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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

In the hypothetical case that an EV's battery needs to be replaced, yes that will be a very expensive repair / maintenance cost. But that's not common, no more common than an engine rebuild / replacement; one source I found [0] says about 13% of EVs from before 2015 have had / needed a battery replacement, and 30% of cars from 2011. I can't find any reliable figures on car engine replacements, other than that on average, one is needed after 200.000 miles - but if maintained well, car engines can last much longer.

[0] https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batter...

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>In the hypothetical case that an EV's battery needs to be replaced, yes that will be a very expensive repair

Interesting, I would have never seen this as an issue. 100+ hears ago, "Gas" stations would just replace battery pack and charge the ones taken out for the next customer. It was a rather easy job using some kind of crane.

I would have thought the new EVs would have easy access to the batteries. I do remember seeing somewhere there was/is a push to make battery replacement standard and easier. And have one standard battery pack across all models.

1) Batteries very rarely need to actually be replaced. It is inevitable that transmissions and ICE engines will need very expensive large services and always need regulae maintenance that adds up over time.

2) ICE engines absolutely do not and will not last longer than batteries and electric motors. ICE engines ans transmissions just have way, way more moving parts and are being put through far more stress. If you want something that will last for half a million miles or more, buy an EV.

> If you want something that will last for half a million miles or more, buy an EV.

My gasoline powered truck is over 400,000 miles on the original engine. Diesel trucks often go much more.

Miles isn't really a good measurement for engines, we should really be comparing hours, but that isn't necessarily available for all engines.

A typical driver makes 14500 miles per year. If manufacturing learning rates hold, then by the time that driver runs through 200,000 miles, a new battery pack of the same size will cost less than 25% what it cost new.

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