Should I buy a used hybrid or EV? Will the battery need replacing?
QUESTION
Hi John,
I am following the progress of hybrids and ev cars. My biggest question which I have not heard answered is:
What is a hybrid going to be worth in the second hand car market after ten years when the batteries need replacing? i.e. is it going to be viable to sell/buy a ten year old hybrid car that needs battery pack to be replaced? And how will the price compare with buying/selling a petrol car of the same age?
Are ten year old hybrids/evs scrappers after ten years when the batteries are stuffed?
There’s a lot of talk about the new car market and the comparisons between petrol and hybrid running costs, but what will the second hand car market look like when people start replacing their hybrids and EVs due to battery end of life?
Thanks!
Nick
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ANSWER
Nicholas,
There are plenty of still-viable 10-20yo hybrids on the market - you can detain yourself endlessly compring their current value with conventional cars of the same age at redbook.com.au, for free. Fun for the whole family, right there…
This 10yo ‘battery stuffed’ claim: You’re not thinking like an engineer or a scientist.
Conventional hybrids recharge the batteries slowly via regenerative braking. This is pretty soft on batteries.
EVs are balancing the need for fast charging (consumer imperative) against not frying the batteries (technical imperative). Thus an EV battery is subjected to greater thermal stress (from faster charging) and needs added complexity (active cooling system) to prevent battery thermal overload and premature failure.
Lumping them all together under this ‘10yr battery stuffed’ umbrella is technically indefensible and you’ll never get meaningful conclusions from a hypothesis such as that.
If a battery is stuffed, it’s pretty clearly going to make an EV uneconomical to repair. (Because batteries are expensive, and EV batteries are bigger and more complex than hybrid batteries.) Hybrids stand a greater chance of being economically repairable in this situation because the batteries are smaller and less complex.
JC
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