Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova, Not a lot of people know that; Would you want to drive an EV whose batteries might have been subtly damaged by a minor collision, even if there were no visible signs of damage?
Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car
By Nick Carey, Paul Lienert and Sarah Mcfarlane
LONDON/DETROIT, March 20 (Reuters) – For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles – leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.
And now those battery packs are piling up in scrapyards in some countries, a previously unreported and expensive gap in what was supposed to be a “circular economy.”
“We’re buying electric cars for sustainability reasons,” said Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research. “But an EV isn’t very sustainable if you’ve got to throw the battery away after a minor collision.”
…
Lauterwasser noted EV battery production emits far more CO2 than fossil-fuel models, meaning EVs must be driven for thousands of miles before they offset those extra emissions.
“If you throw away the vehicle at an early stage, you’ve lost pretty much all advantage in terms of CO2 emissions,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-junk-whole-car-2023-03-20/
So much for the green “circular economy”.
There are plenty of videos online of EVs spontaneously combusting, suffering thermal runaway.
Given this apparent risk, and how that risk appears to be magnified if the battery suffers a mechanical shock, it is understandable that insurers appear to be quietly taking the view that even minor collisions could turn an EV battery into a ticking time bomb.
The following video from 2022 mentions the insurance battery dumping issue. It also touches on strenuous attempts by EV manufacturers to mitigate the fire risk, by exploring different battery chemistry, and attempts to commercialise allegedly much safer solid state batteries.
So a fender bender can turn an EV into tinder.
Just toss it in the Economic Circular File
Swipe left
The thought of a BEV in a tunnel, or in a downstairs parking garage in a high rise, are the elements of a disaster movie.
wait until 90% of the torches are lithium powered
The Towering Lithium Inferno, with an all-star cast of useful idiots😎
I recall the first attack on the World Trade Towers- bombs in the basement parking garage – that did a lot of damage to the entire building. So, in cities with parking garages, especially if under offices/apartments- will they restrict EVs?
I believe Germany banned EV parking in parking garages already. Expect others will follow as additional EV fires wake people up to the danger.
Yes, or a couple hundred on a giant vehicle transport ship like say the Felicity Ace?
That was already true with the Prius because of specialized parts including thin skin metal panels.
That was already true with the Prius because of specialized parts including thin skin metal panels.
That statement is BS
The Toyota Prius high voltage battery is under the passenger seat which is a relatively safe location.
The conventional 12 volt battery is in the right rear of the trunk.
The sheet metal panels are not thinner than other cars
Any small, light car that’s in a collision, like a Prius, is likely to have more damage than a larger, heavier car in a collision.
On average, a person pays about $400 a year in maintenance on a Toyota Prius. An average car costs about $1,000 a month to maintain—with fuel and other maintenance—so you can save money on maintenance and at the pump with a Prius.
4th-Generation Toyota Prius Teardown (Part 3) – MarkLines Automotive Industry Portal
“Any small, light car that’s in a collision, like a Prius, is likely to have more damage than a larger, heavier car in a collision.”
Nitpick – that’s not actually true. The heavier vehicle is likely to do more damage to the other vehicle but that is not determinative of the damage the heavier vehicle will incur. A corvette is heavier than an old VW but I assure you that in an accident the Vette will incur a *lot* of damage, expensive damage!
aren’t many or all corvette bodies made of fiberglass? is that material more susceptible to damage than steel? I dunno- just asking.
The Corvette was the pioneer of the fiberglas body.
how well does fiberglass respond to damage? does it crack or is resilient? I always wondered about that. Does it dent? What was/is the advantage of it?
Fiberglass isn’t very resilient. It doesn’t dent like you are thinking of with metal.
The original use of fiberglass was to reduce weight. That doesn’t mean the vette is lighter than a VW bug.
Fiberglass is also easier to form into some shapes than metal. The vette was supposed to be a “futuristic” model with “artistic” curves which were made easier to realize with fiberglass.
The fiberglass was changed to being more plastic in the early 70’s. Plastic still isn’t as easily repaired as steel. It’s easier to just replace the major body panels.
Fiberglass is pretty brittle. It will crack and shatter rather than bend if the distortion is very large. I’ve seen Vettes with cracked body panels from just driving, no impact damage at all.
The Corvette is an unusually low vehicle, with a unique fiberglass skin, and much heavier than most vehicles of a similar size, at about 3,600 lbs.
A Corvette is 182 inches long and weighs 3600lbs
A Toyota Prius is 181 inches long and weighs 3000 lbs.
My generalization that small (usually light) vehicles get more damage in a collision than larger (usually heavy) vehicles is still true.
The Prius though is a Hybrid which still requires Gas, remove gas from public sale (as is the path California and 12 other states are following) and you have a rather expensive gilded golf cart with a 40 mile (possibly only 25 mile) range. The plug in PHEV model recharges in 2.5 hrs at 240V. So drive 25 miles and wait 2.5 hours before you can travel the next 25 miles then wait an additional 2.5 hours
Come on, Richard, don’t try and refute one claim with your own BS. How many miles per month would you have to drive to require $1000/mo on maintenance? Do you drive a Bentley or a Lamborghini? Any car with $1K/mo maintenance is ready for a trade-in or the junk yard.
Maintenance includes gasoline or electricity, oil, tires, batteries and any other parts that wear out over a vehicle’s lifetime. EV high voltage batteries are assumed to last a lifetime.
According to the federal Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the estimated scheduled maintenance costs for an electric vehicle averages $0.06 cents per mile, while it’s at $0.10 per mile for a conventional ICE-powered ride.
The average distance driven is different for every driver. But on average, drivers travel 13,476 miles per year on U.S. roads, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
13,000 miles per year at 10 cents per mile is $,1,300 for ICE cars.
I arbitrarily lowered the $1300 to $1000 because the price of gasoline came down a lot from last year when the 10 cents per mile was calculated.
I should have added that electric vehicles are driven an average of only 7,000 miles a year, rather than 13,000 miles a year.
7,000 miles per year at 6 cents per mile is $420 for EVs
This could vary a lot depending on your cost of electricity in your state — this is just an average.
My $400 per year number was meant to be typed as $400 per month — I still can’t type — flunked typing in the seventh grade — and was a slightly too conservative estimate.
If you have to ask how much it costs to maintain a Bentley, you can’t afford one. Oil changes for Bentleys typically run owners around $500,
Richard,
If the government ICE maintenance numbers are, as you indicate, 10 cents per mile for 13000 miles per year, that’s only $1300 per year or about $110 per month. I don’t think that includes fuel, which, assuming one fill-up per week, would be about $200 per month at current prices. That basically puts it on par with EV costs, assuming that your $400/month is correct
I agree pflash, that statement of 1000/mo avg is way too high (emphasis on avg).
I don’t know where you get your numbers, but we have two cars and I can assure you that including gas, we average only a few hundred a month for both of them.
As to your claims for the Prius, you are of course ignoring the fact that they aren’t paying road fuel taxes on the electricity they use.
@MarkW, the Prius is a hybrid, it uses a gasoline engine to run the car, with the battery pack as assist.
It’s really where vehicles should go, and where locomotives have been for years. You can get away with smaller batteries, but still have the advantages of having plenty of fuel available quickly, if needed.
According to the Federal Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the estimated scheduled maintenance costs for an electric vehicle averages $0.06 cents per mile, while it’s at $0.10 per mile for a conventional ICE-powered ride
I have no contrary data to refute the numbers.
I’m not ignoring anything
I don’t like EVs
The Prius is a dorkmobile — my next door neighbor owns a 2005 Prius with the license plate OilsGone, and I see it much too often
The maintenance number is over the lifetime of the vehicle. presented as an average per mile.
Some brands are much more reliable than others
Gasoline prices can vary a lot over the years
Some people drive less than average per year
Tires wear out
Brakes wear out
Batteries wear out
Parts break — sometimes very expensive parts.
Cars need alignments
Cars need oil changes.
Maintenance costs increase as a car ages.
I have no contrary data to refute the numbers.
I don’t know what you drive or how you drive, but the data I have is my checkbook. Averaging ALL of the factors you point out over a five year period (so as to capture the occasional maintenance items) my expenses for both vehicles comes nowhere close to $1000/month.
That was also the case when I was living in Southern California.
I would like to see how that government agency is coming up with their numbers.
You left out a lot of somethings.
First, the Prius’ battery pack is NiMH, which doesn’t have a tendency to burn and keep burning when damaged. It take a lot of damage to make a NiMH explode, usually that of being in an external fire. The car is already lost at this point.
Second, the battery pack is a lot smaller and is inside the car. Any damage to the pack would probably scrap the car for physical damage long before it scrapped the car for battery damage.
Third, the battery pack for a Prius will run you about $1500, maybe $3-4k installed. That’s a lot less than the $15k a Tesla is estimated to cost, if the packs are even available. There’s a lot less incentive to repair a car that’s going to need $15k before you even get to the physical damage.
Last, Prius packs are available on the secondary market with no problems. Tesla? Who knows.
As far as $1000 a month for a gasoline car? What are you driving, a top fuel dragster? There’s no car on the road save exotics that cost that much to drive. If you do all of the maintenance on a car including replacing tires every 5 years, you’re probably looking at closer to $250 a month, assuming you drive 60 miles a day 6 days a week.
A Prius still has all the sunk costs of a regular car. Oil, tires, belts, etc. The only thing it excels in is gas consumption, and that’s only if your battery pack is in good condition. When it’s dead at 110,000, you replace it or drive a crappy little car with an undersized engine.
Take your BS and go somewhere else.
I provided government numbers
You provided character attacks
But you also provided additional information about Prius batteries. I did not have enough interest in any Prius to do more research.
The original claim was that Prius used thin sheet metal implying it is easily damaged
That was BS and I refuted it.
The maintenance costs I quoted are from official government sources
If you think the maintenance numbers are BS, please explain why the official sources are wrong.
Do you have better numbers?
Or you just don’t trust anything from the government?
An average car costs about $1,000 a month to maintain—with fuel and other maintenance
There is zero chance this number is accurate.
I’m not sure where that sort of number comes from. We spend closer to $150/month for our (small) SUV and truck on gas, and even with regular oil changes and such we’re running maybe $2500/year.
I’ll grant that we don’t drive like someone would in SoCal. No idea what gas costs there for typical driving.
And you have better numbers than the Department of Energy?
I’m basing my statement on an actual incident and claim event.
With the development of the car industry, the growth of the cost of materials and safety requirements strengthening, this sheet metal thickness value has significantly been reduced. For example, the 1940s – 1960s cars had 1-2 mm body sheet metal, while in modern cars it usually doesn’t exceed 0.6 – 0.8 mm.
Body panels, steel or otherwise, don’t do much of anything other than crumple like tinfoil in a crash. One reason is they’re not designed to do anything but look good and maybe improve aerodynamics to varying degrees.
The Prius is manufactured the same way as a standard gasoline car.
I worked in product development at an auto manufacturer for 27 years. The rumors that Japanese cars had thin sheet metal are a myth. I have seen Toyota Prius and other Toyota teardowns in the past. Including the original Lexus.
The big lesson learned is that the Toyota parts are not impressive individually, but they work together extremely well without wasting money, excessive weight, or excessive complexity — three problems witnessed during a full-sized Mercedes sedan teardown.
Due Diligence:
I own a 2016 Camry and owned a 2005 Camry before that. I think a Prius is a dorkmobile. Although the latest model doesn’t look so bad. But I would never buy one.
And, if it’s more than a fender-bender, you might want the ejection seat option…
Not in an underground car-park.
Not with that attitude.
Worked for Bond in Goldfinger….
Insurance companies maybe lot of things but stupid they’re not
There’s a natural selection mechanism at work there, any insurance company that poorly calculates risks quickly ends up insolvent. That is until the government decides to “help” by guaranteeing them (with tax payers money) or something silly.
Here is a clip showing an Insurance company faking a BEV fire. “The premise of AXA Insurance’s test was simple — EV batteries could catch fire in the event of a crash. As noted in my colleague Johnna Crider’s earlier piece, AXA accomplished this by removing the battery in a Tesla Model S sedan and fitting the vehicle with pyrotechnics. This way, the demonstration was “safe” and AXA could be ensured that a “battery fire” would indeed happen. ”
https://www.teslarati.com/fake-tesla-model-s-battery-fire-video-axa-insurance/
Probably because the pyrotechnics were much safer and more predictable than Lithium batteries.
Indeed, Lithium exposure can cause severe short term health effects and can sometimes cause severe long term dementia like brain injuries.
I spoke to a serving fire officer about how they deal with Lithium fires, the answer was spray a mist of water on it to try to keep the temperature down, and cordon off the area.
In Europe I’ve heard they get a large dumpster, fill it with water, and dump the entire car into the dumpster.
Staging a real large lithium fire in front of people is simply too dangerous.
A retired fireman I know said he’s glad he retired before ever having to rescue a cat from a tree or put out an EV fire. From what he’s heard, it’s best to keep your distance from the fumes and let the EV burn out, if possible.
He called it a “Class E (EV) fire”.
What are the 4 types of fire?
Class A – fires involving solid materials such as wood, paper or textiles.
Class B – fires involving flammable liquids such as petrol, diesel or oils.
Class C – fires involving gases.
Class D – fires involving metals.
,
You would need over 5000 gallons of water for an EV fire and firetrucks rarely hold over 1,500 gallons each. So you’d better be near a fire hydrant.
And you can put the pyrotechnics out.
There are sufficient incidences of electric cars catching fires, that nobody needs to “prove” it.
Well it seems to me that If they removed the batteries AND installed pyrotechnics in its place then it wasn’t a battery fire. If they wanted to demonstrate a battery fire in a Tesla all they needed to do was Plug It In
And what if all the cars around it had batteries in them, too!?
It would be a hot time in the old town tonight.
Kinda like this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le6KNI9YsH0
Now imagine if this were in a sub level parking garage full of EVs.
The really interesting stuff starts at 0:40
Another good example of how violent EV fires can be
The collision damage problem to EV batteries is very significant. Unlike hybrids, EV batteries are as big as possible to minimize range anxiety. That means what would otherwise be a minor fender bender can nick the battery. Even stuff as trivial as a dented external aluminum casing can change the coolant circulation and produce dangerous internal hot spots.
And although Tesla has, on a lab basis, found ways to successfully recycle 92% by weight of its batteries (all the aluminum and copper, most of the nickel) the remaining un recyclable 8% includes all the lithium and cobalt.
“the battery” Only one?
KevinM, I read Rud’s comment where he referenced “the battery” to mean the big boy battery for range.
One battery per EV. Each battery comprises many individual ‘battery’ cells. No different than a 12V PbA battery comprised of 6 cells wired in series (which is why is not a SLAC, there are 6 screwcaps where makeup water can be added to the cells). Each PbA cell is nominally 2V. LiIon cells are usually a nominal 3.7V, and the battery (maybe comprised of parallel wired subunits) is series wired for a nominal ~400V depending on EV manufacturer. The high battery voltage reduces the size of the external wiring and electric machine componentry. Reduces cost and weight.
Even a 9-volt battery is composed of a number of cells in one case.
Even lead acid batteries are made up of multiple cells in order to get sufficient voltage.
In a similar vein, Li-Ion batteries are also made up of many cells in order to get sufficient voltage and current.
“on a lab basis”, so are they recycling? Is it economically net positive?
Bev fires can and do release toxic chemicals that can affect anyone in the immediate vicinity. I’ll try and find the report from John Cardogan highlighting this. https://youtu.be/fhHQ202FZtU
This is all so stupid, it makes me angry. Stop making these worthless POS. They are dangerous, expensive, and a total waste of time and resources.
Someone said that to Henry Ford. You and I have the right to keep our horses.
You keep your horse, I’ll keep my old Grand Prix.
Henry Ford was making practical replacements for horses almost from the beginning of his enterprise, and it lead to the creation of vast wealth – a virtuous outward spiral of increasing wealth production, expansion of the middle class, etc.
Not at all with EVs – I hope solid state batteries become a viable thing soon, or else politicians will ruin us as they impose insane ev mandates.
How do you feel about denying the Treasury $100’s of millions by giving rich boys and girls tax credits for their 2nd and 3rd virtue signaling fun to drive car toys?
I think tax credits, subsidies, grants and any other method of government picking winners and losers is a bad idea. The wealthy end up with the vast majority of the benefits and us lowly slobs end up paying for all of it.
This is what you get when Government forces a new technology built on an old idea that failed 100 years ago to people with huge incentives and rebates and also tax breaks and subsidies for the EV maker but all in a rush thus many weaknesses have not been figured out until destroys buildings and people.
Let the MARKET decide then the industry can take the time to build quality safe cars that can meet the basic needs of the population while keeping ICE cars on the road for long range and heavy load trips.
It goes without saying that our government has over stepped it’s bounds. It has no business doing this kind of nonsense. The government, any government, does not know better than the market.
You could say the same about the worthless POS politicians who take advantage of credulous and scientifically illiterate voters to milk the enviro issue for as much as they and their cronies can get.
Electric motors are great
The batteries are too expensive, too heavy, and need “refueling” too often.
The batteries stink.
I’d agree w/that. The power plant I worked had a number of squirrel-cage motors w/just normal maintenance.that ran fine even after 80 years. Some motors at one time got flooded and ran fine underwater for a while.
Even a deep scratch or road ding in the aluminum body panels can run to thousands. Insurers made policies based on MSRP similarly priced luxury vehicles and are suffering due to very high costs of specialty services from towing to painting. Add this to the cost of EV ownership.
Shades of the Pinto. Will the EV’s have the same future?
The problems with the Pinto were all hype by the lawyers, trolling for clients.
That doesn’t change what happened with Pinto sales.
The very same thing could (and probably will) happen with EV’s. Differing insurance costs will be a major tell.
Ford just announced 3Billion $ loss on their EV division and don’t expect profitability any time soon. These woke skewed net zero investments present a systemic risk to our economy’s long term viability. We do not as a nation have endless amounts of money to flush down the toilet when all this turns out to be a failure and we have to reinvest in conventional energy generation and ICE vehicles after wasting Billions on a fantasy.
It appears that Warmunism will not end until the economies of the Western nations have completely collapsed. Even then, it will probably be blamed on Glowball Warming, ray-scism, and fake news.
The free market would have come up with the best solution if left unbiased and tampered with by social/ and political forces and influence.
Solution to what? There is not a “problem” requiring any “solution” to begin with.
On a related EV matter:
Ford sees $3 billion pretax loss in its EV business this year (msn.com)
“(Reuters) – Ford Motor Co expects its electric vehicle business unit to lose $3 billion this year, but remains on track to achieve a pretax margin of 8% by late 2026, the company said.”
Whether their EV business is ever going to be profitable remains to be seen.
I can’t help thinking that since the free market includes purchasing politicians who in turn sponsor your allocation of government goodies, our definition of a free market should include laws imprisoning politicians for accepting bribes.
The worst thing about it is that they use these bribes not only for personal enrichment, but to produce commercials and market themselves in the basest, ugliest manner to those with the shortest attention spans.
We get what we vote for. Corruption, graft and a “free-market” filled with exploding, uneconomical, environment-destroying EVs made using slave labor and sold to virtue-signalling dilettantes who pretend to be against slavery, but don’t mind it at all if it benefits them.
Yeah Joe ‘We get what we vote for”. I can’t fathom why people vote for politicians for the bribes they offer in all manner of guise and expect them be honest. It must be madness.
One reason, of course, is that they are pretty much all at it. Whichever way you vote you will get scum – and NOTA is just ignored. As they say, if voting made any difference, we would not be allowed to vote.
Yes and that is why one should vote only for independent candidates. They have no collective base from which to launch bribery campaigns. Also its much harder to bribe representatives as so many more would need to be corrupted. All this on top the fact that free minds can be influenced by their own conscience.
Maybe they need inflatable pool surrounds that the first pumper to arrive can fill. That’s rocket engineering level stuff.
I stopped watching after the first sentence:
“With the future of automobiles undeniably electric… .”
*CLICK*
Whatever else the video might assert, that gross inaccuracy made it clear that the video’s bottom line is:
PUSH EV’s.
*********************************************
Re: the actual future of cars and trucks:
Young drivers want POWER and FUN and RELIABILITY.
THIS is what young drivers (as in the kind of person who does NOT take the bus and does NOT ride their bicycle to work) want:
the past (as in long, long, ago): electric cars
THE FUTURE: INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE
Tis most unfortunate but I just heard that the Camaro is going the route of the Plymouth Prowler
Another excellent article, Mr. Worrall. You provide hard evidence that EV’s are DOOMED.
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
With the rate the roads here in UK are deteriorating and not being fixed (certainly not very quickly) these electric crates are their own worst enemies without even going near a ‘fender bender’
They are a complete design disaster and engineering catastrophe by having that half-a-tonne lump of insanely sensitive and fragile electrical/mechanical gubbins slung underneath them.
The Worst Place Ever but, there’s nowhere else to put it.
Simple & boring metal-fatigue will be the killer – even before road-de-icing salt gets in there. The underside of most cars is their failure point, classically the sills under the doors.
When you fail your annual MOT (test) because of a rusty underside, that really is “curtains for your car”
The next most common failure point of UK cars is their suspensions.
Holy cow, if the actual springs (things designed to endure mechanical shocks) comprising the car’s suspension routinely break as they do in the UK, those batteries haven’t a hope in hell. There is simply no way to engineer a single lump of that sort of weight to withstand British roads.
Especially after Climate Change (CC) has done its work, as it is already doing. CC is The Classic Excuse for local councils not to repair the roads
And remembering from aaaaaaaages ago, there was a UK Government agency called the TRRL; (Transport & Road Research Laboratory)
One of the things they worked out was that for a normally constructed asphalt road, the damage inflicted upon it (how fast it wore out) was related to the axle-weight of the vehicles driving over it.
No surprises there but:
They worked out the rate of road erosion and it went according to the 6th power of the axle weight.
iow: Double the axle-weight and you wreck the road sixty four times faster than previously.
And EVs are effectively that = twice the weight of existing motors but still running on 2 axles
It is they that will wreck the roads but also, they will be the first (and worst affected) victims
A perfect disaster is unfolding here.
Exactly what you get when zombified people are pushed into a panic by other zombified people – they do all the wrong things and make it all worse.
I recently switched to a heavy off-road vehicle because my road vehicle was sustaining too much damage on the roads, and the Roo population is out of control.
https://youtu.be/bfpvFrMttgU
So a Bull-Bar is now a Roo-Bar, Eric?
Roo-bar, isn’t that a type of vegetable eaten in the American south?
No, its what irate fans deliver at a baseball game.
Thought that was a Fu-bar
No, Bryan. A Fu-Bar is what you are experiencing when your face is in the mud with bullets and rockets flying all around you. There are many other, less severe Fu-Bars in life but mostly have lesser ‘pucker-production’ values.
The condition of roads in the UK is appalling. Not just the ongoing rate of deterioration not being repaired thus more and more pot holes, but the insane idea first introduced by a Tory Cabinet minister (Keen Clarke) to allow raised humps in the road to be placed on the normally flat safe streets across the UK.
Many of these humps are higher than low suspension cars can handle and are thus scraped on their underside. I dread to think what a low slung battery will experience running over some of the insane raised humps now in common use.
Uh, Li reacts with H2O….keep it secret….don’t tell anyone…..it produces H2….does H2 burn?….keep it secret.
How many electric vehicles that have had minor fender benders are currently parked in multi-story car parks below large residential buildings in cities around the world, and in garages attached to peoples homes. The risk of fire does not stop when you stop driving, it’s probably even higher during charging of the batteries.
The insurance risk isn’t limited to just the car, but also to any building the car is in.
Sooner or later the home insurance companies are going to catch on to that and if you own an EV you’ll pay higher insurance rates not just on your EV but on your house as well!
Remember, if you try to alleviate risk to your home caused by parking inside your garage then you raise the risk of weather damage to your EV – so you get even higher insurance rates on the EV!
The insurance companies will rein in the EV movement. Or go out of business.
Gonna take some time, unfortunately.
I saw a presentation from an IIHS official, and at the moment their statistical losses look better than for ICE vehicles, SUPPOSEDLY adjusted for demographics.
Likely because few people that own one are wealthy enough to waste all that money on an “extra” (and relatively useless) vehicle that they drive very little.
Solid state batteries can’t operate below 50 F good luck with that.
Yes – and liquid electrolyte batteries suffer frostbite below 0F…
I saw a PBS propaganda clip about how wonderful solid state batteries are. They never mentioned that little inconvenient detail.
Of course. Just like all the push for EVs doesn’t mention the worse-than-useless real world range and their propensity to light themselves afire.
My son had a minor fender bender with a Prius that was only about 3 years old. I was shocked when the body shop said it was a total loss because the battery was damaged
Being “totaled” means only that the costs of repair are greater than the depreciated value of a replacement. But don’t plan on buying an equivalent replacement with the amount the insurance company pays you.
Not the depreciated value of a replacement, the depreciated value of the vehicle you wrecked. Which, if not in pristine condition, will likely be less than a similar car in good condition.
Also doesn’t factor in major improvements you might have made before it was wrecked. You could have just replaced engine and transmission under warranty, but the “book value” won’t be any different from an otherwise equivalent car with the same mileage that still has its original powertrain.
Plus, when replacing an older car, you usually want a lower mileage replacement, which drives up the price vs. what you get paid for your “totaled” car.
Even if you have a new car you just drove off the lot, count on not getting enough money to replace it with the same new car, “depreciation” immediately begins once they sell it to you and take delivery. Even if you buy advertised “new car replacement” coverages that replace a new car if you total it within some time frame (with “same make and model” – my cynical side says “and trim level?!”), I doubt the insurance covers the sales tax on the replacement! (Haven’t checked, but I doubt it.)
In short, when it comes to cars, always assume you’ll need to come up with more money when you have to replace it.
Thanks!
Lance, was your son happy or sad at the news? I am getting the impression, many of the otherwise happy users of EVs would welcome a minor fender bender resulting in the car being written off. That would allow them to return to safe driving ICE options that have been tested and improved over the past century.
Once the wider public wake up to the silent threat to their lives having BEVs parked and possibly charging in their underground parking lots below their apartments, the sales of EVs will come under pressure. Oh, sorry make that, be under increasing pressure from anxious residents.
Anecdotally, it appears people and some organizations are becoming more aware of he dangers of EVs.
The average cost for a Toyota Prius Hybrid High Voltage Battery Replacement is between $3,821 and $4,042. Labor costs are estimated between $283 and $357 while parts are priced between $3,538 and $3,686.
The high voltage battery is under the passenger seat.
A relatively safe place for a battery
The PRIUS PRIME, PRIUS PHV features a high voltage Hybrid Vehicle (HV) battery pack that contains sealed Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery cells. under the right side front seat. The metal case is isolated from high voltage and concealed by fabric covers in the cabin area. series to produce approximately 351.5 Volts.
Unless the metal case and the battery’s bolts that hold it in place are made of vibranium, a strong jolt could still damage the battery.
And that particular fuel tank (Prius Battery) is worth about 25 miles on a full charge
Circular economy = circular reasoning
Circular file
The UK roads are a bit of a disaster area in many places. In the future it may not be just tyres and wheels that need replacing
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11885227/Worst-roads-potholes-Britain-amid-international-embarrassment.html
For those EV owners disillusioned about their EV after the first refueling, my buddy offers a service where you can convert your EV into cash, then buy an ICE car and have a lot of money left over for fun things, like hoo kers, cr ack and b ooze if you happen to be Hunter Biden.
Make sure you have good EV insurance first, and then contact my buddy
for his EV Recycling Service:
Walter “I didn’t do it” Washington
Suite 34
Cellblock B
Jackson Prison
Jackson, Michigan 49201
Appointments are available in six months.
$800 cash or money order only.
Running a limited check on local sources of ‘used’ Nissan Leaf EVs one finds remarkably low mileages against age. Barely one fifth go 10000 miles a year which is roughly normal for an ICE car. Many circa 8000 in c. Four years. Clearly toys for the rich and ‘second car runabout’
Manager where I work was hit a couple of months ago while driving and EV. The car is still in the shop and will be for a while. Hopefully the battery does not spontaneously ignite down the road.
Another interesting snippet from Marty Cornell at the 15th International Conference on Climate Change. If the number of BEVs does increase as targeted, the demand for raw materials will escalate, to the point where existing resources will not meet demand. Requiring new mining facilities to be discovered and developed. That will take 16 -20 years.
In addition it will require more effort to mine, thereby increasing CO2 production. At present a BEV, breaks even with an ICE vehicle at around 70K miles. Whereas in the future it will never match an ICE.
https://youtu.be/xaneUM_BKxQ
So one should not drive an EV during deer season. Deer season will be the end for many EVs.
See the stats here.
https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/deer-car-accidents/
Most of these occur from November to middle of January. Its a bad time to drive in early morning for internal combustion vehicles, it would be disaster for EVs.
Deer collisions are difficult to avoid. Deer just jump out on the roads and there is very little a driver can do to stop it.
I was just thinking about that… Just hitting a deer and having it bounce off the vehicle might not cause any more damage to an EV than it would to a comparable ICE vehicle. But, imaging running over a deer! Yes, that could do damage to the undercarriage of an ICE with low clearance, but imagine a hoof or antler puncturing the battery!
So you can hit your deer and cook it too!
(Hope like it very well done.)
We’re going to need a lot more cameras.
Who wants to sail on the luxurious Titanic (lithium) ship?
story tip
Five shipping bodies join forces in bid to make transport of lithium-ion batteries safer – Splash247
“…leading to higher premiums…”
I should hope that EVs are in a different insurance pool than ICE cars if they have unique problems raising the claims on the insurance companies.
“We’re buying electric cars for
sustainability[virtue signaling] reasons.Fixed it.
No one said that saving the planet wasn’t gonna be easy.
So, just like the so-called covid “vaccine”, EVs appear to be safe and effective.
I suppose the EV makers could load up each battery pack with government approved tamper proof g sensors that would record any undue forces on the battery.Sarc.
“No way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs”.
If this is true, one might hope they’d inform prospective buyers?