that you buy that has a combustion engine has a good engine, has a good transmission. One out of a hundred, one out of fifty, whatever the rate, the averages are, might have a bad engine. And any responsible buyer of a used vehicle is gonna test and evaluate an engine, transmission before you buy a vehicle to make sure you're not buying a lemon. So when you buy a used vehicle that's an electric EV or hybrid, make sure you're doing the same thing to ensure you're not buying a problem from day one and you know if it's degraded that you either get a discount on the vehicle or you move along to a vehicle that has a healthy battery.