simon-b wrote:A used electric car means a used battery, of course. Typical warranties for electric car batteries are 8 years/ 100000 miles. Even from new, that does not seem very long for someone who otherwise gets over 200000 miles out of a car.
The warranty on the engine that lasts for 200,000 mile will have ran out long before 100,000 miles/ 8 years, but I get the point you make.
I dont know how long the battery's on hybrid or electric cars last in reality but I think you will find the people who have these type of cars right now have no intention of keeping them for 8 years.
A pal of mine has a hybrid Toyota and reckons it doesn't have better fuel efficiency than his previous similar style conventional car. The main environmental advantage is in town where it mostly runs on battery and has zero emmisions.
If we are to go fully electric there needs to be massive battery improvement which should happen but there is the issue of the environmental problems of mining and recycling the battery components which will be ramped right up if we go full electric.
The hybrid/electric car still feels a bit of a novelty just now and are generally prohibitively expensive.
We have to also remember these car batteries are mostly getting charged by natural gas or nuclear power stations at the moment.