Great discussion and questions. Let's see here. Happy to provide boring, small-font scientific reports/references for any of these:
Battery recycling: I fully expect the fledgling battery recycling industry to develop into a full industry. The automakers are required to warranty the batteries for ten years/150,000 miles (moving to 15 years/150K in 2026) and are investing billions in ensuring not only a great customer experience, but also to minimize their financial liability. Battery packs are made up of cells. It is extremely rare that battery packs themselves go bad; there is not much data yet, but most indicates that it is more individual cells or cell-level parts of the battery pack that need repair or replacement. Battery packs can be repaired in-vehicle, removed, replaced, and repaired, used in other functions (like home storage systems), or eventually taken apart into the components that we can read about so much online. Some parts of the world, for example Europe, have very strict rules on recycling (not just batteries or EV components). Car companies for example are responsible for the car they sell in Europe for its entire life.
Battery life: Also, the global automakers are investing significantly in battery management systems to keep the battery pack strong and healthy during use, during charging, while parked etc. This battery management system is a combination of computer sensors and control coupled with good old thermal control (think radiators and/or temperature shields) to keep batteries in their sweet spot. All of the automotive OEMs except one have done this. Right now, the early data is showing the batteries in most cases are outlasting the EVs themselves. Due to these battery management systems, the batteries are much more babied than the ones in our phones, laptops, flashlights, etc. @tim32 and
@Tralehead are talking about batteries that don't have an integrated battery management system like the ones in EVs do. They share similarities, but are much different.
Extreme weather: Cold weather does impact battery performance, just like it does gasoline or diesel engines. My uncle goes fishing in Montana every year visiting a childhood friend. One of their big concerns is whether or not the full-size truck will even start in cold weather after sitting parked for a few days. What takes a lot of energy from the battery is heating the air inside the cabin of a vehicle. Most of us are familiar with this with our own homes. Radiant heat in cars - e.g. seat heaters and steering wheel heaters - are much more efficient than merely heating up the cabin air. I may have written this in another post: at work, we found this with a transit bus demonstration in New York that involved two electric bus companies. One company solely heated the air inside the bus; the other company heated everything the passengers touched or sat on plus a bit of the inside air. The energy consumption differences are significant. Purists may not want to burn anything, but a little bit of combustion goes a long way in making heat. Liquid-fueled cabin heaters may have a role in some areas. Also, electric vehicles can pre-heat or pre-cool while plugged in, using grid power to not only heat (or cool) the cabin, but also pre-heat or pre-cool the battery, again part of the battery management system. A good friend of mine lives in the Rockies and tells me how the workplace charging in winter is the best $1 he spends everyday... coming out to a defrosted and toasty warm EV in the middle of a snowstorm at the end of a long workday, while everyone else's car is snowed over in the parking lot.
EV charging infrastructure: Most charging is done at home and work where most cars sit parked 20+ hours each day. You can even charge at 120V. Like our smart phones, the EVs charge while we are doing other things in life: cooking, spending time with family, working on the Willys, etc. Like a smart phone, you don't have to watch an EV charge. That being said, for the 3-5% of the time when one needs to charge in public (like
@Lookout Ranch 's example of the spotty road trip), the U.S.'s public charging network is fragmented and lags the rest of the world's. We are getting there, but it will take time and money. Tesla deserves a lot of critique for many things, but they should be lauded for their charging network.,
Lemon law: California's lemon law is very effective. We had to invoke it once in my extended family... for a gasoline-powered car.
