I want to buy an electric vehicle, but the industry designs them with an expiration date!
Electric vehicle battery systems are increasingly treated as sealed, indivisible units. In practice, this means that a vehicle may be declared economically irreparable not because it is broken, but because its battery has degraded beyond a manufacturer-defined threshold. This applies not only to full electric vehicles, but also to plug-in hybrids, where a degraded battery can render an otherwise functional vehicle unviable to repair or insure. This represents a sharp departure from how vehicles have historically been treated. Engines, transmissions and fuel systems degrade over time, yet they are repaired, rebuilt or replaced at component level. In contrast, battery systems are commonly treated as single-use assets. Once capacity loss, internal resistance or imbalance crosses an opaque boundary, the vehicle becomes a write-off, regardless of its mechanical condition. The underlying issue is not battery chemistry. It is system design and market structure. Battery packs are built as high...