$60,000 EV BATTERY PROBLEM – WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT? – ENGINEER EXPLAINS 8 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Hello everyone it’s David from autom press as you know there has been a lot of discussion about battery replacement for electric cars in fact it is the hottest topic right now because of the potential cost that might affect you if you have to replace the battery due to
Accident or some other damages and it might cost even more than the car itself for example there has been a recent discussion about what happened to a Hyundai onic 5 owner whose battery replacement appears to cost more than $60,000 and therefore the car was written off even though it was only
About a year old so obviously as an engineer a lot of people have been asking me why does a battery cost so much and what could be done either by consumer or by the automakers to avoid these kind of issues in the future and I
Think there’s a lot that we can do to avoid both the high cost of battery replacement and also to prevent you from getting into similar situation that this person had gone through recently so I want to talk about this in the context of myself who happens to own this Lexus
RZ or RZ which is also a full electric car it’s one of our cars in our company Fleet and we’ve had it for maybe half a year or so but what if we get into accident or something happens to the battery underneath the vehicle would we
Go through the same kind of problem as this person and have to ride off this vehicle because the battery cost so much to replace so let me explain to you as an engineer exactly what’s going on let’s Go welcome back so a few things you need to keep in mind one is the fact that the batteries are usually and almost always underneath the vehicle right on the bottom so in the case of uh this RZ or RZ the battery will be right on the
Bottom from front all the way to here between the two wheels and pretty well all the electric cars of the same setup for a couple reasons one is the fact that the battery is the heaviest components and therefore you want that to be as low as possible to give a
Vehicle lower center of gravity so the car feels more stable also if the battery pack is between the two wheels is protected from accidents either in the front or in the rear in the case of impact most likely the battery pack will be protected because of where they are
Located obviously in the case of this example we talked about with our niik 5 uh this owner drove over something and it impacted underneath so that’s something of an unusual situation and you can’t avoid that perhaps but generally speaking it’s in the bottom underneath between the two wheels for
Protection reasons but that also means that you’re open to potential damage from underneath if you go over something or um if you make a mistake and you happen to drive on some off-road course and some piece of rock or wood might impact the bottom of the battery and
Even with a battery protection it could still damage the battery so that’s first of all one problem with electric cars is the placement of the battery now in the future as an engineer what I would suggest to the automakers and they probably already know this is to come up
With a design in which the battery packs are not one large unit if they’re able to break it into maybe two or three components then in that case you can then strategically place the battery in different parts of the vehicle not always on the bottom so maybe uh maybe
Half the batteries is on the bottom and maybe one battery pack right behind the firewall so that it’s away from the front but it’s also away from the bottom and perhaps another battery pack can be right behind the back seat here uh to between the rear passenger seat and the
Trunk and that way you would protect it from underneath and you minimize the potential damage for the batteries but right now that is not possible because of the way the batteries are designed and they are very densely packed into a single package and that’s why they’re all underneath but I think if the
Engineering group or engineering team can come up with a newer battery such as a solid state in the future you’ll be easier to break them apart and then put them in strategic different places and I’m almost 100% sure that company like TOA with a new solid state battery
Coming up is probably already thinking about that so they don’t have all the batteries on the bottom of a car so that’s one thing that car company can change the second thing that people need to keep in mind and also the car companies need to keep in mind is the
So-called battery Protection cover which is right underneath the battery and it is designed to prevent or to minimize impact from the road to the battery pack itself so if for example you drive over a rock a piece of rock kicks into the bot of the cover then it will hit the
Protection cover and not damage the battery pack now in the case of a Hyundai onik 5 story what happened was that the battery cover was somewhat damaged and it indicated the battery itself above the cover appears to be damaged but they never took the cover off so obviously they never found out
Exactly what happened but to prevent that problem all they have to do is create something similar to what off-road vehicles like a 4Runner might have uh when they have an actual protection underneath they’re much thicker and bigger than what is on a typical battery pack so if they actually
Kind of treat some of these electric cars as almost off-road capable vehicle and make the Protection cover thicker bigger and to have more space between the Protection cover and the battery then there’s a lot less chance of the battery themselves getting damaged if there is an impact underneath as well
They can sandwich some kind of absorbent material much like what we have in a front bumper or rear bumper between the battery and the battery Protection cover and that way once again if you happen to drive over something it’s the battery cover and the absorbent material that
Takes all the shocks and the battery will be actually kept intact those are some stuff that car companies are not doing currently because once again they’re trying to put the battery as low as possible away from the passenger compartment because the higher the battery pack obviously less space there
Is in the interior of the car so those are some of the packaging problem they have to deal with but because of this recent issue that’s coming up I think car companies have to realize you have to sacrifice some of the Interior packaging space so that they can
Maximize the safety and the protection of the battery underneath now keep in mind that in the future when the solid state battery finally comes out it will mitigate some of this problem because by Nature solid state batteries is much stronger and safer because it is based on solid materials versus liquid
Materials and therefore it would be much easier to protect protect the battery and keep them protected compared to a current battery system which is much more sensitive to any kind of Damages or impact by the way Tesla seems to be one step ahead of its competitors because
For a long time now they’ve had titanium based battery Protection cover underneath which is much stronger than what we are seeing in other automakers battery protection so Tesla is obviously aware of the potential damage to the battery and seems have designed something that’s much more robust tough
And durable and that’s perhaps why they haven’t had this problem in terms of battery being damaged by driving over something the third thing to keep in mind is that right now electric cars have still bit of a niche product we’re not selling a huge amount of these
Electric cars and that itself POS a problem because of a simple reason which is economy of scale if and when the electric cars actually finally reach mainstream and we are selling more multiple hundreds of thousands of dollar worth of electric cars and therefore a car companies can then economize the
Cost per car then the replacement cost of a batteries will automatically go down because we have just so many electric cars on the road and that will allow the manufacturing efficiency to be achieved and so forth so the cost will come down anyways right now with the number of electric cars that selling
It’s just not possible to do that because there’s so much Capital cost involved in designing and developing uh electric cars and the battery pack that goes with it what do I mean by Capital cost well that’s everything from product development desig and research as well as manufacturing infrastructure to
Create oneof a CL battery pack that is only used for that particular vehicle in the future what they have to do and I’m sure again they’re working on this is to standardize the battery pack regardless of the type of car or size of the vehicle and that way you can economize
The scale even more and bring the cost down so that whether is Lexus RZ or let’s say in the future a Tacoma electric truck the battery packs are the same and even better if they can actually standardize the battery packs across industry among different brands so for example Toyota Nissan Honda GM
Whatever if they start using the same kind of battery then you can really bring the cost down and none of these things will been issued but of course that’s a problem in terms of Industry because they’re all competing with each other and very unlikely that they’re going to share secrets or engineering
Background with each other and therefore car companies will probably continue to produce different batteries for different Vehicles using their own technology and so therefore that might take many many years before we are able to standardize some kind of a Battery Technology and bring the cost down so
That’s another reason to keep in mind the next point I want to talk about is something that they can do right away which is all to do with how the dealers and the automakers and the insurance companies can work together the help each other out and bring the cost down
By making sure that the knowledge is shared discussed and collaborated before making decisions about the battery pack now according to what the Hyundai officials have said looks like that is already taking place because they are making sure that Hyundai dealers in the future will not make decision about battery replacement without first
Consulting Hyundai as an automaker so that is going to improve a lot but you know what I don’t know that if all the automakers have that set up yet so you might still end up in a situation where the dealer themselves take the matter in their own hands and decide what to do
With a battery in conjunction with the insurance company which is most likely not all that interested in figuring out what’s happening in the background and likely to write off the car but if they can set up a joint system or what we call the collaborated network and old engineers and technicians can work
Together from a dealers from the insurance company and of course the automakers and their technicians then each battery incident can be reviewed from a technical perspective and they can actually diagnose properly and make the right decision and this is something that didn’t happen with this onic 5
Situation if they did they most likely would have found out that the battery was not damaged and only the Protection cover needs to be replaced and they could have avoided this whole thing together now I’m actually involved in number of collaborative business and Engineering Systems so I know how this
System works and it’s not easy to set up but it can be done and it needs to be done so that across the industry not just with Hyundai but across all all the automakers they need to come up with a standardized method for diagnosing and to figuring out what’s wrong with the
Battery and work with each other to minimize disruption and to minimize unnecessary replacement and I think this is something they can do right away with all the automakers so that consumers like ourself have some kind of assurance that when we take a car in for a diagnostic work to do with a battery
Things won’t go out of control and we end up with a huge bill or a huge cost for replacing the battery so I think that is something that they are beginning to realize all the car companies and technicians and dealers are talking about this right now it
Might take a year or two to get it sorted but I’m confident that at least the collaboration among the dealers insurance companies and the manufacturers will improve but I think you guys as a consumer really need to push for that and if you ever wonder what’s happening with your battery pack
In electric car don’t take the dealers for granted make sure that they are contacting the automaker itself and to get the professional opinion from the technician from the carrent companies so that decision can be made wisely and properly and not allow them to jump into some kind of conclusion so that’s I
Think important part so does that mean that you should avoid buying electric cars well no not really because if more people buy electric cars and it becomes more common eventually the cost of battery packs will go down and economy of scale will take place and everything will become more normalized so I don’t
Want you to give up on buying electric cars because that’s the future anyway so it’s a bit of a chicken egg thing when the volume of the electric cars increase and car companies become smarter and they introduce solid state batteries many of these problems will simply go
Away but it’s going to take time and during this time you might just avoid buying electric cars altogether and I will totally understand if that’s the case but as someone who understand intimately how the electrical system work and how the Auto industry Works behind the scene I think the best
Solution is that all of us slowly but surely Embrace electric cars and try to encourage the car companies to work with each each other and to standardize the components because eventually then the problem go away and what you can do to protect yourself for now if you were to
Buy electric car is something that is not super difficult to do but will require some imagination and thinking which is to take this car something like RZ to a body shop and maybe get them to craft up or design another protection underneath a vehicle this may void the warranty if it actually involves
Drooling into battery packs or anything close to that battery pack but if you can find a really clever technician to create the cover that could be attached without drooling into any sensitive area that is something that maybe you can consider or maybe the car companies can consider in the future uh because having
A double protection or another system underneath to protect it will possibly prevent any damage to the first Protection cover that comes from the automakers ultimately the ideal situation is if one of the aftermarket companies can actually design this uh secondary battery Protection cover that can be bolted onto any one of the
Electric cars uh easily and quickly and safely without avoiding a warranty then of course that will be the best solution because then you can perhaps buy additional Protection cover get it installed and you’ve got two layers of protection uh underneath the vehicle so that there’s much less chance of the
Battery thems getting damaged hopefully one of the aftermarket companies are thinking of doing this for popular EVS that’s available right now another thing you can do is what the truck owners often do which is to raise the car using different suspension or different kind of components and put a bigger tires on
Because what will happen then is that you will simply raise the battery pack higher above the ground and there will be much less chance of underneath getting damaged if you happen to drive over something now that will change the Dynamics of the vehicle and you could
Void the warranty if you go extreme but if you’re simply raising it by inch or inch and a half half or so by using a different suspension or different uh shocks or different spring that wouldn’t negate the warranty and it would just give you extra protection if you’re
Driving in some rough road and you’re worried about something hitting underneath just simply raise the vehicle and that will give you additional protections the last point to keep in mind is that before you buy electric car go to dealership and go to the aparts or service department and find out how much
A new battery will cost if they have to be replaced for some reason whether it’s an accident or whatever it might be and that way you have some idea of the cost of replacement in the case that you have to do so you might find that from manufacturers to manufacturer maybe even
From dealer to dealer the cost of a battery replacement can be quite different also do check the full warranty information and the details behind it to make sure that you are protected uh against any kind of battery defects or problem down the road and how long that coverage might be those are
Some of the things you can do before you actually decide on which electric car to buy so those are some of the potential things that we can do to help you reduce the chance of the battery packs being damaged but at the end of the day some of these problems won’t be resolved
Until we have a mass market for electric cars and until automakers come up with a different Battery Technology such as the solid state batteries which are tougher and stronger against potential damage so those are obviously things we just have to wait I hope this was helpful for you
Guys to give you a bit of a perspective on what I think of the battery pack replacement issue and the battery issue in general and hopefully this give you a bit of an insight to think about if you enjoy my video please give me a thumbs up and please make some comments so
Maybe I can understand what you’re looking for uh and if you haven’t done so yet would you kindly subscribe as well until next video I’m signing off for now thank you so Much
Recently, a problem with battery replacement cost for electric cars has become a hot topic – making everyone very nervous about buying EVs in general (the issue was highlighted in recent videos by motormouth channel). But there is also a lot of misunderstanding about this problem, and as a result, people don’t know what to do. Automotive Engineer David Chao explains exactly what is going on with this battery problem and also provides some solutions and suggestions to mitigate this risk. In fact, David provides 8 key points that you should know about EV’s battery replacement issue.
Automotive Press is owned and managed by David Koichi Chao, a global expert in the field of automotive evaluation, engineering, and strategy. With over 35 years of engineering experience, David is able to review vehicles from unique perspectives utilizing technical and specialized methods. David is a board member and a director at AJAC (Automobile Journalist Association of Canada).
David is known around the world as an authentic specialist of Lean/Agile Thinking, and travels all around the world to review vehicles and teach latest engineering methods. Born and raised in Japan, David has an engineering degree from University of British Columbia and post-graduate education from MIT and Harvard Business School in Boston.
