£16K Hybrid Battery Replacement - Real Cost of EV's?
Discussion
My 70 Plate Mercedes hybrid (E300de) with 71K miles broke down in June. It had a 'battery malfunction' and was recovered to a main dealer. The 13.5Kw hybrid battery was diagnosed as having an 'internal fuse' triggered and a couple of sensors recorded the fault. I was advised that the battery was non-serviceable and a replacement would cost £16K!!!
The car was just out of the 3 year/60,000 mile warranty on the battery. It took Mercedes 5 1/2 months to obtain a replacement battery and a week of 'software' issues to overcome to get the car back on the road.
The car was effectively scrap value at less than 4 years old and had it been another year or two older it would have been physically scrapped.
Looking at the high percentage of new cars being fitted with hybrid and 'mild hybrid' batteries (which cannot be run on the IC engine if the battery develops a fault) leads me to the conclusion that most vehicles sold today will be scrapped due to a high cost battery/electrical failure by the time they are 8-10 years old. Some will be OK, but buying a hybrid or EV car of this age will be Russian roulette.
It would be inconceivable for an ICE car to be fitted with an engine that is non-serviceable, ie. failure of a fuse or injector = £16K bill to replace the whole engine!
How can Mercedes and other EV manufacturers get away with this because it is a "battery". They have also engineered software on the car which requires 'coding' from the factory to stop third parties from fitting a battery from a scrap vehicle or a non OEM battery. This cleverly ensures cars are too expensive to repair once they reach the 8-10 year point and Mercedes (or any other manufacturer for that matter) get to sell more cars. So much for saving the planet!
I read with interest that Mercedes have opened their 'end of life' battery processing factory (https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/recycling-factory-kuppenheim.html). Is this because they care about recycling or the planet? The reality is they know that tens of thousands of failed batteries will be coming back from financially scrapped vehicles, starting right now, and they need some way of dealing with them.
Was I unlucky? Possibly, however the battery was charged from 'flat' to full twice a day for my 33 mile each way commute to work so had seen around 1,500 cycles, which many reckon is a 'reasonable' expectation for an EV/Hybrid battery. It is not just gradual deterioration which will finish off a battery as many seem to think.
I have owned many 8-10 year old >100K mile ICE cars over the years, all of which were sold on as good runners after 2-4 years of ownership and none were scrapped. Would I buy a 5-6 year old hybrid or EV - no way.
There was a positive - I was able to commute to work on my 62 year old Norton, 52 year old Suzuki, 42 year old Kawasaki and 24 year old Ducati. I drove to and from track days (no tow car!) in my 54 year old Austin Healey Sprite and 34 year old MX5 Turbo...
Maybe the way forward is "Save the Planet - Buy a car that lasts 100 years"
The car was just out of the 3 year/60,000 mile warranty on the battery. It took Mercedes 5 1/2 months to obtain a replacement battery and a week of 'software' issues to overcome to get the car back on the road.
The car was effectively scrap value at less than 4 years old and had it been another year or two older it would have been physically scrapped.
Looking at the high percentage of new cars being fitted with hybrid and 'mild hybrid' batteries (which cannot be run on the IC engine if the battery develops a fault) leads me to the conclusion that most vehicles sold today will be scrapped due to a high cost battery/electrical failure by the time they are 8-10 years old. Some will be OK, but buying a hybrid or EV car of this age will be Russian roulette.
It would be inconceivable for an ICE car to be fitted with an engine that is non-serviceable, ie. failure of a fuse or injector = £16K bill to replace the whole engine!
How can Mercedes and other EV manufacturers get away with this because it is a "battery". They have also engineered software on the car which requires 'coding' from the factory to stop third parties from fitting a battery from a scrap vehicle or a non OEM battery. This cleverly ensures cars are too expensive to repair once they reach the 8-10 year point and Mercedes (or any other manufacturer for that matter) get to sell more cars. So much for saving the planet!
I read with interest that Mercedes have opened their 'end of life' battery processing factory (https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/recycling-factory-kuppenheim.html). Is this because they care about recycling or the planet? The reality is they know that tens of thousands of failed batteries will be coming back from financially scrapped vehicles, starting right now, and they need some way of dealing with them.
Was I unlucky? Possibly, however the battery was charged from 'flat' to full twice a day for my 33 mile each way commute to work so had seen around 1,500 cycles, which many reckon is a 'reasonable' expectation for an EV/Hybrid battery. It is not just gradual deterioration which will finish off a battery as many seem to think.
I have owned many 8-10 year old >100K mile ICE cars over the years, all of which were sold on as good runners after 2-4 years of ownership and none were scrapped. Would I buy a 5-6 year old hybrid or EV - no way.
There was a positive - I was able to commute to work on my 62 year old Norton, 52 year old Suzuki, 42 year old Kawasaki and 24 year old Ducati. I drove to and from track days (no tow car!) in my 54 year old Austin Healey Sprite and 34 year old MX5 Turbo...
Maybe the way forward is "Save the Planet - Buy a car that lasts 100 years"
What a PITA, far too young a car to be having issues of that nature and can only assume you've been extremely unlucky.
I recently replaced my car. A BMW 330E looked ideal on paper but hybrids look like such a risk to me. I know I can replace an engine. I don't know if I am able to deal with a battery or motor swap yet.
I recently replaced my car. A BMW 330E looked ideal on paper but hybrids look like such a risk to me. I know I can replace an engine. I don't know if I am able to deal with a battery or motor swap yet.
Bad luck 
That price is obscene for such a tiny battery.
Did you try to get it repaired? Plenty of places out there now who are capable of opening a battery pack up and finding the problem module.
If Merc have locked out third party repairs through software then I’d imagine they’ll be in hot water over right to repair legislation soon, but it’ll be hacked soon enough anyway.
That price is obscene for such a tiny battery.
Did you try to get it repaired? Plenty of places out there now who are capable of opening a battery pack up and finding the problem module.
If Merc have locked out third party repairs through software then I’d imagine they’ll be in hot water over right to repair legislation soon, but it’ll be hacked soon enough anyway.
That's pretty crap that the warranty is so limited - I really wouldn't buy a hybrid made by anyone other than Toyota. On top of the normal 10 year/100k general vehicle warranty they offer a 15 year unlimited mileage battery warranty provided you stick to their annual/10k servicing with hybrid health check.
The batteries are also repairable if you do manage to kill them - a taxi driver I spoke to with 400k miles on his Prius had a couple of individual cells replaced quite cheaply.
The batteries are also repairable if you do manage to kill them - a taxi driver I spoke to with 400k miles on his Prius had a couple of individual cells replaced quite cheaply.
Batteries in EVs are extremely complex - if people already have not figured this out.
I called out this 'coding' of batteries a number of years ago to stop unauthorized use of third party bodges –not surprised it was picked up.
I was designing battery products in a previous job and used Maccor test equipment and Texas Instruments BMS hardware - it’s a real ball ache and engineers who design this stuff won’t be buying an EV on their own money, not unless it’s from a company perk. I had a bucket of sand next to me in the lab when I was at work…
The problem with battery packs is they are monstrous and it just takes a weak cell to bring the entire thing crashing down, all the individual cells need to be balanced and working in harmony with each other if one goes tits up it’s not going to end well, there will be a chain reaction and it will just get worse - Auto companies will just write the entire battery pack off – planned obsolescence it’s called.
If you have the skills you could probably interrogate what is happening and pull out dud cells but it’s certainly not an easy task and in reality Mercedes will just chuck it in the skip and not waste time fixing it, time is money
I called out this 'coding' of batteries a number of years ago to stop unauthorized use of third party bodges –not surprised it was picked up.
I was designing battery products in a previous job and used Maccor test equipment and Texas Instruments BMS hardware - it’s a real ball ache and engineers who design this stuff won’t be buying an EV on their own money, not unless it’s from a company perk. I had a bucket of sand next to me in the lab when I was at work…
The problem with battery packs is they are monstrous and it just takes a weak cell to bring the entire thing crashing down, all the individual cells need to be balanced and working in harmony with each other if one goes tits up it’s not going to end well, there will be a chain reaction and it will just get worse - Auto companies will just write the entire battery pack off – planned obsolescence it’s called.
If you have the skills you could probably interrogate what is happening and pull out dud cells but it’s certainly not an easy task and in reality Mercedes will just chuck it in the skip and not waste time fixing it, time is money
Snow and Rocks said:
That's pretty crap that the warranty is so limited - I really wouldn't buy a hybrid made by anyone other than Toyota. On top of the normal 10 year/100k general vehicle warranty they offer a 15 year unlimited mileage battery warranty provided you stick to their annual/10k servicing with hybrid health check.
The batteries are also repairable if you do manage to kill them - a taxi driver I spoke to with 400k miles on his Prius had a couple of individual cells replaced quite cheaply.
The battery pack on the Merc is a different level from what is on the Prius howeverThe batteries are also repairable if you do manage to kill them - a taxi driver I spoke to with 400k miles on his Prius had a couple of individual cells replaced quite cheaply.
EricMcN-II said:
The battery pack on the Merc is a different level from what is on the Prius however
True but the Rav4 PHEV has a bigger battery than the Merc and, as far as I can tell, is still covered by the same long warranty as the Prius. Edited by Snow and Rocks on Friday 6th December 23:53
Terminator X said:
Hold on the EV boys told us this would never happen. Replace tiny little parts of the battery and off you go. Simple tech after all 
TX.
Not sure anyone said it could never happen.TX.
The borkage rate for hybrid batteries appears to be a lot higher than full EV.
Smaller battery crammed into a more crowded space with less capable battery management and cooling would probably do that though.
Simon Jones said:
.
It would be inconceivable for an ICE car to be fitted with an engine that is non-serviceable, ie. failure of a fuse or injector = £16K bill to replace the whole engine!
It’s perfectly conceivable that engine faults on ICE cars can result in full engine replacement- turbo failures for one. And replacing a modern ICE is not cheap either. Owners of JLR cars possibly have some experience of this…It would be inconceivable for an ICE car to be fitted with an engine that is non-serviceable, ie. failure of a fuse or injector = £16K bill to replace the whole engine!
Op has unfortunate experience with MB hybrid battery system which as others have explained is not the best. Op then goes onto to reveal inherent bias for ICE cars by telling us all about his old car and motorbike collection that was able to come to the rescue of him and the planet. We then have other posts from those that seem to believe that EVs are the work of the devil and must be stopped at all costs. One poster gets confused about the tech saying that it is simple not realising that perhaps simple might be applied to something else in his post but that is nothing new with this particular poster who pops up every now and then on EV threads to moan about EVs.
I ran a BMW 530E for four years and only experienced one issue which was related to the charge conversion unit in the hybrid battery system- BMW picked up the cost of replacing this item.
I ran a BMW 530E for four years and only experienced one issue which was related to the charge conversion unit in the hybrid battery system- BMW picked up the cost of replacing this item.
Mahalo said:
Op has unfortunate experience with MB hybrid battery system which as others have explained is not the best. Op then goes onto to reveal inherent bias for ICE cars by telling us all about his old car and motorbike collection that was able to come to the rescue of him and the planet. We then have other posts from those that seem to believe that EVs are the work of the devil and must be stopped at all costs. One poster gets confused about the tech saying that it is simple not realising that perhaps simple might be applied to something else in his post but that is nothing new with this particular poster who pops up every now and then on EV threads to moan about EVs.
I ran a BMW 530E for four years and only experienced one issue which was related to the charge conversion unit in the hybrid battery system- BMW picked up the cost of replacing this item.
Who asked for a summary of the thread? I ran a BMW 530E for four years and only experienced one issue which was related to the charge conversion unit in the hybrid battery system- BMW picked up the cost of replacing this item.
M.F.D said:
Mahalo said:
Op has unfortunate experience with MB hybrid battery system which as others have explained is not the best. Op then goes onto to reveal inherent bias for ICE cars by telling us all about his old car and motorbike collection that was able to come to the rescue of him and the planet. We then have other posts from those that seem to believe that EVs are the work of the devil and must be stopped at all costs. One poster gets confused about the tech saying that it is simple not realising that perhaps simple might be applied to something else in his post but that is nothing new with this particular poster who pops up every now and then on EV threads to moan about EVs.
I ran a BMW 530E for four years and only experienced one issue which was related to the charge conversion unit in the hybrid battery system- BMW picked up the cost of replacing this item.
Who asked for a summary of the thread? I ran a BMW 530E for four years and only experienced one issue which was related to the charge conversion unit in the hybrid battery system- BMW picked up the cost of replacing this item.
GT9 said:
Not sure anyone said it could never happen.
The borkage rate for hybrid batteries appears to be a lot higher than full EV.
Smaller battery crammed into a more crowded space with less capable battery management and cooling would probably do that though.
I'm curious. Which data in the public domain show that the failure of hybrid batteries is a lot higher than failure of EV batteries? I've not seen anything myself. The borkage rate for hybrid batteries appears to be a lot higher than full EV.
Smaller battery crammed into a more crowded space with less capable battery management and cooling would probably do that though.
Toyota had to change the battery pack of their Prius to include fan assisted cooling due to heat related pre mature battery failure.
Then the cooling system itself got clogged but it wasn’t set as a maintenance item.
The mechanic explaining this (car care nut youtube channel) said that system needs a periodic clean out.
I think it’s set as a maintenance item on the latest cars.
So Toyota have been learning through generations of trial and error. Was super interesting to see how it evolved with each generation. More integration, more simplification and more reliability. Toyota’s is probably the only hybrid system I would be comfortable running in a long term keeper.
Also saw Bjorn Nyland doing a video on getting a Tesla Model S with a borked battery running again. He went to a company specialising in refurbing battery packs. It looked really involved, they had to drop the entire pack, test and replace individual faulty cells. From memory, it cost £2k or £3k to get that battery pack going again, much cheaper than a replacement battery but not a cheap job.
Surely more firms like this will start up? Seemed to be a business opportunity.
Then the cooling system itself got clogged but it wasn’t set as a maintenance item.
The mechanic explaining this (car care nut youtube channel) said that system needs a periodic clean out.
I think it’s set as a maintenance item on the latest cars.
So Toyota have been learning through generations of trial and error. Was super interesting to see how it evolved with each generation. More integration, more simplification and more reliability. Toyota’s is probably the only hybrid system I would be comfortable running in a long term keeper.
Also saw Bjorn Nyland doing a video on getting a Tesla Model S with a borked battery running again. He went to a company specialising in refurbing battery packs. It looked really involved, they had to drop the entire pack, test and replace individual faulty cells. From memory, it cost £2k or £3k to get that battery pack going again, much cheaper than a replacement battery but not a cheap job.
Surely more firms like this will start up? Seemed to be a business opportunity.
Edited by wyson on Saturday 7th December 09:29
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