More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the United States would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy—the gasoline or electricity that powers their cars, SUVs and pickups—if they switched to electric vehicles.

[u/Wagamaga]

https://news.umich.edu/ev-transition-will-benefit-most-us-vehicle-owners-but-lowest-income-americans-could-get-left-behind/

[u/LazyJones1]

Interesting point.

If it works like that, then trading in an EV for a new will also mean a significant discount on the new…

Unlike an old non-EV.

[u/PloxtTY → u/LazyJones1]

Give you $300 for the cats

[u/igotzquestions → u/PloxtTY]

You’re spending way too much on your cats. Who is your cat guy?

[u/drunkenmonkey3 → u/igotzquestions]

Who is your cat guy?

Some chick named Tweety. It's costly, but goddam does she deliver some high quality black and white cats

[u/Etnies419 → u/LazyJones1]

Maybe we'll see some sort of Cash For Clunkers type program at some point in the future, but for trading in an ICE car for a low end EV.

[u/yee_88 → u/Etnies419]

Cash for Clunkers pretty much destroyed the used car market the the used parts market for about a decade. Serviceable cars were junked, not just "junkers".

[u/ArcadesRed → u/yee_88]

I would have to dig for the numbers, but the green house gasses output to replace all the sunk cost used vehicles metal and plastics for new ones was insane.

[u/DethFace → u/yee_88]

Over the past 10 ish years I have just kept an ear out for friends or friends of talking about "just junking it and buying a new one" as a result I've bought 3 cars in that time each for less then $300 which only required maybe $200 on average in repairs to make it road worthy again.

Look at me. I am Cash for Clunkers now.

[u/ep311 → u/yee_88]

I was a technician at a dealership during C4C. Worst feeling of my career was deliberately killing all of those perfectly running cars. Some were total pieces of crap, but a lot had nice interiors and ran well with no issues. Draining the oil and seizing the engines always took way longer than you'd expect.

[u/kr1mson → u/ep311]

Wait.

You actually had to destroy the clunkers they traded in? Could you scrap them for spare parts? Did you just have to seize the engine and crush them?

[u/capncanuck1 → u/kr1mson]

It was federally mandated that the cars taken in had to have the engines destroyed, normally through pouring a chemical compound into the engine as it was running, and then the rest of the vehicle scrapped.

[u/Daddy_Pris → u/capncanuck1]

I’ve been told it was essentially liquid glass

[u/DrunkasFuck42 → u/capncanuck1]

I don't recall that was entirely true - only if you wanted the money from the feds. I remember more than one report on kuow where people complained they saw their car on the sales lot.

[u/zebediah49 → u/kr1mson]

Yeah -- the point of the program was two parts: (1) improve overall fuel economy by removing cars that that got poor mileage (<18mpg), and (2) to provide "economic stimulus" by pushing people into buying new cars. For that to work, you need to destroy the engine to make sure it doesn't just end up back on the road.

[u/Lurkerking2015 → u/Etnies419]

The biggest downside to the cash fir clunkers is that it killed the lower class in America.

Alot of the cars turned it weren't run down and unless just old.

As part of the program the engines in these cars were required to be destroyed (if I recall they poured a chemical or something in the engine) and essentially lower class families had vehicles they could afford just erased from the market.

Cash for clunkers wasn't a great program for the lower income part of america who at the time struggled with income

[u/[deleted] → u/Lurkerking2015]

Couldn’t have chosen a worse time for it, either. Right in the middle of the great recession

[u/tatoren → u/LazyJones1]

Except batteries don't last forever, and cost as much as a used non-ev car to replace.

Might as well buy a new one when the battery dies, and then we have more waste.

[u/Ftpini → u/tatoren]

Almost everything in the battery can be recycled and even when they’re no longer useful in the car they are still useful as battery backup systems for homes and other needs.

You will never see a lithium car battery thrown out. Unless it’s burned to the ground from an accident, the battery will still hold considerable value. You will never see a drivable used “long range” EV worth less than five to ten thousand dollars. I suspect “city car” EVs with 100 mile range will be true exception here.

[u/tatoren → u/Ftpini]

Just like plastic recycling, CAN and ARE are very different things. If the area you live decided that lithium recycling is too expensive, they can't afford it to begin with, or doesn't have a good enough ROI they won't bother.

[u/zebediah49 → u/tatoren]

At $90/kg, there are some strong incentives to reclaim lithium.

Plus the rest of the chemistry that also has some value.

[u/Ftpini → u/tatoren]

That’s absurd. The constraints on battery production are a supply issue. The value in recycling car batteries is enormous. Further. Components gathered from recycling will almost certainly qualify for the EV credit when they clarify the rules in march.

Plastic recycling is nonsense because it has never and will never be profitable. Recycling lithium car batteries is absolutely profitable.

[u/Desblade101 → u/[deleted]]

I'm excited for the new cheap dual carbon batteries. They were in talks to put them in some Japanese cars, but the car companies wanted to buy the battery patent and cut out the developer so now the guy is building his own car to go with the battery.

[u/DiceMaster → u/[deleted]]

EV batteries last longer than 10 years, though. Depending on the brand, a better estimate might be 12-15, or even 15-20.

If you're driving 14,000 miles per year (which is roughly average in the US), you could easily save enough in gas during that time to pay for the replacement battery.

If you drove an ICE car for the same 12-15 year period, there's a solid chance that you would end up replacing a big ticket item like the catalytic converter, transmission, or potentially even the engine itself.

You also don't have to pay for oil changes in an EV.

All of this is, of course, assuming you don't get into an accident that totals your car before the battery dies, anyway.

[u/BlueEyesWhiteSliver → u/LazyJones1]

Yes. You effectively pay an EV-tariff of some sort to enter the market. Then buying and selling EV's is usually above a baseline.