More efficient manufacturing, falling battery costs and intense competition are lowering sticker prices for battery-powered models to within striking distance of gasoline cars.
More efficient manufacturing, falling battery costs and intense competition are lowering sticker prices for battery-powered models to within striking distance of gasoline cars.
Ehh, this isn’t necessarily true for most EVs at this point, at least from my experience. Since they don’t have to put up with cranking loads, they tend to be far smaller than one in an ICE. This means that all the “idle” stuff that’s running when the HV contactors aren’t closed and the DC-DC charging circuit isn’t active drains the battery much more quickly, and draining them below ~70% is what starts to degrade them rapidly.
I’ve personally never had an 12v battery in an EV last more than about 5 years, while I’ve had batteries in my ICE cars do double that before they showed any signs of trouble.
One other slight issue I’ve noticed is that a marginal 12v battery makes the car absolutely lose its shit. I can’t even tell you the number of people I’ve seen on forums who think their car completely shit the bed due to the number of faults and such it’ll report, even though it’s still driving somewhat normally.
My 12v has a 10 year warranty, so if it did die after five years at least it would be free to replace.
I always turn the car on to use the accessories since ‘idling’ doesn’t really use any extra power, keeps the battery tended, and lets me use the AC/heater.