Here’s another reason why it’s crucially important to evaluate the health of an electric vehicle battery. If you’re buying a used EV,  here’s a repair estimate for an electric vehicle that a customer purchased that very shortly after the purchase needed a new battery and the battery cost $26,000. You add labor taxes of a total of 29 and some change, round it off, and call it $30,000. 

So how old is the vehicle? Well, the mileage had 70,000 miles and you might say, well wait a minute, don’t these cars have a warranty on the battery? They do. But the battery warranty expires typically at a hundred thousand miles or eight years. Well, guess what? This car is a 2014 model so it’s past the eight-year timeframe. So now in order to have this car working again? You have to pay $29,000. Well, the car is probably not even worth that much. In fact, you could probably buy a new Chevy bolt or a new EV  for not much more.  

So the question is are electric vehicles going to go the way of like cell phones, where once the battery wears out you just get a new phone? You don’t replace the battery and your cell phone, you don’t replace the battery in your electric vehicle. What’s that going to do for the car market? Is that going to change the way people buy and sell cars? Is it going to make it more expensive? If you’re somebody who buys cars and keeps them for a long time to lower your automotive expense, is that going to throw a new expense into the mix? Put your comments below to let us know what you think about the future viability of used electric vehicles.