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PoLoMoTo t1_j24z9ee wrote

Reply to comment by sold_snek in ELI5 why do electric vehicles have one big battery that's hard to replace once it's expired, rather than lots of smaller ones that could be swapped out based on need (to trade off range/power/weight)? by ginonofalg

I have no doubt that would work but I would be curious as to the longevity of that. Also if it was a high mileage battery or some fluke internal failure, and what percentage of the cells they actually replaced. I'll have to try to find the story sometime.

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greatvaluemeeseeks t1_j25e83m wrote

A few companies do this with Prius batteries and sell them as refurbished batteries. The cells aren't too hard to disassemble and a dead cell is pretty easy to isolate. A refurbished battery is much cheaper than a brand new one from Toyota, but the batteries don't last very long before another cell eventually dies since they probably have 150k+ miles on them and Toyota, in my opinion, provided inadequate cooling for them and should have told consumers the battery's cooling system required regular maintenance.

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Lyrle t1_j26gnwi wrote

Rich Rebuilds had an episode like this. The car featured there was not very old.

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