Workplaces too.

I cannot even charge my phone at work under Italian law (I'm a public employee and it would count as malversation).

The issue is charging takes a while, while refuelling is pretty much instantaneous

EVs are here to save the car manufacturers, not the planet. Literally just a bandaid solution to kick the can of actually implementing the harder solutions that require some societal change down the road a few more years

I mean, that's my point. The used market isn't all beater cars. There are almost new EVs available on the used market. 3 years ago they didn't exist at all. The used market back then only had EVs with poor batteries, but these days you can find new cars in the used market with new batteries, but still at a massive price discount only for being used slightly.

Many people still have the common idea that used EVs are risky, so the prices drop a lot from very little use. Also because the technology in new cars evolves very quickly, so you can get last years models considerably cheaper.

I picked up a used EV with about 20,000 miles on it and it still felt like new.

I can keep you updated on my own EV ownership if you'd like. I bought a '22 Chevy Bolt brand new for $27k a hair over 12 months ago and so far it's got 51,000 miles on the odometer and the battery has lost only 10 miles of range compared to the 240 it came with, which is such a small loss it might actually be due to the wind or temps on my test since I do my range tests on the freeway during road trips. Despite driving on average more than 137 miles every single day in this EV during the summer, rain, winter, and multiple snow storms (yay Midwest -_-), the battery seems to be holding up pretty well. My plan is to drive the car for at least 5 years before considering a replacement, at which point I should have between 230-270k on the odometer. The only maintenance items on the car are tires every 50-60k, new coolant in the coolant loops every 150k, brakes every 100k or whenever they wear out (which varies wildly based on how an EV is driven), and wipers + wiper fluid as needed.

My goal here isn't to put you on blast or call you a liar because skepticism is fair. I'm just sharing my own experience so far with a car that runs on EV tech last updated in 2015. I was pretty worried the "abuse" I'd be putting it through with my driving would cause it to have problems or perform worse than it should, but so far it's doing great and the battery isn't any worse for wear than other Bolts who have published their numbers online.

Personally I'm really looking forward to finding out how well the 2022+ Tesla Model 3s do with the new LFP battery because supposedly they'll be a big improvement over the NCM batteries they have been using (which my car also uses) when it comes to longevity and being left alone for really long periods of time (months, years).

EV batteries are lasting longer than expected.

Also, when accounting for maintenance over, EV's can be cheaper over time even with a battery replacement. They don't need oil, engine coolest, or transmission fluid. There's a whole life support system for ICE cars that EVs just don't have, and what replaces it tends to last indefinitely if there are no manufacturing defects or have an abusive owner. Brake maintenance is also reduced; they need the fluid changed, but regen braking tends to reduce the need to replace pads. Manufactures were already seeing pads and rotors on hybrids last nearly the life of the vehicle.

It all adds up, and while the $10k battery cost years down the line scares people as one big number, it often ends up being less than what you would have spent on maintenance over the same time period.

Finally, the batteries may not be worthless at the end of that time. Putting them in houses for backup power is often still feasible. You're just not getting the same range out of them anymore.

Aside from the Leaf, which does not have any sort of battery temperature management, I wouldn't expect an EV to need a battery so soon.

Teslas can easily make it to 200k miles at while retaining >80% of peak capacity, according to .

Most of the other brands don't have enough vehicles approaching that milestone that I could find data on.

Yeah, I don't know why you think this, but there are plenty of EV taxis out there with 200k miles on them.

And they don't need oil changes, timing belts, spark plugs, idlers, water pumps or primary belts. And their brakes last easily twice as long thanks to regenerative braking.

So, after about 300k miles, you recycle your battery pack and get a 3rd party one installed for $5k-$10k and go for another 200k miles.

My 2008 Prius has ticked over 200k with the original battery pack. Sure it's only a hybrid instead of a full on EV, but it's going strong.

My longest lived ICE car was my Delta 88. 261k before the second shitty GM transmission gave out. The first one died at 180k and was slippy from 120k.

Rarely happens though in practice with ICE cars, average age of a car being scrapped in the UK is about 13 years, average age on the road is about 8 years. Car lifespan has been increasing in Western Europe as car reliability has improved. In general Cars do not rust as quickly as they used to, obviously there will be individual Friday afternoon shit boxes or even entire ranges as with Merc between the 90s and early 2000s. But in general they are light years better than pre 2000s and especially pre 1980s when they could start rusting their first year.

In practice the cost to repair vs. value of the car tends to dictate its lifespan in Europe, it becomes cheaper to replace the car than fix it. This is the cycle we need to end.

Current it tends to be limited to enthusiasts to upgrade the capabilities of ICE cars such as more powerful or efficient engine, etc. I do not see this market changing with EVs, you can already by performance upgrades for Teslas for example, even if I wouldn't touch these 3rd party performance upgrades with a ten foot pole (outside of things like brakes and suspension).

Retrofitting a much more efficient engine to a modern ICE car is difficult, it requires all sorts of other upgrades to enable it and manufacturers have been busy trying to lock people out, see BMW and their ECU encryption. Retrofitting a larger battery, particularly to earlier cars is reasonably trivial in comparison and the old battery still has value, whereas a knackered gearbox/engine/ecu combo is worth considerably less for the average car.

This should be similar to a right to repair law for EVs that also enables them to take advantage of the latest tech.

Nope, the typical £10k to £12k on cars costing £30k, something like a Zoe for example, a Tesla Model S is around £20k to £30k depending on size with the Tesla being £60k to £100k to buy new.

The old battery is still worth a significant chunk of change as well, they certainly do not need to go in the bin. We haven't even started refurbishing old batteries yet, just repurposing them.

Couple that with more modern batteries often being bigger capacity for same sized packaging. Model S 60kwh with 70% usable is approx. 42kwh usable. Upgrade that to 85kwh and you've doubled your usable battery, so better than new.

Oh, and you'll often get another 7 to 10 year guarantee on the battery as well.

So nothing like a phone battery, well maybe one from Apple replaced by apple with an actual enforable warranty

I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact the only electric car I'll ever own will be a 10 year old Nissan Leaf.