permalink_save t1_j25jzkx wrote on December 29, 2022 at 8:37 PM

Reply to comment by myislanduniverse in ELI5 why do electric vehicles have one big battery that's hard to replace once it's expired, rather than lots of smaller ones that could be swapped out based on need (to trade off range/power/weight)? by ginonofalg

I mean, it's not like the timing chain belt and we throw the car away, things are generally serviceable and if it's a choice of 2k to fix it vs 20k to get a new one, not just cars but things in general, why wouldn't you just fix it? People are way too eager to get a new car when theirs starts fucking up but look at other countries driving cars with like 300k miles on them that we traded as "end of their life" at 120k. We're just being wasteful at that point.

myislanduniverse t1_j25x21c wrote on December 29, 2022 at 10:03 PM

While you're entirely correct, the component you've listed is also an example of one intended to last the "life of the car." People in this thread don't mean something different when they say "life of the car" when they're taking about the battery vs the engine. You can keep both vehicles running for much longer by replacing components that have exceeded their serviceable life.

But an EV battery is intended to last the factory "life of the vehicle" in the same ways (and this could be tautological).