Battery life and replacement cost

I rarely see dead ICE vehicles with over 250,000kms on the clock. Tesla people with the old batteries are reporting 480,000kms before noticing noticeable degradation. I'm 26,000kms in and not holding my breath.
 
chris69 said:
I was at an MG dealer a couple of weeks ago. The service manager showed me a quote for a replacement battery pack. The car it was for was identical to my Mk1 (he said he did a double take when I went in as the reg is very close too) that had been water damaged by sitting in a shallow flood for 3 days. No water had entered the car but the pack was destroyed. The battery pack was £24,000 and it only needed one hour of labour to swap.
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Why would anyone pay that when you can get one for £5,000 used, the manufacturing cost is under $7,000. I smell dealership mark up. I’ll see if I can get into the manufacturing parts lists to check factory pricing for dealerships, I’m not in the car industry anymore but have been researching manufacturing costs through Sandy Munro and similar. Experience with buying new cells and up-cycling ev packs would lead me down the salvage route for a replacement if out of warranty, ev salvage (especially batteries) has become very popular.
 
Whilst that level of markup is obviously over the top, an EV battery is an expensive item to ship (due to its weight, bulk, and being hazardous material), and ideally should be stored in a cool warehouse (I have no idea whether they do this or not, I suspect not for the less expensive brands like MG). They also cost a lot, and their value decreases with time. I'd much prefer a battery that I know was made only a few months ago to one that has sat in storage for 2 years, for example. Because they cost a lot, they tie up a fair bit of capital to have a dozen of them waiting to be used. They very likely deal with this latter cost by never storing them at all, making the customer wait while they pull one off the manufacturing line, package it (you don't put these in a padded post bag), and ship as needed.

So for these reasons, I'd expect an EV battery as a spare part to cost significantly more than the manufacturing cost. But not 5x, obviously.
 
Alansurfer said:
4000 full (0-100%) charge cycles is about right for a thermally managed traction pack, so at 3.8 miles per kWh (235 miles for 62kwh pack) that’s 940,000 miles battery life. A drop in capacity will probably happen a bit before this but still even at 2,000 charge cycles you’re looking at 470,000 miles. Don’t worry about the charging to 100% as this won’t affect the number of complete charge cycles it will just mean the battery will last longer in time which suits the warranty better. The battery management system doesn’t allow full discharge or maximum cell charge voltage, the 100% indicates the allowed usable capacity , it’s set up very conservatively with a large low and high voltage buffer to help fast charging and discharging. All charge speeds slow to the exact same rate towards the last 10-5% from 140kw rapid to 2.2kw 10amp house hold socket.
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My mg e5 has 73750 miles so far so good, I don't see any big drop in range; you are correct sir.
 
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I've had my (2020) MG ZS since May 2023, it slowed to a halt eight weeks later and the AA managed to get it working, however, at the beginning of October it started but would not drive. The MG dealership had it for 4 weeks with no conclusion. Now, I'm told that the traction battery casing is broken which caused a fault in the battery to appear. They have quoted me £19,000 to repair! I've only driven the car on the road, It was implied I'd been driving it off road! I'm 61, not a thrill seeker and definitely haven't had an accident in it. The dealership I bought it from @Powerlease.co.uk are washing their hands of it and the finance company @Motonovafinance.com have changed tact since hearing this is not under warranty! The MG Dealership where is has been for at least 16 weeks now, did not see this damage in the four weeks they had it for repair and also now trying to wash their hands of it. I would be exceedingly interested to know if anyone has ever heard of a battery case breaking by driving a car on the road? Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.
 
moodym said:
I've had my (2020) MG ZS since May 2023, it slowed to a halt eight weeks later and the AA managed to get it working, however, at the beginning of October it started but would not drive. The MG dealership had it for 4 weeks with no conclusion. Now, I'm told that the traction battery casing is broken which caused a fault in the battery to appear. They have quoted me £19,000 to repair! I've only driven the car on the road, It was implied I'd been driving it off road! I'm 61, not a thrill seeker and definitely haven't had an accident in it. The dealership I bought it from @Powerlease.co.uk are washing their hands of it and the finance company @Motonovafinance.com have changed tact since hearing this is not under warranty! The MG Dealership where is has been for at least 16 weeks now, did not see this damage in the four weeks they had it for repair and also now trying to wash their hands of it. I would be exceedingly interested to know if anyone has ever heard of a battery case breaking by driving a car on the road? Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.
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I bought a used car with MotoNovo Finance in 2019. Several months later it developed a fault which I was convinced would have been present when I purchased the car. MotoNovo were amazing in that they sent an independent engineer to inspect the car and his report stated that the dealer was most likely liable. MotoNovo fixed the problem at main dealer rates. My advice is to insist that they send an engineer to assess. I think you also have the fact that you had evidence of a problem within 3 months of purchasing the car - the engineer can make a determination about this.

Get pushy with MotoNovo. If they refuse go to the Financial Ombudsman. If you paid any of the deposit using a debit or credit card the bank will be liable too. Good luck!

If everything else fails then you can get a used battery pack from a scrap yard for about £2,500. Not ideal but better than being liable for finance on a car you can’t use.
 
chris69 said:
I bought a used car with MotoNovo Finance in 2019. Several months later it developed a fault which I was convinced would have been present when I purchased the car. MotoNovo were amazing in that they sent an independent engineer to inspect the car and his report stated that the dealer was most likely liable. MotoNovo fixed the problem at main dealer rates. My advice is to insist that they send an engineer to assess. I think you also have the fact that you had evidence of a problem within 3 months of purchasing the car - the engineer can make a determination about this.

Get pushy with MotoNovo. If they refuse go to the Financial Ombudsman. If you paid any of the deposit using a debit or credit card the bank will be liable too. Good luck!

If everything else fails then you can get a used battery pack from a scrap yard for about £2,500. Not ideal but better than being liable for finance on a car you can’t use.
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Thanks for your reply. Appreciated.
 
moodym said:
I've had my (2020) MG ZS since May 2023, it slowed to a halt eight weeks later and the AA managed to get it working, however, at the beginning of October it started but would not drive. The MG dealership had it for 4 weeks with no conclusion. Now, I'm told that the traction battery casing is broken which caused a fault in the battery to appear. They have quoted me £19,000 to repair! I've only driven the car on the road, It was implied I'd been driving it off road! I'm 61, not a thrill seeker and definitely haven't had an accident in it. The dealership I bought it from @Powerlease.co.uk are washing their hands of it and the finance company @Motonovafinance.com have changed tact since hearing this is not under warranty! The MG Dealership where is has been for at least 16 weeks now, did not see this damage in the four weeks they had it for repair and also now trying to wash their hands of it. I would be exceedingly interested to know if anyone has ever heard of a battery case breaking by driving a car on the road? Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.
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I still cant get my head around this, how comes Insurance, Seller, Finance company, MG Dealership are "washing their hands" - at the end of the day the car is in warrantly, its insured, and was bought recently - so many legal boundaries have been gone through (sale of goods, consumer selling act, distance selling etc.,) this sounds like a martin lewis / watchdog etc. route?
 
Tig170 said:
I still cant get my head around this, how comes Insurance, Seller, Finance company, MG Dealership are "washing their hands" - at the end of the day the car is in warrantly, its insured, and was bought recently - so many legal boundaries have been gone through (sale of goods, consumer selling act, distance selling etc.,) this sounds like a martin lewis / watchdog etc. route?
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Don’t forget - RipOff Britain (BBC) & programmes like the morning tv magazine shows on BBC&ITV like to do items on this too.
As well as blasting it across social media - X, Facebook, instagram, TikTok etc. the more noise you make, the more they’ll listen and do something to get the negative PR to stop! Don’t forget review sites like Trustpilot and just tell the companies you’ll keep on until you get some satisfaction.
If none of this works, stand outside the dealership with a placard - not on their property mind - that warns anyone coming in what a bunch of unreliable jokers they are. They can call the police but run it all to Facebook live /Youtube from your phone as protection. Besides, to the old bill it’s a civil matter, so long as your offsite, you can’t be done for trespass - you’re just demonstrating and as there’s only one of you, no chance of being arrested for a breach of the peace - if they ever turn up that is…
Good luck with all this - it’s a journey but keep at it…
 
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