5 Reasons We Can’t Always Recommend EVs – SlashGear

At some point down the line, all cars become obsolete in some way. Newer cars with more sophisticated engineering and improved tech always comes along to improve upon what came before. EVs are no different, but they are in many ways more susceptible to obsolescence by virtue of the technology that they are crafted from. Batteries have a finite operational life and will eventually fail to hold a charge, will need to be replaced and, hopefully, recycled. The computer hardware will eventually be too underpowered to keep up with the software updates, threatening to one day be incompatible with the connectivity solutions of the future.

All of this is to say that more than any car before, EVs will be treated as disposable and temporary as the average household appliance. Vintage combustion cars often live on for decades with the right level of care, becoming collectables at best and at least, a reliable, hard-working investment for the kind of car buyer who isn’t interested in re-upping every couple of years. Today’s EVs will one day be looked at with the same nostalgic amusement as a flip phone. “Remember these? I can’t believe we used to drive around with them! How did we get by on such poor battery life?”

One answer to that uncertainty is leasing EVs rather than buying them: that also makes it easier for drivers to upgrade to the newest model. This can be off-putting to those who prefer to own their things outright, but also for those whose initial interest to an EV was to be more environmentally sound. If EV consumption treats them as disposable as old dishwashers, what’s to keep them from being tossed out into the already gargantuan waste problem? The short answer is it’ll be up to the automakers to recycle and otherwise properly handle a car’s end of life, but from a customer standpoint, that’s merely passing the buck and trusting them to do so.