What Are the Considerations Of End Of Life Electric Cars

As we hear today that in the UK, sales of electric cars has significantly increased over last year, in a market where overall new vehicles sales has slightly dropped, the media made it big news. the reality is though, sales were still something like 130,000 and increase from 3500 4 years before, they are still something of a minority on British roads.

nissan leaf electric charging point on car

However, we can;t ignore the second hand market, where prices are becoming affordable and bringing many priced out of the market within. But electric cars still have a useful life limit and there is a big drawback, in that their batteries have nothing like the life span of a traditional petrol or diesel engine. Manufacturers like Nissan offer a 8 year warranty, but unlike engines will wear out and servicing has less effect. And as you can guess, replacing these batteries will not be cheap. Some manufactures offer a lease a battery scheme to compensate. The conclusion is, many electric vehicles may find themselves uneconomical to repair at an earlier age than traditional fossil fuel versions.

So then we consider, what it would take to scrap an electric vehicle. Well most of the cars in question would be the same, the bodywork, seats, plastic trim etc, even the electric motor should be good news in terms of recycling. It all falls down with the batteries again. The corrosive properties of these battery's, does mean extra cost to dispose of. Some of these cars have thousands of electric cells within, all containing hard to dispose of properties. So the overall cost of batteries going forward will determine how early cars, find themselves in the local breaker yard.

There may be some good news though. Draining a fuel tank after a car has come into the scrap yard is a health and safety issue that can be removed. Where to process that fuel (if not in an employees car) properly is also an issue. But don't assume that batteries means no risk of fire, just look at the recent Richard Hammond crash, to see how batteries can also catch fire. But it is also fair to say, not in the way petrol can.

It is likely that the "Takeback" businesses that work closely with the manufacturers and do not offer any cash for end of life cars will have in place something rigorous quiet early. But smaller scrap yards with less training and may struggle in the early days, when eventually we get to know what life span an electric vehicle can have both in mileage and age.

All the positives of owning an electric vehicle and its low cost to run are being promoted but the actual cost of replacing batteries say every 10 years is not being explore rd enough. But to put energy conscious buyers off their ne electric vehicle would have a negative conclusion. Because course the more new cars that are sold, the cheaper the technology becomes so maybe ny the time we get to he end of life process, costs have reduced significantly.