Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalDave
Battery pack replacement costs for one...although given most lease these things, that may not be a concern for the majority of BMW drivers. Those that buy and hold on to them though is another story........
|
You should look up some stats on current PHEV's and EV's, the battery packs are good now (don't look at early leaf's). BMW only allows the middle 80% to be used, this maximizes the life of the pack. If your laptop and mobile phone would not allow you to charge above 90% and would shut off at 10% they would last much longer too. But then people would be less likely to get a new phone every 2 years and a new laptop every 3-4 years. BMW also warrants the pack past the standard warranty period, or they do for the i3 anyway, 8 years. I plan to sell my i3 in year 7 to give the new owner a year of peace of mind. I'm checking it every 5k so I'll have a very complete history on its capacity. There are plenty of Volt and later Leaf drivers with hundreds of thousands of miles on them (some taxi's) that have had little (Leaf's) to no (Volt's) degradation in battery capacity. Pretty awesome.
EDIT: Also, as battery tech changes, older tech gets cheaper. So one might not find replacing the battery on a PHEV/EV as expensive as one might think in the very far future, if just swapping for the same pack. That and/or the ability to upgrade to a more efficient and/or more dense, higher capacity, pack might even be an advantage, more all electric range and/or more overall efficiency when using with fuel.