One of the things people often cite as an issue with Electric Vehicles, is the expense of battery replacement after X number of years of ownership. And while people usually make way more out of these issues than is warranted, the cost of battery replacement is a real expense there is no doubt. Of course so is the cost of a replacement engine or transmission in a gasoline or diesel burner. But that’s a different conversation.
I’ve always thought that the way that EV batteries are configured should mean that they would be fairly straight forward to repair, instead of just having to replace them. But I’ve never actually seen anyone get into one and test that theory, until now. This video show’s Edd going through some training with Bosch, and then doing a very straightforward component replacement on a Nissan Leaf. This repair required him to do some diagnostics, then drop the battery, take it apart, and replace one small component. And instead of a $10,000 repair, he had a couple hours labor and $150 in parts. Even if the labor charge was 8 hours, at $150 per hour, you’d be talking about $1200 in labor. With $200 in parts, that’s still a repair for under $1,500 rather than a battery replacement for $10,000 or more.
If I owned an EV and it had this kind of issue, I’d feel comfortable doing this work. I know it’s high voltage, but if you do it the right way you are safe. Check it out.
Video Description:
Should you pull the plug on your EV and its pricey battery just because of a fault? Absolutely not! Fixing it might seem electrifyingly complicated, but don’t worry—you won’t be shocked to learn that with the right steps, it’s entirely doable. In this video, I shed some light on how to safely replace a faulty battery component. A while back, I charged over to Bosch to get the current insights on what you can and can’t do, along with the specialised training and tools needed to tackle the high-powered parts of today’s EVs.
