Not particularly. New motor for my car is like $3500 and I have the knowledge to swap it myself. That’s similar or cheaper than the battery swaps I’ve heard about. I still think EV’s are a good idea but this particular issue is not why.
It’s actually a concern that depending on the vehicle I won’t be able to swap a battery out on an EV myself. Some of them are huge and exceedingly heavy. So they require special tools / lifts to do it safely.
Yeah, some of us have skills others don't. You'd not want to ride a car where I've swapped the engine, I'll tell you that.
My comment is, however, a paraphrase on the two most common questions regarding EVs. From people who doesn't, unlike you, know how to change a transmission. If ICE cars are as unreliable compared to EVs as alluded to in the article, then EVs should be considered the safe and reliable option...
Battery is easy to replace, I think. They’re soft packages now. Turn on the vehicle and make sure it is operating. Do not turn off the car. Then, just slide under the car, puncture a hole in the battery and use a catch can to get all the battery juice. It may be too spicy so don’t drink it, I think. Don’t let it get in your eyes, but if it does, lemon juice in the eyes for 15 minutes will do the trick. Then water your eyes and clean with a clean towel.
Once it’s done draining, tape the hole shut (I recommend brand name gaffer tape or flex seal). Then flip up to the top of the car and puncture a new hole in the top of the battery. Fill it with new battery juice if you have enough containers, else it’s fine to just drop as many AA batteries as you can down the hole and try to fill it up. You may need to get D batteries also in case you don’t have enough AA batteries since D batteries are bigger. I wouldn’t recommend trying to shove a car battery from an ICE car in there, it wouldn’t fit in the hole for one thing and then you’d have to make a bigger hole. Once done, tape that sucker up. Then turn off the vehicle. Easy 8 hour job that you can do in… maybe like 8 hours. It’s normal for it to clang around and sound like shit for the first 7 years, but eventually the juices will melt the housings for all the AA and D batteries you shoved in there and then it will be liquid again by the time you’re ready to replace it.
I think that is the question. The Nissan Leaf gave the entire industry a bad taste because they did not (and still do not) actively cool their batteries. I'm not sure we ever recovered from that. They lasted like 40k miles. So that's the perception that we're battling, that batteries only last ~100k miles vs. ICE powertrains that last twice as long.
That didn't stop Nissan to conclude that the batteries lasted twice as long as the rest of the car. The number of (newish# cars taken out of traffic each year is higher than we expect.
Funny. I've been driving Renault pretty much my entire life, starting with a then 16 year old Renault 19. Which lasted until I totalled it in a one-sided accident 4 years later (misjudged the distance to a fence)
Only issue I ever had with that car was a broken drive shaft. And that was the worst thing that I've ever encountered with Renault cars.
Ive got an old penske moving truck. Its a mac with a renault engine and transmission and we've had since the mid 90's. It is bulletproof. My only complaint is you have to double clutch to shift. I equally hate and love that old piece of shit. It will never die.
IDK much about Renault's, or cars for that matter, but isn't renault one of the badges which is really just a badge now?
My grandfather swore by renaults. They were expensive because they were imported from France (to Australia).
Now, they're one of the cheapest cars on the road because they're manufactured in Korea. They have terrible resale value because rightly or wrongly, they're perceived to be very poor quality.
What I mean to say is, does renault the company really make cars, or do they just license their badge to whoever can make the cheapest Megane? I honestly don't know but that's the impression I get.
That's odd as the insurance costs for electric vehicles keep going up. A large chuck of which is the cost for repair or the likelihood of minor damage (e.g battery pack) resulting in a write off.
So in a perfect world where the EV works perfectly all it's life then they probably will.
However in a world with other drivers and faults that even Renault can't repair in their own cars resulting in write-offs (can't find the article on that one) then we aren't there yet.
Not anti electric vehicles just this statement at this moment is false.
You're comparing two different scenarios. Let's say you have two cups, one is made out of paper and the other is made of glass. They're 6 feet off a concrete patio. Wind isn't an issue.
Let them sit forever, and the paper one will disintegrate long before the glass does. Tip them over, and the glass one will shatter.
Part of the car ownership and life is driving and using it.
If neither of them was driven or used then ICE still wins. What do you think happens to batteries if you let them sit and completely discharge?
So sitting in a garage unused = expressive electric brick. For ICE that's a car that can be restored in some way
Using them on the roads and getting damage to the battery pack = a write off for an electric car. The level of damage needed to write off an ICE car is much higher. They're much more repairable.
Yes theoretically an EV should outlast an ICE but in the real world they won't at the moment.
This is backed by the much higher insurance costs for EVs.
Nice fantasy you’ve got there. Funny how you specifically call out ‘no wind’. While the poster you’re deriding isn’t making up fantasy scenarios and is going by real world actual implications. Are people buying their cars to hide them in garages and never use them.