• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Battery prices are dropping rapidly, and recycling cells is actually economically viable.

    • Montagge@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      True, but they have a long way to go to be economically feasible for most people. People aren’t going to drop $10k on a car repair, and people aren’t going to buy a used car they’ll immediately have to spend $10k on.

      For reference I was looking at Chevy Volts recently. Granted it’s a hybrid but it does have a larger battery than other hybrids. The car itself costs $8k to $10k on average and most likely due to the age of the vehicle the battery is on its way out you’ll need to spend $5k to $7.5k on a rebuilt hybrid battery. You’re almost buying the car twice.

      • steebo_jack@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        When youre dropping 50-70K per vehicle, an extra 10k 15-20 years down the line isn’t really a big deal. Also the average life of a vehicle is around 12 years. Most of these people will be on to their 2nd or 3rd electric car by then or whatever propulsion is popular at that time…

      • sky@codesink.io
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        1 year ago

        Good thing the Volt has a really well-designed battery that you’ll basically never need to replace. The management system babies those cells.

        There’s a reason people love crashed volts for DIY battery storage and EV conversions.

      • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Few if any are keeping a car long enough to even require replacing a battery. This is a nonsense argument to start. Aside outlier failures, batteries functionally last many more miles than most people drive an ICE car over their years of ownership. If the battery on a vehicle is badly degraded and not worth replacing, it’ll be sold off for recycling and the car parted out and scrapped like any other vehicle.