A lot of people are in for a very rude awakening in about 8-10 years when:
1. People discover that they need to pay $10-15k for a new battery, perhaps much more if the increasing demand for strategic raw materials increases and begins to outstrip supply. Suddenly all the savings on gas doesn't even cover the cost of the replacement battery.
2. The replacement battery will not have the same 8-10 year warranty as the OEM as it is not regulated by the Federal requirements on warranties on emission critical components. People will be lucky to see 3-5 years.
3. Hazardous waste disposal!
4. Who will buy a used car knowing that the new battery will cost more than the car! Resale value will be in the toilet. These are just big expensive driver drills.
5. Lots of people cannot afford new cars, they will be stuck buying these dead EV's and not being able to afford a new battery! The poor will carry the brunt of the burden while the elite lease cars that never are beyond warranty.
But don't worry, when that time comes the government will step in and fix everything they f'd up now.
I'm glad I'm old.
Let's not forget the auto loan defaults when the people who can't afford the new batteries decide to just walk away from the car note.
Can't wait to see how many of those used EV's with weak batteries drop dead on the freeways and create traffic jams. You can't just have AAA come and throw in 5 gals of electricity in a few minutes and get the car running again.
Then there's the people who typically let their gas powered vehicle get low on gas but have figured out how far they can realistically go before they run out of gas. They'll be snarling up traffic too because they won't be able to squeeze that last little bit out of the batteries like gas in a car.
Of course, the same enviro whackos that are telling us we need to get these overpriced golf carts to save the planet will become the next ones crying about the hazardous waste they generate. I would fully expect that our govt will determine that there needs to be a disposal fee added to all of these new EV's, but will never use that money for actually disposing of the batteries and it will be left up to the owners.
I bet that used car dealers will knock off a bunch of money for the trade-in on EV's to offset any battery replacement that they will have to do to resell the cars. Or better yet, they'll give you next to nothing on trade-in just so they can send them to the scrapper and write it off against their yearly taxes due.
Maybe instead of these expensive EV's, the govt should seriously consider letting people run around town in actual golf carts. I'd buy a nice golf cart tomorrow if I could use it to run my usual errands to the store, pizza place, etc.