My 40yr old motorcycle is still running at 30k miles, mainly because southern California is very dry and non-corrosive. If I were to move back to NYC, the salty roads would probably destroy my machine in short order.

Regardless, the point is that in an EV, the energy storage part can be replaced while the rest of the system remains functional, without emitting CO2 directly into the atmosphere.

Packs can be recycled, individual damaged cells replaced if you really want to save money, though I don't recommend it. By nature of system complexity, the dino cars simply cannot run as well as an EV for the same amount of time. Average 6cyl has about 350 individual components within the engine block which must be within very tight tolerances (the crux of the problem), whereas an equivalent power electric motor has maybe 8 parts if air cooled.

If you trust the engineers in large industrial operations where uptime is key, you'll notice none of the pumps are driven by anything but beefy electric motors, running for years whether interrupted or continuously before going down for preventative maintenance.