quote:
Originally posted by SlyFox:
You raise a serious question - when these things get old and worn out, who would want them? With mega-expensive batteries to replace and crazy expensive replacement parts? The people who buy and drive older, high-mileage internal combustion cars won't touch used EV's with a 10-ft pole, and neither will the suburban libs who buy them new to show off.
I do some EV stuff for my day job.
When folks want to trade them in, you have to look at things differently. We have testing equipment that will reveal the condition of the battery pack (it's "range", amp hours, etc) but it doesn't tell us what kind of condition the BMS is in. The BMS is crucial. About all we can do is inspect visually all of the wiring and such.
For instance if one comes in that has a battery life of 50%, customers will equate that to a 50% range, meaning if it's advertised originally as having a 200 mile range, they think it'll go 100 miles. That's not entirely true. It could be 30 miles, or it could be 90. Rarely is it true 50%.
Another issue is the cost of battery replacement. Generally, the battery condition dictates the trade in value, and if we even trade for it, the resale value. Once you get below about 80% the value plummets. Say resale value of a unit with 90% battery condition is $20,000. If that thing has a condition of, say, 50%, it's value dropped to maybe $5,000 at the most. We have to consider the cost of replacement, and that one vehicle I'm kind of talking about, it's battery replacement runs around $18,000 currently. Some are more, some are less but the main ones we deal with are averaging 18k. LUCKILY we haven't had to replace one yet. Looks like a pain in the butt. That 18k includes labor at flat rate but it doesn't include shipping costs and disposal fees which are a real thing. Battery supplier doesn't want them back so we have to pile them up until we can find someone who will take them. Boss has a line on a company out of I think Arizona that buys them, disassembles, and sends the cells across the pond somewhere. But we have to ship the batteries to them which costs a pretty penny.
lots of challenges and lots of costs to work through. But battery condition is the main denominator that dictates resale and/or trade value.
if it's got a bad battery and bad tires? Brakes? Scrap price.
