New EV Deemed Total Loss After Battery Replacement Costs More Than Car Itself

A man in Canada was shocked when he discovered that it was going to cost him more than what he originally paid for his electric car just to replace the vehicle’s battery pack.

Kyle Hsu bought a brand new Hyundai IONIQ 5 in 2022 at a cost of about $55,000 Canadian (about $41,583 in U.S. dollars).

Less than a year later, he had a small accident that led to some gouges and warping of the battery protector cover on the car’s undercarriage. That small amount of damage led to a shocking and disheartening situation for the car owner that is costing him thousands.

Hsu took the car to the dealership where he purchased the car and asked them to assess the damage. What they told him amazed and infuriated him and should serve as a warning to anyone looking to buy an EV.

The story is going viral after a couple who host the Motormouth video podcast, Zack and Andrea Spencer, posted a video about the EV owner’s wretched experience, according to the Vancouver Sun.

The dealership told Hsu that the damage to the undercarriage meant that his battery pack constituted a hazard and that the battery was under threat of exploding, so it had to be replaced.

But the quote to replace the battery came in at $61,000 (which is $46,000 in U.S. dollars). That is a cost of $6,000 more than what he paid for the car when it was brand-new.

This left the electric vehicle owner with a dilemma on his hands. He had two choices, neither of which were good.

His first choice was to pay for the repair, essentially being forced to spend thousands more than he paid for the car. Not a good option, to say the least.

But his second choice was not really much better.

Option two was to contact his auto insurance provider, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, and tell them of the issue so that they could cover his loss. This was a bad option, too. Since the repair cost came in at more than the cash value of the car, the insurer deemed the car a total loss. And since it was a loss as a result of an “accident,” Hsu was told his car insurance premiums could go up by as much as 50 percent.

Both bad options would cost him thousands of dollars, though bad option two would cost a bit less than bad option one.

The horrid situation Hsu found himself in caused car vlogger Andrea Spencer to note, “This is a wake-up call” for all EV buyers.

“The story is, people are buying these cars not knowing what the actual cost of the most important component of the car is to replace,” Zack Spencer added, according to the paper.

This is not at all a surprise for those who take the time to do a bit of research on EVs.

Werner Antweiler, a professor in the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C., told the Sun that “The battery pack alone is often 30 percent or more of the actual vehicle cost still. So this is a very significant thing.”

Clearly any battery pack replacement will quickly shoot past reasonable repair costs in an EV, especially for an older one.

This also means that no one who is an informed buyer is ever going to want to buy a used EV. Who wants to pay up to $30,000 for a used EV, only to find a year or so down the road that a $60,000 battery pack needs replacing?

In the auto vlogger video, Hsu said that while he still likes the concept of electric cars, he is reluctant to ever buy one again.

“I like the idea of an EV. But even now I am still debating whether I should have another EV,” he said. “I could not justify my reasons anymore if I know the car has no used car value after eight years.”

While everyone is focusing on the outrageous costs of battery replacement, this story is also useful to warn car buyers of just what can happen to their insurance costs. Insurers are increasingly finding that their costs to cover EVs is incredibly high. And they are passing those costs right back onto the car-driving public.

Meanwhile, lunatic greenies and government autocrats are still attempting to force people to buy into EVs. Even with that, though, Ford just cut its manufacturing goals for its Ford F150 Lightning electric trucks in half for 2024. So, maybe the car makers are finally starting to realize that EVs are not a growth industry.

The fact is, EV owners who think they are “saving money” because they aren’t buying gas or paying gasoline taxes are fooling themselves. The hidden costs of EVs far outweigh the supposed savings.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.