The issue I have with EV is battery price and how will the old batteries be reutilized, disposed of?
I had a co-worker who was an early Prius owner, she loved the car! I don't remember how long she had it but I do remember her being "all tore up" one day and asking what happened. She was crying because of how much it was going to cost to replace her battery as it was at EOL. I know some early Tesla owners who have taken loans to replace the dead batteries in their cars. Will replacement costs come down, most likely. Won't be in my lifetime or my children's lifetime.
Then there is the issue of what is the process for reutilizing or disposing of the massive toxic battery cells? There are a couple of Ted Talks that specifically address this concern.
It’s impossible to know when this will improve, or how much it will improve, so we can only make purchases based on the current state.
I specifically added the battery break through with long range, as that would be my deal breaker; once they reach that point in capacity, it is my hope that they get better at reducing costs and improving recycling.
As it is now, costs on batteries have already gone down by an order of magnitude over the last 15 years, so a battery of equal capacity in a new EV today is much cheaper to replace then the one in the original Prius’s. Still too expensive IMHO, but promising in that it may drop another order of magnitude by 2035 making the prices very reasonable.
In addition, the elements and minerals in the battery are very reusable; the problem is safely and efficiently removing and separating them to reuse. If we can finally crack the cold fusion equation, reusing those batteries would be trivial, as the biggest cost in recycling them is the energy needed to process them.
Another possibility is using a different battery tech that is much easier to recycle. We already have batteries made to be recycled very easily, but the capacity is too low to make them viable. Advancements could make Lithium obsolete, replaced with abundant and easy to recycle materials, which would solve the cost and recycling issue simultaneously.
I wouldn’t buy an EV for my needs today, but I will not state that I will never buy one as they are getting better everyday.