Technology

If the government regulates them*

Last nearly forever? That needs to be broken down into details. Aren't batteries for EV limited to about 10 years of use? And they're a costly replacement?

A good solution would be to make EV batteries easily swappable instead of "charge stations"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w

Electric motors can last a really long time, assuming no defects, they should outlast the battery by a Longshot.

That leaves the battery, and an LFP battery should also last a hell of a long time, probably a decent way into a million km before you have degraded to about 80%.

If you got those key items lasting, then it just depends on how well the rest of the car holds up, but replacing small parts while the motors and battery works is probably always going to be more cost effective.

The problem is the battery is a wildcard still.

We know how long those LFP batteries should last in a car, but they're also pretty are in cars and we don't have that real world data yet.

I also fear that OEMs will still gouge us on replacement batteries 15 - 20 years from now when costs are even lower and replacing the battery shouldn't be so expensive.

I had already read of the first teslas model S getting to 1M km with ordinary maintenance alone, so it should be pretty easy to achieve. Of course it won't be done as it wouldn't be profitable.

My family bought an electric forklift for their factory in the early 90s. I think it is a Yale.

My sister has since taken over the forklift for her company and she has only replaced the batteries and the controller once.

These things are cheap to replace and not as much of a mystery as ICE engines.

I am seeing people replace old Prius hybrid batteries themselves with basic tools now.

I think the only thing I would be concern about is the crash safety for cars. Newer cars are safer. I think that would be the only draw to buy a newer vehicle.

I mean most things can, it just isn't profitable...

Its really worth reading the whole Article. Im looking forward to long lasting EVs, but I really fear that, what the author also described in his article, may come true. I think we will see that car manufacturers will start to act like hardware company's and start to force you to regularly buy a new car by making your car incompatible to new features or by designing it to fail after a few years.

After ~20-30 years, rubber gaskets and seals and cable insulation start failing. Plastic becomes brittle, especially if exposed to the sun. How do they solve this problem?