A4Driver

No, nope. Not EVa ... Audi A4 or otherwise.

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superswiss

This gets to the crux of it and sadly these two didn't really understand it, nor did Hyundai Canada explain it to them. The major issue is that neither Hyundai Canada nor anybody else knows if this battery has internal damage. There are currently no cost effective ways to diagnose potential internal damage to a battery. Taking off the protection cover and looking at the battery wouldn't have revealed any more information. The battery would have to be literally taken apart cell by cell and each cell would have to be inspected for potential damage that could lead to a short and thermal runaway down the line.

For comparison, with an ICE we have reached a level where mechanics can plug in a diagnostics tool and find out fairly exactly what part of an engine is malfunctioning and replace only that part instead of blindly replacing the engine, and they can look inside of the engine with a borescope to see if there's internal damage to the cylinders. Also the worst that can happen with an engine that has internal damage is that it will seize. But that's where we are with EVs. Nobody knows or can tell if there is potentially internal damage, so all they can do is proactively replace the battery to avert a potential fire hazard. In reality, this battery may still be perfectly fine and if so they just wasted an entire car. So much for EVs being greener. This car produced significantly more emissions than a comparable ICE, because it only survived for 1 year. That's going to be the norm moving forward. Many EVs will not break even and actually be more polluting than ICE cars, but nobody wants to admit this.

Acuransx

Friend just bought a Tesla against my advice. To each his own. I did chuckle when he told me that he made a trip from Michigan to Cape Cod and it took him quite a few more hours than it usually takes. LOL. Aside from the range anxiety, charging issues and "environmental" issues, these appliances have no appeal to me. On the hunt for a nice new sporty ICE sedan......

EVs -- Your government at work!

Best,
Jeff

Phenomenon01

I wouldn't touch an EV with a ten foot pole, don't care which brand or model -_-

Dan99

I agree with you on EVs; however, the change from ICE to EV is a world-wide movement and the US government is less aggressive than the EU in this regard, and China looks like its going to be a big player as well. If you want to blame anyone, blame Elon Musk for creating the bandwagon everyone jumped on. Turns out, there's a lot of fine print that was less obvious when Tesla was only a niche product.

Blakard

As I've found out, it's cheaper to buy a replacement engine (even from the OEM) than it is to replace batteries it seems... and the old engine can be torn down used for parts or the metal recycled to something else... and the weird hum of EVs still bug me. Still...I have friends that can't wait to buy one. Good luck!!!

Glisse

Agree with the general sentiment, but to suggest the average dealership will replace "only that part instead of blindly replacing the engine" is misleading. The forums here are full of the opposite - bit of metal in the oil pan (designed to catch metal fragments) seems to result in the dealer sealing everything back up and saying new engine required. $25k please.

Substantial increases in (marked-up) labour rates and substantial declines in technical ability (plugging into the OBD port and changing oil seems to be the limit) means that ICE are approaching the levels of toasters - throw them, or large parts of them, away.

The issue here is this Hyundai battery pack has a parts price of CAD58k, more than the cost of the car. Which is outrageous, and what the PR person at Hyundai was struggling, and failing, to address. The lack of any systems / sensors / software / technical procedures to determine whether the battery pack was actually damaged is also outrageous.

What this also flags, and is becoming evident in a number of markets, is that insurance premiums for EV's are starting to climb dramatically. This is not solely due to battery replacement costs - unibody construction techniques, such as Tesla's Giga casting might be dramatically reducing manufacturing costs, but they are dramatically increasing repair costs.

EV's are not going away though, ICE is - many issues to be resolved during the transition, which is going to drag on for much longer than some pundits anticipated.

LightningTruck

I couldn't care less what the "average dealership" does. I have rebuilt many ICE engines over my lifetime, by myself in my garage at home. Nobody can "rebuild" a battery at home.
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superswiss

Yeah, I didn't say anything about mechanics not knowing how to fix cars anymore. Eroding skills and wanting to get the cars out of the service bays as quickly and easily as possible is another subject, but with EVs so far, no thought seems to have been given to repairability and just like with electric devices where one can't change the battery anymore we are entering even more of a throwaway society now where EVs can't be repaired anymore at reasonable cost. Indeed the unibody stuff is the other issue. All great for cheap production, but consumers have not benefited from this at all. EV prices are still very high and if they get into a collision the repair costs are even higher and as you said insurance cost is going up as result. So while EVs are cheaper to maintain and fuel, other costs can be significantly higher. Doesn't seem to be going in the right direction.