Battery Life Cycle

[Mousehunter]

I guess a lot depends on how you define the lifespan of a vehicle. I own more than too many vehicles at the moment (adult children, etc...), and have 2 that are currently dependable enough to reasonably be used as daily drivers that are around 350k miles - and 3 others that are 20ish years old or older. With the exception of my toy Jeep (in honesty, it is something of a maintenance nightmare), none of my current vehicles have had any real mechanical issues other than normal wear and tear. It's not like you need to ditch a vehicle because it needs a brake job every 1/4 million miles, or maybe needs to have tie rod ball joints replace at 350k miles. For the large part, there are not that many EV's that are old enough to have mileage like this - but flip side, there are not all that many that people are reporting have mileage like that either. Companies are bragging that they should have 80% battery life at 100k miles. Hell, that is barely broken in.

We are at a point, most modern vehicles true life is till totalled in a wreck. I am going to be 60 before I probably take delivery of a Scout - and I have only technically totalled one vehicle (and the insurance rebuilt it anyway-because they messed up on calculating the severity of the accident, already investing too much into the initial repair to not finish the repair). Honestly, the life of the Scout to me should probably be mostly limited to how old I will still be driving.

 

[pleasant tree]

Solid state batteries are not the holy grail that the hype is making them out to be and they have yet to be proven in industry and outside of a lab. I don't expect to see solid state batteries in Scout EVs for at least the next decade or more and Scout has basically said that LFP and NCM (ie conventional lithium-ion chemistries) will be in these vehicles so whatever.

As for lifespan, EV batteries have been demonstrated and proven to more than outlast the vehicles they're put in so there should be no expectation to have to "replace" the battery at the owners expense during its lifetime.

Companies like Redwood Materials and Licycle already recycle EV traction batteries and are already seeing yields of over 95% so in a few decades when your shiny EV Scout is finally ready to be retired the battery in it will be recycled into a new battery for a new future EV. The limiting factor for EV battery recycling right now is the lack of feedstock since pretty much all the batteries ever produced for EVs are still in those vehicles today.

Within this year, two OEMs will announce launch vehicles with solid-state batteries (SSB) to be produced in 2026, 4 years before the next decade. One will be a Mercedes the other some type of Volkswagen or Volkswagen affiliate. These will both demonstrate that SSB can be produced in high enough volume for Gigawatt scale. 2027 will have many more entrants. There are huge differences between lithium ion and SSB, not the least of which is cycling ability. Lithium-ion at its best will last 250,000 miles before degrading to below 80% while SSB has been shown to cycle double that amount. If the life of a car is only 250,000 miles, then you are correct that lithium-ion will last the life of a car. Other differences are safety- SSB is significantly less likely to catch fire, Charging times for SSB below 15 minutes, SSB behaves significantly differently from lithium-ion in cold weather conditions.

 

[J Alynn]

Within this year, two OEMs will announce launch vehicles with solid-state batteries (SSB) to be produced in 2026, 4 years before the next decade. One will be a Mercedes the other some type of Volkswagen or Volkswagen affiliate. These will both demonstrate that SSB can be produced in high enough volume for Gigawatt scale. 2027 will have many more entrants. There are huge differences between lithium ion and SSB, not the least of which is cycling ability. Lithium-ion at its best will last 250,000 miles before degrading to below 80% while SSB has been shown to cycle double that amount. If the life of a car is only 250,000 miles, then you are correct that lithium-ion will last the life of a car. Other differences are safety- SSB is significantly less likely to catch fire, Charging times for SSB below 15 minutes, SSB behaves significantly differently from lithium-ion in cold weather conditions.

Mercedes can afford to absorb early entry problems in that field since they are a luxury brand. As essentially a start up company SM can’t afford to take a hit if/when problems arise. It’s in their best interest to launch with known elements and products then consider the higher end upgrade at the mid cycle refresh. Launching the Scouts at a cost over $80K is gonna cost a lot of people the ability to afford a Scout.
As an optional upgrade it may be possible but as a new company that’s a high risk for right out of the gate

 

[dreamweaver]

Mercedes can afford to absorb early entry problems in that field since they are a luxury brand. As essentially a start up company SM can’t afford to take a hit if/when problems arise. It’s in their best interest to launch with known elements and products then consider the higher end upgrade at the mid cycle refresh. Launching the Scouts at a cost over $80K is gonna cost a lot of people the ability to afford a Scout.
As an optional upgrade it may be possible but as a new company that’s a high risk for right out of the gate

I say we should be cautiously optimistic we might just be pleasantly surprised!

 

[pleasant tree]

Mercedes can afford to absorb early entry problems in that field since they are a luxury brand. As essentially a start up company SM can’t afford to take a hit if/when problems arise. It’s in their best interest to launch with known elements and products then consider the higher end upgrade at the mid cycle refresh. Launching the Scouts at a cost over $80K is gonna cost a lot of people the ability to afford a Scout.
As an optional upgrade it may be possible but as a new company that’s a high risk for right out of the gate

I agree with you, I would not buy a Scout for anywhere near that. The premium I would expect for the SSB battery would be in the$5k to 10K range, dropping down to actually less money than Lithium-ion after the first few years. These batteries will be less expensive to produce.

 

[J Alynn]

I agree with you, I would not buy a Scout for anywhere near that. The premium I would expect for the SSB battery would be in the$5k to 10K range, dropping down to actually less money than Lithium-ion after the first few years. These batteries will be less expensive to produce.

I agree but the SSB bring nearly double the miles so at the beginning there will be a large premium for SSB to 1)-recoupe research/design/engineering as well as manuf start up costs and 2)-it’s more mileage so therefore it’s an upgradable option.
It’s unfortunate but it is proper business strategy.
Look at the new VW ID buzz-like what 250 mile range and dealers are asking/getting $20-$30K over MSRP simply for new. Now we consider SSB which actually provides a huge benefit and value so it makes that it will be an upgrade. At a typical mark up of 50% (or more) buyers will easily be looking at $10K minimum for the first few years if not more so manufacturers can also cover the risk of it still being new technology

 

[pleasant tree]

SSB will make a huge difference in electric cars, and I just think that Scout has a real opportunity here to start with what is new rather than be a part of what is not working well (lithium ion batteries). The idea of a fossil fuel range extender is absurd to me, when SSB will do the job so much better without adding hundreds of parts that will add weight, need fixing, maintenance, etc.

 

[Jamie@ScoutMotors]

Solid state batteries at reasonable cost and mass production aren't there yet. By all estimates the automotive industry is looking at a 2030 time frame before we start to see early adoption. The good news is that we have flexibility and space to accommodate a variety of different technologies in the future.

 

[Badams]

One thing to keep in mind when solid state batteries do start to become a regular thing. Even though the batteries will be more energy dense they will still probably just be in 300-400 mile range. Most people won’t need anymore than that it won’t make sense financially for manufacturers to produce a battery with much more range that. But they will still be advantages of less weight and safer batteries.
Then there is still charging infrastructure hurdle to overcome that most of the country doesn’t have them yet. Personally I like the gas range extender. It has the potential to get more people to try an ev. With the peace of mind that you can just put gas in when you can’t get to a charging station.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

SSB will make a huge difference in electric cars, and I just think that Scout has a real opportunity here to start with what is new rather than be a part of what is not working well (lithium ion batteries). The idea of a fossil fuel range extender is absurd to me, when SSB will do the job so much better without adding hundreds of parts that will add weight, need fixing, maintenance, etc.

Lithium-ion batteries have been working well in EVs for a decade and a half now so not sure how you can claim they aren't. I do agree that a fossil fuel range extender isn't a great idea because of all the complexity and maintenance etc - at least for me - which is why I ordered the BEV version. I understand the appeal though and Scout was smart to offer it because it expanded their potential customer base.

Like @Jamie said and like I said earlier, solid state batteries aren't magic and they aren't ready for prime time yet. They won't be ready for many years and still have a lot of practical bugs to iron out like how they don't work below 5 Celsius, or like how the solid electrolyte tends to crack in some cases rendering the batteries useless. These are engineering challenges that may be solved in time but solid state batteries aren't the panacea they're hyped up to be. They won't cut charging times down to seconds or anything because the limiting factor for charging even today isn't the battery packs in cars, it's how much juice you can get to a charging site and through an actual charger.

Even now most charging sites can't provide the juice to max out what my current EV can accept using tried and true conventional lithium-ion technology. Switching to solid state isn't going to fix that. I don't see any charging networks moving to provide megawatt-class chargers, they barely want to put in 350kW chargers!

As @Badams said as well, don't expect cars to have super long ranges with solid state either. In all likelihood they'll have pretty much the same range as current ICE/EVs have - about a tank of gas worth - because that's what people need and are used to having. That will be especially true if the solid state cells are more expensive than conventional cells. If they're more expensive to produce automakers will limit how much they use to keep costs down. If the cells turn out to be cheaper, then they'll keep the range the same and let the lower pack costs improve their bottom lines. Either way don't expect magically long ranges to come from switching to solid state, there are good reasons why most cars tend to have similar ranges despite the differing sizes of their fuel tanks or batteries. There will of course be outliers and unique use cases but for the most part, regardless of technology the vehicles will all have ranges of between 400km-500km because that's a good middle ground for most people.

The main thing battery makers are focusing on right now (and rightly so!) is cost. We will see cheaper chemistries like LFP become commonplace well before we ever see our first solid state battery vehicles hit mass market. LFP gives most of the benefits of solid state without the cost and LFPs are already cheaper, well proven, and in mass production.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

I guess a lot depends on how you define the lifespan of a vehicle. I own more than too many vehicles at the moment (adult children, etc...), and have 2 that are currently dependable enough to reasonably be used as daily drivers that are around 350k miles - and 3 others that are 20ish years old or older. With the exception of my toy Jeep (in honesty, it is something of a maintenance nightmare), none of my current vehicles have had any real mechanical issues other than normal wear and tear. It's not like you need to ditch a vehicle because it needs a brake job every 1/4 million miles, or maybe needs to have tie rod ball joints replace at 350k miles. For the large part, there are not that many EV's that are old enough to have mileage like this - but flip side, there are not all that many that people are reporting have mileage like that either. Companies are bragging that they should have 80% battery life at 100k miles. Hell, that is barely broken in.

We are at a point, most modern vehicles true life is till totalled in a wreck. I am going to be 60 before I probably take delivery of a Scout - and I have only technically totalled one vehicle (and the insurance rebuilt it anyway-because they messed up on calculating the severity of the accident, already investing too much into the initial repair to not finish the repair). Honestly, the life of the Scout to me should probably be mostly limited to how old I will still be driving.

You're right in that most EVs haven't been around long enough to demonstrate a 20 year lifespan or whatever but there are more than a few "million mile" Teslas out there (mostly from taxi companies) so high milage EVs have at least proven to be a thing. @Jamie@ScoutMotors can correct me if I'm wrong but most automakers tend to consider something like 15 years or so be to a vehicle's 'lifespan'. So far, all data points to EVs and their battery packs going well past that, doubling that even. Statistically most people keep a vehicle less than 10 years so even the assumed 15 year lifespan is 50% more than most people will experience. The minimum EV powertrain warranty is 8 years or 160,000 kms and even that is more than most people do with a vehicle.

I'd suggest you're a bit of an outlier but you seem to understand that already. I would say that EVs are mechanically much simpler machines and as you no doubt know 'simple' usually equates to 'more reliable'. Assuming that all the battery stress testing that has been done over the past two decades that shows extremely long lifespan potential for EV batteries pans out, there's no mechanical reason your future EV couldn't last 20 or more years with little maintenance and solid reliability (so long as it isn't a Nissan Leaf).

Companies aren't bragging about the 80% capacity at 100k miles. That's the minimum performance requirement for the warranty to not kick in. Anything less than that and you get a new pack at the automaker's expense. It's not a brag, it's the performance floor. Automakers expect their EV batteries to perform much better than that, otherwise they'd be on the hook for a lot warranty work they probably don't want to do.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

Within this year, two OEMs will announce launch vehicles with solid-state batteries (SSB) to be produced in 2026, 4 years before the next decade. One will be a Mercedes the other some type of Volkswagen or Volkswagen affiliate. These will both demonstrate that SSB can be produced in high enough volume for Gigawatt scale. 2027 will have many more entrants. There are huge differences between lithium ion and SSB, not the least of which is cycling ability. Lithium-ion at its best will last 250,000 miles before degrading to below 80% while SSB has been shown to cycle double that amount. If the life of a car is only 250,000 miles, then you are correct that lithium-ion will last the life of a car. Other differences are safety- SSB is significantly less likely to catch fire, Charging times for SSB below 15 minutes, SSB behaves significantly differently from lithium-ion in cold weather conditions.

I've heard this song many times before, the proof is in the pudding otherwise it's just vapourware. We'll see if either company actually delivers on their promises since no other company has yet probably because of all the engineering challenges that have yet to be overcome that I mentioned earlier.

As for the quarter-million mile 80% thing. Even if a pack degrades to 80% of its original capacity that doesn't make the vehicle useless. 80% of 500km is 400km which is more than enough range for most people most of the time. The average Canadian only travels 40 kms a day and the distance is similar for the US. So even if an EV battery degrades to 80% it doesn't mean you need to throw the car out and get a new one, it still has years left in it. Battery degradation is non-linear meaning you see most of the decline in the first two years of ownership and then the curve flattens out. if it takes 15 years to get down to 80% it'll take another decade or two to drop an appreciable amount from there.

As for the fire risk, LFP chemistry has basically eliminated that and as I mentioned earlier charging time is now more dependent on the chargers than the batteries. Even now, when I find an actual high-power charger (350kW) my charging stops are already less than 15 minutes so I don't see SSBs significantly improving on that.

As a Canadian I can speak to cold weather operations and yes SSBs do behave very differently. They simply don't work below 5 degrees Celcius whereas my trusty lithium-ion (NCM) battery does fine down below -30C. (I've checked!) I've done many long road trips below -20C over the years and it's been totally fine. In fact, as someone who lives in a cold climate I actually prefer EVs in the winter over combustion vehicles because EVs heat up quicker, never have trouble starting, and allow me to not stand outside in a blizzard to refuel them! I get home, plug in and walk away.

 

[Dana]

Gruber Motors in Houston can replace individual cells of bricked Tesla batteries…they mostly do the original roadsters I think. Recycling/repair options would be dependent on how battery is manufactured.

 

[dreamweaver]

Gruber Motors in Houston can replace individual cells of bricked Tesla batteries…they mostly do the original roadsters I think. Recycling/repair options would be dependent on how battery is manufactured.

Sounds expensive.

 

[Dana]

Sounds expensive.

No idea on that, lol. It must be cheaper than a new one though.