The Mail has a timebomb story that should horrify EV owners and convince those still running combustion cars to stick with them for the foreseeable:
Many EVs will lose up to 12% of their charge capacity by six years. Some may lose even more.
Yet the cost of replacing an EV battery is astonishingly high, our research found.
In some cases, the cost of a replacement battery is as much as £40,000. For certain EVs, the cost of replacing the battery could be 10 times the value of the vehicle itself on the second-hand market.
That means used EVs have a limited lifespan — which makes them a bigger and bigger risk as the years go by.
Research into EV batteries is yet to be conclusive and the second-hand EV market is new, given the first popular EVs were rolled off the production line in 2009.
Last night, one motoring expert said customers should be wary of buying a used electric car beyond its warranty (typically eight years), as after that timespan there is no easy way of measuring how much the battery will degrade before it needs replacing.
This may mean you end up needing to pay for an expensive new battery.
Pointing out that by 2035 all U.K. motorists will face paying around 10 grand more for an EV compared to its obsolete combustion equivalent, the Mail goes on to claim that’s swamped by the prospect of replacing the battery in a secondhand EV:
While you can drive a traditional petrol or diesel car for around 200,000 miles over 14 years before the engine needs fixing or replacing, by comparison a new EV is typically guaranteed under a warranty for 100,000 miles over eight years.
Should your petrol engine need replacing you can expect to pay around £5,000, but replace the battery on your EV outside warranty and you’re looking at an eye-watering £13,000 to £40,000, depending on the make of your car, if you fit a manufacturer’s new unit.
In the most extreme cases, such as with a 12-year-old Nissan Leaf that cost £2,000 to buy, you can pay as much as £24,000 for a brand-new replacement 24kWh battery.
However, most owners would upgrade to a newer 40kWh Nissan battery costing £12,780 before garage installation fees of around £2,000. This later battery has a bigger capacity but can still be fitted into older models.
The upshot would appear to be that the secondhand EV market is already dying on its feet. Battery degradation starts from an EV being new anyway. Fast charging accelerates the loss of an EV’s battery. And all those people without a garage and trying to charge their EVs outside will find the range reduced anyway.
But don’t worry, there’s glimmer of hope on the horizon, for the old batteries at least:
And what of the fate of an old EV battery that can no longer be used in a car? They typically fetch £1,500 and can be used for holding energy storage for solar panels, but many fear they will end up in landfill.
Now a host of new start-ups are racing against the clock to find a way to recycle car batteries past their prime including J.B. Straubel, former Chief Technical Officer of Tesla, who has launched Redwood Materials.
Mr. Barnard says: “The old batteries have an intrinsic worth because of the valuable metals inside them — and even if they are no longer practical for storing electricity they have a scrap value.
“It is still a relatively new market and we can expect it to grow more as we move towards a more renewable future.”
Worth reading in full.
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I’m surprised it was so little. Were the flags and whatnot hung up and taken down by volunteers free of charge? Was there no formal risk management effort expended? There may not be a line item for it but I’ll bet the lost opportunity costs were far higher than half a million quid.
100%. I would bet it was several orders of magnitude greater than £500k across the entire public sector.
And added to the ‘P’ tax payer bill is all the money spent in schools ( mine included) on numerous flags small and impressive huge hanging ones! Party food teachers time, wigs hats and so on. The flags remained hanging like the third reich headquarters outside until the last day of term, July!!!! Not just June, Why we know! We all staff and students and visitors had to walk past them to enter or leave the building as the colours caught our every gaze, setting the scene for educational setting!!
As students left on their last day at school EVER they were clapped as they paraded past these flags and proud parents took videos and photos, just to add to the visual brainwashing as these pics will adorn family albums with cult rainbows in the background of smiling young faces as they leave their school, to brainwash the next family generations into the ‘new world not for old souls’ that now presides.
When Labour get in their ideologue canvass has been helpfully primed by the cowardly government so if you don’t wear the flag by then you will be marked out? Cancel gulags for me then.
I think the taxpayer should not be funding anything that is not core to a specific public service .
The list includes brainwashing events like this, BLM,Climate Alarmists , all charities that get any cash from any public organisation .
Also the whole Arts and Culture bandwagon .I really do not think we should be funding experimental , Lesbian Art Exhibitions from Upper Volta or similar .
Lets not forget overseas aid while we are at it beyond short term disaster relief.
Just off to complete my application for support for a 2month Christian, St George and the Hetrosexual Festival .I am sure old Khan has a pot of money put aside for such causes.
I will not be holding my breathe though ..
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Sadiq Khan you are a clown, use the funding to but some Ronald McDonald big red boots so we can hear you flop around London, I really find it amazing,. that anyone could’ve been a bigger clown than Boris, but you are winning that crown by a mile,.resign now please, so we don’t have to listen to any more of your stupidity!!