this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2026
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Unless you are getting an old Nissan leaf, you’re probably going to be fine. Todays EV batteries are so energy dense they undergo less strain than the old versions.
There were 2 problems with early EV batteries. First, they were not actively cooled and could cook themselves to death over time. Today’s batteries have their own climate control.
Second, they were not very energy dense, so when they were being charged or discharged, you were moving a larger proportion of overall capacity in a short amount of time. Batteries do not like that. But as the capacities grew, the instantaneous load on the batteries dropped, so they didn’t have to work as hard to do the same thing. So they weren’t as abused and last longer.
Event first gen Chevy volts are rolling around happily on their original batteries with no noticeable loss in capacity to this day.
So, a couple of things: Personally, never been afraid of degradation much, outside of the old Leafs of course. What's always scared me about EVs is the chance of a sudden battery failure. Less and less of a problem now that individual cells can be replaced on many models rather than replacing a battery pack that costs more than the car (yes, used battery packs are an option, but IMO a bad middle ground between cell-level replacement vs new pack - you don't get the warranty of the new pack or the cheapness of individual cell replacement), but it's still an issue EV owners seem to mind, because there are TONS of 6-7 year old EVs for sale super cheap. Because the battery warranty is 8 years.
And secondly, I wasn't actually trying to say anything about having to be worried about the risk of failure in the parent comment, I was talking about the massive depreciation you take on if you buy a new or lightly used EV (because people are afraid of batteries). Meaning I find it to be a great deal to buy one that's already near the end of that battery warranty, you save tens of thousands vs getting a 2 year old one (which itself is, yes, much cheaper than a brand new one).
You know what’s funny is my sister has my old Nissan leaf and it’s still going. The range isn’t great but for a comfortable grocery getter that handles great in the Ohio winter and will likely kill a fucking panzer in a head on collision, it’s prefect. Her family has beat on that thing in ways that would bring shame to the Chrysler minivan we grew up with in the early 90s. (Dad playing mechanic killed it. It wasn’t Chrysler that killed that wood-paneled tardis. It was dad.) she has 2 child seats in the back and it’s basically a rolling bunker (back seats anyway. Frontal offset isn’t stellar on this model)
I got it used as a cheap way to get to and from college and it was the only way I could afford college. But even then, that leaf will not die! It’s on its second suspension, its covered in little kid ick, the damn touchscreen was clobbered by what I assume involved the autistic nephew, but otherwise it will not die.
Meanwhile the bolt I replaced it with only asks for tires.
These things are the only remotely practical way to do pritvate transportstion.
Hey if it works for her, that's great. I've said it elsewhere in the thread, but battery lifetime is completely unpredictable on an individual level. You COULD develop a bad cell even very early in its life, effectively completely disabling a battery pack that hadn't even really degraded much yet... Or you could also get an absolute peach that lasts 3x longer than the average battery of its kind before the device (vehicle) it's in gets retired with the battery still functioning. Anything in between could happen too.
And my experience with non-car lithium batteries which I've touched a LOT of, has been that on average, degradation does tend to level off. For Macbooks it was around 80-90% capacity where it would usually level. Meaning with that Leaf being as old as it is, I would expect degradation to have slowed down on that.
Every car is a risk. Batteries are a lower risk than transmissions. if you are willing to accept the risk of a transmission, you’ll be fine with a battery.
I still worry about people like me who drive a LOT. I do about 35-40k miles a year. I don't think I can trust a battery to last through the loan with the kind of mileage I put on.
I can wrench on an ICE vehicle pretty easily to keep it running for a couple hundred thousand miles. I have a used 2004 F150 that's about to hit 600k miles on its original engine.
It’ll be fine. EV batteries don’t just have the failure mode most people expect where it just stops working one day. They lose capaicy over time. Even then, they trends down to settling at 70-80%, not zero.
That's not entirely true. There's still risk of sudden battery failure. Otherwise these guys wouldn't have a business. Fortunately: Those guys do have a business and many others exist. For a couple grand at most you can get many battery packs repaired to their former glory. On a car where the battery pack is easy to remove, it should be fairly cheap assuming they can get cells somewhere (like other dead battery packs). The one in the video was done for 1€ as a joke, but that may very well be the true material cost of repair for an early Tesla battery since their cells are roughly the same as in an e-cigarette, 18650.
It IS increasingly rare with newer EVs, but it's a failure mode where the dealer will tell you to fuck off and pay anywhere between 20 and 70 thousand unless in warranty and for some manufacturers (Mercedes) the warranty terms have been updated to say that if the battery is more expensive than the residual value of the car, warranty will only cover it up to the value of the car.
All lithium-ion cells die one day. Majority will live a long happy life, but lifetime is not predictable on an individual level, only on the level of hundreds or thousands of units. I used to refurb laptops. I have the most experience with Macbook batteries, which I find to be very high quality for a laptop battery. I've tested at least a thousand of those, maybe 2-3 thousand.
Apple says 1000 charge cycles is what one should last - if you manage to get over 1000 cycles within the warranty period and it drops under 80% capacity, bad luck, you're not getting a warranty replacement. If it's under 1000 cycles and within the warranty period, it's covered. I've seen one or two that had above 80% capacity on as many as 2800 charge cycles. Many that were over 1000 but still good, many that had dropped barely under 80% in 200, 500 or maybe 1500 cycles... But I've also seen a couple that were in double digit cycle count and had <=30% capacity left. Usually those were also swollen.
It's just impossible to predict longevity on a single battery pack with proper accuracy.
EVs scale battery risks down not up. An iPhone battery will age but remember, the EV has a higher capacity, so the pull is lower. Also, by the time it hits a used car lot, the degradation on the battery is pretty much leveled off. It’s exponential decay, not linear. You MIGHT have to swap a cell. That’s it. That’s much cheaper than a timing issue or a transmission eating a grenade.
Ha! But I can replace a timing chain or repair a modern automatic transmission, for not much money. The cell replacement would in fact cost me much more money because I am NOT touching those voltages.
But also, that's exactly why I'm saying it's best to get an EV that's actually used, not one that's near-new. The depreciation hits hard for about 4-5 years, not one or two and by the time the model's been out for multiple years, there are donors to get cells from. They're much cheaper than new at 1-2 years, but they're DIRT cheap 5 more years after that.
By the time the average driver understands they need a timing chain replacement, their interference engine has already digested their entire top end.
Don’t fear voltage. Because it’s the amperage that turns you into a donor.
You want an EV that came off its first owner. Depreciation was absorbed by the first owner, replacement parts are pentiful, the battery has done all the evil is is statistically likely to.
Honestly, short of buying Musk’s dumpster Delorean there’s no bad options at that point.