About three times a day, Rich Benoit gets a call to his auto shop, The Electrified Garage, from the owner of an older Tesla Model S whose car battery has begun to fail. The battery, which used to provide several hundred miles of range, might suddenly only last 50 miles on a single charge. These cars are often out of warranty, and the cost of replacing the battery can exceed $15,000.
For most products, repair is a more affordable option than replacement. And in theory, lots of these Tesla batteries can be fixed, said Benoit, who runs one of the few Tesla-focused independent repair shops in the United States. But due to the time and training involved, the safety considerations, and the complexity of the repair, Benoit said that the bill to fix one car battery at his shop might run upwards of $10,000 — more than most consumers are willing to pay. Instead, he said, many choose to sell or donate their old vehicle for scrap and buy a brand new Tesla.
“It’s getting to the point where [the car] is almost like a consumable, like a TV,” Benoit said.
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Benoit’s experience heralds a problem that early adopters of EVs, as well as electric micromobility devices like e-bikes and e-scooters, are beginning to face: These vehicles contain big, expensive batteries that will inevitably degrade or stop working over time. Repairing these batteries can have sustainability benefits, saving energy and resources that would otherwise be used to manufacture a new one. That’s particularly important for EVs, which contain very large batteries that must be used for years to offset the carbon emissions associated with making them. But many EV and e-mobility batteries are difficult to repair by design, and some manufacturers actively discourage the practice, citing safety concerns. The small number of independent mechanics who repair EV or e-bike batteries struggle to do so affordably due to design challenges, safety requirements, and a lack of access to spare parts.
“There’s a lot of batteries in the recycle bin that could be repaired,” said Timoté Rouffignac, who runs a small e-bike battery repair business called Daurema in Brussels, Belgium. But “because they are not made to be repaired, it’s quite hard to propose a good price.”
A lithium-ion battery in a smartphone contains a single “cell” consisting of a graphite anode, a metallic cathode, and a liquid electrolyte that allows lithium ions to move from one side to the other to generate an electrical potential. An e-bike battery often contains dozens of cells. EV batteries, meanwhile, can contain hundreds to thousands of individual cells, which are often packaged into “modules,” and from there, bundled into a battery pack. In addition to cells and modules, electric car and e-bike batteries........