Heavy Duty Electric Trucks are Coming...

Kayteg1 wrote:
In the mean time German's are starting Electric Motorhome sales this year.
Range is short, but enough for crossing 1/2 of the country East to West.

Interesting rig. I read a different article on the same unit. Kinda cool. Perfect for Austria Germany even France. It would work for us if it had 400 km range. Most of our camping around here is within 150 km or so. But we are in BC and you can pretty much throw a rock and find a nice camping spot from anywhere. Wouldn’t work for touring though.

I like it.

In the mean time German's are starting Electric Motorhome sales this year.
Range is short, but enough for crossing 1/2 of the country East to West.

I won't be going for an electric truck as I need the sound of the Cummins to make me happy. It is theraputic for me. :)

Kayteg1 wrote:
But then we are talking different technology.
It is like comparing to putting new engine into 10-years old beater.
With old technology replacing the engine will still leave you old transmission, differential, radiator, alternator and other stuff that might fail.
In electric vehicle the battery is basically the only wearable, when electric motors last forever.
So once you replace the batteries and driver seat skin, you have very reliable drive for long time.
At least in theory as life will always come with illogical surprises....

Interesting perspective. The earliest 2011 Leafs (sold in 2010 as model year 2011’s are mostly still on the road. There is a Spanish (Madrid) cab fleet with 2011 Leafs some with more than 250,000 km that are still working on the original battery. Many have lost 40 percent of their capacity as the early battery chemistry was troublesome. If one could buy one of those for say 3000 euros I’m not sure with that kind of mileage it would be worth replacing the battery at 8000 euros. But there are lots of low mileage Leafs in North American and Europe where it may be worth it. Nissan is not allowing larger capacity batteries to be put in but I believe Tesla does. Tesla has a batch of 85 KWH batteries that were troublesome. I believe one can request an upgrade and pay the difference on a warranty change. I might be wrong on the size of the battery affected.

I think most manufacturers have 8 to 10 year warranties limited by a certain amount of degradation.

One of our EV’s is in its 5 th year and the other in its 4th year. We have noticed very little degradation but then again we live in a cooler climate which is generally good for battery health.

But then we are talking different technology.
It is like comparing to putting new engine into 10-years old beater.
With old technology replacing the engine will still leave you old transmission, differential, radiator, alternator and other stuff that might fail.
In electric vehicle the battery is basically the only wearable, when electric motors last forever.
So once you replace the batteries and driver seat skin, you have very reliable drive for long time.
At least in theory as life will always come with illogical surprises....

You do have look at residual value of the vehicle after 10 years or when you want to replace it. If a $50k is worth $5k after 10 years, your cost of ownership goes up due to that depreciation.

US with very high labor prices makes keeping aging cars impossible, unless you DIY the repairs.
Lot of modern luxury cars ride on air bags.
At + - 10 years of age, they require replacement, what depends on brand can be $5000 expense. What 10 yo car is worth putting 5 grands in it?
At least with new batteries I know the car or truck will be good performer for several years to come.
You spend 5 grands on air suspension and next month you need new DPF.
Here goes another 3 grands.

Bird Freak wrote:
The only thing I have not seen mentioned here is the cost of these battery packs when they need to be replaced.

Close to half the cost of the vehicle. The good thing is that the battery is expected to last 250,000+ miles. Most people trade long before they will be out of pocket for a battery. Also battery costs are creeping down so it could be a lot less in a decade when you hit that mileage. Aftermarket is just barely coming on the scene for battery replacement.

Bird Freak wrote:
The only thing I have not seen mentioned here is the cost of these battery packs when they need to be replaced.

Generally speaking the battery should last the life of the car although some early Leafs had issues with overheating in places like Phoenix. Replaced under warranty but otherwise 8500 bucks.

Tesla’s degradation data indicates they should be good for the life of the vehicle which is 13-17 years. Count on a third capacity gone at end of life. Most car batteries from things like wrecks get recycled into grid storage right now.

The only thing I have not seen mentioned here is the cost of these battery packs when they need to be replaced.