6 ms·

The cost of a replacement battery is also a factor, out of warranty. The Bolt EV's replacement battery is ~$17k sans install.

abraxas 3y ago
Lucky for us Bolt owners who qualified and got their packs replaced under the recall. I will hold on to my 2017 for another decade or so as it now sports a pack that's less than 2 years old. It's almost like getting a brand new car.
Gibbon1 3y ago
Scuttlebutt I've been reading in the trade press is batteries are likely to outlast the car. Gas engines tend to be trashed after 180-250,000 miles. But batteries may last 500,000 miles or more. That's over 40 years of driving. Other thing is as energy density increases the weight penalty for EV's is dropping. Possible that eventually EV's will be lighter than gas cars as well.
- yodon 3y ago
  >Possible that eventually EV's will be lighter than gas cars as well. The energy density of gasoline is about 100x the energy density of batteries. Batteries can have other advantages but it's pure fantasy to think batteries will beat the energy density of gasoline.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    It's true that batteries will never weigh as little as a 12 gallon gas tank. But that doesn't factor in the weight of the engine and drive train. Electric motors are lighter for the same torque and power than gas engines. And they only need a simple reducing gear vs a automatic transmission.
  - audunw 3y ago
    Did he say “for a given highway range”? EVs are more efficient than ICE, so you gain 2-3x there. Then, if we’re talking city driving ICE is even less efficient unless they’re hybrid or ideally plug-in hybrid, in which case much of the weight benefit goes out the door. Then you’ve got the fact that batteries are now being used as a structural member, which you can’t do with a gas tank. Then there’s volumetric energy density. Gas tanks necessarily eat into the usable volume within the car. Batteries can just be integrated in the floor of the car. In theory, if you drove around with a huge gas tank you could exploit the benefits of the high energy density, getting range that an EV could never hope to match. You could drive for thousands of kilometres without refuelling. But with the gas tanks that cars are actually delivered with, for the kind of range people actually need, the weight of the engine/transmission becomes a very significant fraction of the whole drivetrain+energy storage. I really don’t see the point of throwing the “100x” number around when it’s completely obvious from looking at real-world vehicles that the actual achievable difference is far, far smaller, and that we’re 1-2 generations of battery chemistry improvements away from weight parity for a vehicle with the kind of range people actually need.

abraxas 3y ago

Lucky for us Bolt owners who qualified and got their packs replaced under the recall. I will hold on to my 2017 for another decade or so as it now sports a pack that's less than 2 years old. It's almost like getting a brand new car.

Gibbon1 3y ago

Scuttlebutt I've been reading in the trade press is batteries are likely to outlast the car. Gas engines tend to be trashed after 180-250,000 miles. But batteries may last 500,000 miles or more. That's over 40 years of driving. Other thing is as energy density increases the weight penalty for EV's is dropping. Possible that eventually EV's will be lighter than gas cars as well.

yodon 3y ago
>Possible that eventually EV's will be lighter than gas cars as well. The energy density of gasoline is about 100x the energy density of batteries. Batteries can have other advantages but it's pure fantasy to think batteries will beat the energy density of gasoline.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  It's true that batteries will never weigh as little as a 12 gallon gas tank. But that doesn't factor in the weight of the engine and drive train. Electric motors are lighter for the same torque and power than gas engines. And they only need a simple reducing gear vs a automatic transmission.
- audunw 3y ago
  Did he say “for a given highway range”? EVs are more efficient than ICE, so you gain 2-3x there. Then, if we’re talking city driving ICE is even less efficient unless they’re hybrid or ideally plug-in hybrid, in which case much of the weight benefit goes out the door. Then you’ve got the fact that batteries are now being used as a structural member, which you can’t do with a gas tank. Then there’s volumetric energy density. Gas tanks necessarily eat into the usable volume within the car. Batteries can just be integrated in the floor of the car. In theory, if you drove around with a huge gas tank you could exploit the benefits of the high energy density, getting range that an EV could never hope to match. You could drive for thousands of kilometres without refuelling. But with the gas tanks that cars are actually delivered with, for the kind of range people actually need, the weight of the engine/transmission becomes a very significant fraction of the whole drivetrain+energy storage. I really don’t see the point of throwing the “100x” number around when it’s completely obvious from looking at real-world vehicles that the actual achievable difference is far, far smaller, and that we’re 1-2 generations of battery chemistry improvements away from weight parity for a vehicle with the kind of range people actually need.