Deeper Understanding. cLEARER DECISIONS

We have covered the very basic view of what happens to an EV after its useful life but what actually happens to one where does it go? how long do they last?

The main components of an EV battery are the valuable metals, gradually countries are investing in recycling plants to extract those capable of being recycled, However V one of the major waste management companies in the UK are investing in a plant in West midlands but they don't expect this to reach full capability until 2040 that's 17 years away !!

Consumer reports do state generally that an EV battery has a life expectancy of 17 years or 200,000 miles which sounds fair not typically different from a standard ICE BUT however batteries degrade over time the output is not the same after 17 years compared to a brand new one so you will likely replace that before 17 years.

Typically an EV battery costs around £4,000 to replace but can go up to £15,000 this is only the battery, cost of replacing the motors and other components varies and EV manufacturers don't want you to maintain the vehicles they don't profit from that so getting the genuine parts and replacing isn't going to be cheap.

An EV contains a lot of plastic components many of which currently are not recyclable so the environmentalists who demand the decrease in single use plastics need to realize one of the main things they campaign for isn't able to be recycled so there's a lot of plastic sitting wasting away in landfill.

Remember me mentioning about certain manufacturers having control over ownership of your EV which you've spent thousands on? Yes we come back to that.

They don't like when you sell the car onto a third party so they disable certain "premium features" like supercharging and other onboard systems, so buying one second hand watch out for this.

Is it actually worth buying one second hand ? Well that's down to you to decide don't forget you do not know the charging cycles its had which degrade the battery quicker so on top of buying that EV cheaper you need to factor replacing those batteries and other components much like an ICE however you can't change the inside components of an EV battery like an oil change in a car to maintain it.