EV Batteries Are Dangerous to Repair. Here’s Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway
EV Batteries Are Dangerous to Repair. Here’s Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway
Fixing car and e-bike batteries saves money and resources, but challenges are holding back the industry
Fixing car and e-bike batteries saves money and resources, but challenges are holding back the industry
Jacking Up a Car Is Dangerous. Here's Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway
196M.O.N.E.Y.
67Yep. Other than thrill seekers, the only reason any business does something is for the money. If you can go, "Hey, you don't need to spend $12k on a new battery pack! Bring it down to Bubba's Batteries Bazaar and we can fix it for less!", you will get business.
30Yeah, thats pretty much it. Doesnt VW repair or recycle their own batteries?
1C.R.E.A.M.
1
Eh. That's not really comparable to lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are similar to bombs in that they're highly dense stores of energy. If something goes wrong and that energy storage medium gets exposed to air, or there's a failure in a charging safety mechanism, that's a chemical fire at best, explosion at worse, but no matter what, it's extremely toxic.
10Acetylene and oxygen is also explosive, but you’re still allowed to have it and use it. Battery acid is extremely corrosive and poisonous. Gasoline is extremely flammable. A garage is filled with dangers. If you can’t service a lithium-ion battery in a safe way, you shouldn’t do it, just like you shouldn’t service your brakes if you don’t know what you’re doing.
21Lol. A single gallon of gasoline contains approximately 34khw of energy. An EV with ~300 miles of range, will have a battery with between 80 and 100 khw. Or the same potential energy as about 3 gallons of gas.
People are familiar with gas, so it seems safe. But every gas tank is a literal bomb, and that's just for a car. I have no idea how big the storage tanks at gas stations are, but I'm assuming there's enough explosive in there to level a couple hundred square feet if one of those goes.
6Lead-acid batteries also present a risk of explosion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–acid_battery#Risk_of_explosion
That's why you attach jumper cables to the dead battery first.
3A car sitting 6 feet in the air is also a highly dense storage of energy that could be released at any moment. I do get your point, but there are ways to mitigate the dangers associated with working on a pack, and they're not as volatile as you think. Being exposed to air isn't going to cause a cell to explode as the lithium is mixed with other chemicals inside the cell to make it fairly inert. The danger comes from short circuits, whether it be a puncture or bridging contacts with something conductive.
1Have you ever attached jumper cables to a dead lead-acid battery?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–acid_battery#Risk_of_explosion
1
The whole repair thing should made super easy if we want EVs to succeed.
- Make all batteries use an easily swappable set of standard cell sizes.
- Make battery controllers standardised and swappable.
- …. Er… that’s it.
131But that will never happen because the EV manufacturers couldn't charge ridiculous amounts of money for proprietary batteries.
62Make all cars rechargeable with a single charging port. And that port should be USB-C
44I've said it before, and I'll say it again allow.. cars with CATL or Nio battery swap cassettes into the US.. It is so dumb that there are different battery setups for every manufacturer .. In a Nio I can swap batteries for less than a pack of beer.. Why not do that instead of this current BS system where you have only one pack and once that is done it is $10k
16This was posted to one of the communities I sub to a day ago: https://spectrum.ieee.org/flow-battery-2666672335
This would probably be the best option if it takes off.
1
Is it money?
49Is it money? I bet it's money
47Mostly it's money for the consumer. I have a Prius so it might be a little different. But when the hybrid battery goes out costs something like $7,000 to have it replaced. A mechanic in town will repair it for $1000.
Now my car isn't worth $7000 so if I had to replace the battery then I would just get a new car and this one might end up in the scrap heap. In getting it repaired I have gotten something like 6 more years out of it, at least, and that's a pretty significant environmental savings.
And that's essentially what the article is saying.
20A battery that is utter trash for driving purposes still has tons of life left for other uses.
4So it is about money.
1
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44A Subscription Is Required to Continue Reading
Interesting.
First of all apparently ublock, no script, or some combination of my add-ons kept me from seeing the message and I'm able to view the entire article.
Even more interesting is this text at the end of the article-
This story was originally published by Grist, a nonprofit media organization covering climate, justice, and solutions.
So this source basically spun an article from Grist and put it behind their paywall.
Following the link from Scientific American, the first line of the Grist article is-
This story was co-published with WIRED.
It's clowns the whole way down, yaaaaar.
47We should all strive for this level of rigor when understanding sources of articles online.
The world would be so much better.
1
A Continuation is Read To Require Subscription
2Worked fine for me! I’m not a subscriber to SA.
1
Manufacturers will keep making their cars hard to repair cos they want all the money of the customers in original replacement parts. Their cars are specially designed to only be repaired by their own technicians, they want the whole business you know.
43Unless it’s a Nissan, then forget a repair – it’s an all out replacement every time. Don’t buy a Leaf.
5ChrisFix did it on a Toyota: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHaYXBFnJo
2
Because that's literally a mechanic's job.
20I loved how Renault solved this for the Twizzy (and other cars). You bought the car. You leased the battery for something like 50 euros a month. (Probably more now).
Sure, that sounds expensive, but I suspect it worked out less than replacing the battery after a decade.
Suspect it also helped resale value. The most expensive repair to worry about for a second hand buyer, is the battery. Making that a lease removes that worry entirely. You know exactly how much it's going to cost.
Of course, having to pay that monthly lease fee for the battery, does make it more obvious that electric cars aren't necessarily that much cheaper to run than an ICE.
13I've got enough subscriptions in my life. 50 euros a month would be 6000 euros after 10 years (figure a couple years more than the 8-year warranty in the US) that could be put towards a refurbished battery if the car needed one at that point. The reality is, on a 10-year-old car, a little range degradation isn't a huge deal, especially if that car is being driven around town and can be charged nightly. I'd rather own the things I buy, and not pay to be tied into yet another monthly bill.
15We have an BMW i3. 8 years old. Battery is fine. But car is written off now because the inverter failed. 11k€ repair. Worst part is that due to BMW software locks it’s almost impossible for third party repair to work on the car. Any replaced part needs to be “blessed” by BMW.
7That's the bullshit we should be focusing on. And not only in the EV space. See John Deere
1
whatever happened to Teslas distributed powergrid? Now that was a game changer, offloading the cost of the battery entirely could have made EVs actually affordable.
4It's up and running for the Powerwall, on some grids anyway (it works in my state - but depends on having an agreement with the grid).
The thing is there needs to be coordination between your battery and the grid - you don't to drain your battery every night, they only last about 4,000 cycles.
If every home in the state had a Powerwall, then maybe it could help provide baseload power but the reality right now is all it can do is help with temporary disruptions, for example keeping the grid up when a cloud passes over a major solar farm.
They're in the planning stages of doing Vehicle to Grid or V2G power. Right now though, it's just for standalone batteries. This isn't just Tesla by the way - when it comes it'll likely be for most EVs.
2
EVs are still much cheaper to run than ICEs though. Yes the battery is an expensive replacement but maintenance is still much cheaper because they don't have gearboxes, clutches, turbo chargers, catalytic converters, particulate filters, spark plugs, engine oil, timing belts, head gaskets, cylinders, exhausts, etc. etc.
1It's cheaper, but not that much cheaper. Anecdotally, my current car is 8 years old and has cost me roughly 400 euros a year in repairs and servicing. Manual gearbox is fine and should outlast the car.
Also, if I do a simulation for extended warranty and servicing (8 years/210k km) on the manufacturers website for a petrol car and for an equivalent electric car, the difference is roughly 600 euros per year. I suspect that'll be down to the battery. Traditional car the costs are spread over a longer period. Electric the battery or whatever sneaks up on you. The whole thing becomes doubly annoying when you factor in high electricity prices, meaning (sometimes) fuel costs are lower than electricity costs.
To be clear, electric is the future, it's a good thing they'll be banning the sale of new ICE cars here in the foreseeable future, and an electric car almost certainly is cheaper to run. It's just not _that _much cheaper. I assume prices will come down when they're forced to start making more of them and competing with the Chinese.
-1
Danger, Danger, High Voltage!
Although it annoys me that mechanics consider even 400V "high" voltage. HV is supposed to be 1,000V, minimum.
4400V is dangerous though. The traditional 12V is not.
2Absolutely, but 400V isn't as dangerous as 1,000V. IEC standards have already established all of this, above 1,000V is HV, below 50V is ELV and generally safe. Automotives have come in and labelled anything above like 24V as "HV", which is just silly.
2
Support right to repair. You wouldn't have to deal with this shit.
1LMAO
-3I swear, most people on lemmy have their heads shoved so far up their asses about how everyone should get full electric vehicles and that they're great and have lower maintenance costs just down vote me to hell when I bring anything like this up. I know the tech and I work on vehicles and batteries. It's dumb to buy a $60,000 vehicle with a 1,200 lb battery that could barely be removed to replace and expensive as hell. The resale value when the battery is about shot is next to nothing, and the "great 8 year 100,000 mile minimum legally required battery warranty" just requires the battery to still work to 70% capacity. Imagine buying a vehicle that is supposed to go 300 miles on a charge, but only goes 230 miles during winter going down to only going 150 miles during winter after 100,000 miles and still not being a warranty issue. My prius started at around 45 mpg, has 240,000 miles on it, and still gets....45 mpg. Hybrid batteries are small enough and cheap enough to be easily replaceable. It crapped out after being about 13 years old and I replaced it myself in an afternoon. It only weighs 75 pounds. No one should buy and keep an EV beyond 10 years old or you risk "being the bag holder" that's stuck with a 4,500 pound paper weight.
-8You should see what happens to actual mpg in the rain vs in the dry. Its almost like MPG can vary wildly dependent on environment and situation
17Yeah the whole range issue is dumb to me. You can recharge it so what's the issue? I recharge mine on long trips and stop to eat at the same time. Who are all these people that want to sit in a car for over 400 miles without stopping? That sounds worse lol I always stopped with my case car to eat or pee anyways. If I stay 30 min to an hour I can get fully charged too.
Also the benefits of never needing to stop to charge or fuel when I'm just driving around town. I can go all over and not need to charge my car for a few days. Then I do it when I sleep.
Also single pedal driving was new to me and I love that! It is so much more responsive if I want to stop I just stop going lol I love it. It has crazy torque too and makes a fun spaceship sound when I drive around.
6You misunderstand me. I'm saying that unlike ice vehicles that will continue to get about the same mpg for the life of the vehicle, lithium batteries degrade with every charge/discharge cycle. When an electric is new and you buy one with enough range to suit your needs, every year you own it the max range on a full charge is reduced. So an ev with 120,000 miles on it that started off being able to go 300 miles max will now only go about 250 miles max. The batteries lose capacity. The federally required 8 year 100k mile warranty on batteries only covers if the capacity of the battery is less than 70% of the original capacity. Typically though, evs are usually in the range of 80 to 90% capacity at the 100k point. They don't start dropping off hard until they're closer to around 200k and over 10 years old most of the time. Total failure due to dead shorts in too many cells has been happening around the 14 to 18 year area. That's when you decide to sell it for $3,000 or pay $15,000 to install another battery.
-2
I swear, everyone on Lemmy have their heads shoved so far up their asses about how everyone should go full internal combustion and that they're great and have lower maintenance costs just down vote me to hell when I bring anything like this up. I know the tech and work on vehicles and combustion engines. It's dumb to buy a $40,000 vehicle with a 300 pound engine, 200 pound transmission, mechanically complex 4 wheel drive system with upwards of 3 independently locking differentials. The resale value when the head gaskets is blown is next to nothing, and the great 5 year 60,000 mile power train warranty doesn't even cover the average mileage people drive in 8 years. It only requires you mosty pay off the average loan length for a new vehicle. My Tesla costs 13 cents to drive about 4 miles, where the equivalent combustion car, with 400 horsepower and 400 foot pounds of torque, costs upwards of a dollar to drive the same. The high strung powerplants in performance cars require regular, expensive, maintenance, and if you actually push them will blow up in under 10,000 miles. An LS3 crate motor costs more than the car is worth and that doesn't even include the transmission or any of the other drivetrain components. No one should buy and keep a combustion engine for more than 10 years or you risk "being the bag holder" and stuck with a cancer emitting 4,000 pound paperweight.
4First of all, find me a corvette that blew a motor under 100,000 miles without being abused to hell first.
Second your trying to compare a sports car tesla with all its speed unlocks to some sorts of all wheel drive sport car with an automatic tranny? I'm talking more about common cars for getting around in like a Camry compared to a tesla model 3.
Also to that effect, 95% of the time if you change the oil in a camry every 7,000 miles and the transmission pan fluid every 50,000 miles the motor and transmission will last over 300,000 miles. If the engine does blow you can get a new one installed for $5000. If the tranny goes out it will cost you $2,500. When the battery of a model 3 goes out, which is guaranteed regardless of how well its cared for due to its chemistry, a battery swap will cost you $16,000. Double the cost of a motor and tranny.
You spout the same misinformed nonsense as half of everyone here. You don't know how things work. You don't know battery chemistry. You don't know how to make your own repairs. You still try to have an opinion. Save it and stick my name to it. All of you people are going to start figuring this out over the next five years when the junk yards start filling up now that mass produced EV"s have been in production on a large scale as the earlier ones approach 15 to 20 years old.
0
What I seem to see most on Lemmy is split 50/50 between “EVs are way worse than cars because they are heavy and have tires and tire particulates are FAR worse than tailpipe emissions, and ICE vehicles weigh nothing and don’t have tires anyway” and “EVs are cars and cars are the devil - if you don’t live in a city center and use a bike exclusively you might as well be slaughtering children by the hundreds, because there is literally no moral difference.”
0Here we fucking go. Hello coleSlut.
Remember the dunking I previously laid on you about your science-free rants, because one of us works on systems like these, and the other is an ignorant dunce who pretended to be an engineer?
Would you like another go?
-2Aren't you delusional. Lol. As I recall you claimed to be an engineer of fuck all to do with rechargeable batteries and your wannabe opinion didn't count for shit. You wanna show me and everyone else where I pretended to be an engineer? Oh, woops. I didn't. Your dumb-ass never made it past a third graders reading comp level.
-3