Hyundai Quietly Changes Battery Warranty

Exactly. I could not find anyone who would tell me what they paid for a new battery replacement in the e-Golf. I heard second hand it was about $25000, or more than twice what I paid for the whole car (used). I suspect that the scarcity of batteries and relative rarity of the need (fly out a special team to make switch?) accounts for the unusually high cost. This lead to my rather dumbfounded conclusion that an entirely perfect car, battery aside, could be a complete financial write-off if the battery goes bad out of warranty.

 

But that true of any car. I have a 2006 Volvo s 60 in perfect condition with just over 100,000 miles on it. The curent Kelly blue book value on it is $1800 US dollars . It was $45,000 new. It's only 14 years old. If it lost a timing belt the engine would be junk and so would the car. No one would repair the engine because of the cars value

 

That Volvo is still worth some coin up in Canada, probably close to 6K U$

 

Fair enough. I would hope though that if my battery dies today it would be replaced for free. If it dies in 10 years I still hope that would be the case. Lifetime warranty!

And if not (2020 model) by that time it probably won't be 30k.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

 

I posted about this a couple of weeks ago.. Yes, they ended lifetime warranty.. Glad that I got a 2019..

 

I wouldn't read a lot into changing warranties. Competitive pressure would be the main driver here. Over the last few years ICE cars in Aus have moved from a typical 3 year 100,000Km warranties, to 5 year unlimited, or even 7 year unlimited. That's due to new market entrants like Kia using long warranties as a way to gain market share, and established players like Subaru having to match to conditions or lose. It's not that Subaru are suddenly producing cars that are twice as reliable.

 

Well I'll pipe in as usual.. You buy a new car then the first thing some people do is to worry about this and that. What happens if this breaks or the battery is going to die in 8 years or sooner. Some people have had some trouble with various things with their Kona's that's a worry but if you take a poll a great majority will say the car runs and drives great, me included... Take it from this old guy drive the car and don't worry about the battery replacement you may die before the Battery does. My Canadian Kona is good for 8 years 160000 kms great. For your interest go to a leaf forum and view battery failure after 100000 miles or KMs most people have lost only one bar.

If you want to worry then just hope that one of those all in one computer parts fail after warranty.
That can be painfull.

 

One more thing they won't give you new battery for sure a reconditioned one from whomever..

 

CAN you imagine sticking in a solid state battery,or if it's out,that Li that can manage extreme heat while charging up to about 200 miles in 10 minutes so the diodes are evenly recharged.

 

Yes technology Changes so fast. I just saw a show where firms are going to begin to mine a certain area of the pacific where there is an over abundance of pellets that will produce electric batteries.
There is enough pallets there to supply more then 150 million electric vehicles. That is just the start. Who's leading the charge that's right China with the US no where to be seen. Why may you ask do I really have to say you guess LOL… It's a Canadian company doing the mining.

 

60 Minutes, good segment. Not to get political, but currently the sad state of government in this country (USA) would sooner advocate for coal powered cars. A lot of us here are fingers crossed for 2020.

 

Perhaps the battery replacement discussion will prove to be moot. This article in Quartz discusses a group of Tesla's being used as fleet cars and all of them are up in the 300k range with very few issues...including batteries for most. Some of them are heading for 600k. And they're ALL getting DC charges constantly so the wear cycles are probably high. If the Hyundai's batteries are even HALF as good as the Tesla's I'll be thrilled. I don't think any ICE cars could make this kind of claim about longevity.

 

This price is irrelevant, first of all because nobody needs to buy a battery today, since the lowest warranty is 8 years and the car just came out, and considering the whole car costs 45K canadian, the battery alone can't be 32K in whatever currency you are quoting.

a very good price for the manufacturer today is about 100$ per kWh (https://www.businessinsider.com/vw-electric-cars-battery-costs-versus-tesla-2019-9). by the time you will need to replace the battery, the cost will be much lower than that. 100$ per kWh makes the battery cost to the manufacturer today less than 7000$ US.

 

why would the electric motors fail?

Electric motors are normally extremely reliable and don't just fail, unless there was a design error. They're not like gas engines that can fail if you don't maintain them properly. If sized and cooled properly they pretty much last forever.

 

The inverter may be the most likely component to go.. The only metal to metal contact in an electric motor is at the bearings. Elon musk said that the bearings should last a million miles on a Tesla.. Well, he may have referred to the entire powertrain with his 1 million mile statement and not just the electric motor.. He also included the gears in the transmission..

 

Yup, motor bearings will likely be your first problem. Even Tesla had this issue with early model S motor bearings giving up in as little as 30K miles.
Good quality inverters tend to only last 10 years or so assuming not too much chinesium content.

 

You may be right, but while my father was in the business of building machines that ran on exclusively electric motors, I can tell you he dealt with failures all the time, like bearing burn outs, short circuits, power surges and even fires. Given that I'm certainly no expert in electric car motors I will concede any argument to those who are. I certainly love the idea you put forth that they should last forever.

 

Bearings in EVs are particularly vulnerable, and at least one company is
trying to help mitigate that:
https://www.fst.com/press/2019/freudenberg-minimalresistance-press

I also found this paper.. [pdf]
http://xview-aegis.com/uploadfiles/2015/09/AEGIS_EV_Tech_Paper.pdf

_H*

 

Im not even worrying about it.
They cant even keep up with production fir new cars. Getting a replacement battery is not going to be high on their list.

 

A quick perusal of KBB puts that car more in the range of 2000 - 5000. Regardless, if it is in perfect condition as you say, of course you or someone would drop a $2000 - 4000 used or rebuilt engine (eBay shows a used engine with 80K miles for $1,400) in there! If I liked the car I know I sure would versus what a new Volvo would cost. $20,000 for just a battery when the whole car can be had for 12,000? Not a chance.