Guest Column

Houston expert: How to make the EV switch while factoring in impact, cost

Very often, EVs drive like new even if they’ve clocked up the miles, writes this Houston expert. Photo via Unsplash

Americans are in the midst of getting to know electric cars up close and personal. The finer points of charging and battery technology are now becoming mainstream news.

However, there’s a secret about electric vehicles (EVs) that very few people know, because very few people have driven an electric car with 50,000 or 100,000 miles on it. Very often, EVs drive like new even if they’ve clocked up the miles. No rattles and no shakes, and importantly there is no loss of efficiency, unlike gas cars which tend to lose fuel efficiency as they age. Most strikingly, battery degradation and loss of range is often minimal — even after the odometer hits 6 digits.

What does this mean? At a time when car payments, repair costs and gas prices are all weighing on consumer wallets, we are about to enter an era when it will get easier than ever before for Americans to find a great driving, longer lasting car that saves on fuel costs and needs less maintenance.

This represents an amazing source of value for American drivers to be tapped into - plus even more positive changes for the auto sector, and the potential for new business models.

Narratives about EVs have focused on fears about battery degradation and today’s models becoming dated as technology rapidly advances. The fact that we are all habituated to replacing smartphone batteries that fade within 2 to 3 years doesn’t help.

Auto manufacturers have put 100,000 mile warranties on batteries, but this may have created the perception that this is a ceiling, rather than a floor, for what can be expected from an EV battery.

EV batteries are performing much better than your last smartphone battery. We know this with growing certainty because it’s backed up by evidence. Data reveals that older Teslas average only 12 percent loss of original range at 200,000 miles — double the warranty period.

Furthermore, battery advances are happening at an encouraging pace. You can expect that newer batteries will start with higher ranges and degrade even more slowly. And even after they do, the value shorter range will increase as charging infrastructure matures.

In other words, a 2024 Volkswagen ID.4 with 291 miles of range may be down to 260 miles by the time it has put on 100,000 miles. But in the 5 to 7 years that typically takes, the buildout of charging stations means that range will have much more utility than today.

So in sum, electric vehicles can be expected to last longer with lower maintenance. Over-the-air software upgrades, and perhaps even computing hardware upgrades, will keep them feeling modern. Charging infrastructure will improve much faster than range will degrade. And crucially for the value of these cars, the drive quality will remain great much further into product lifetime.

The trend for driving older cars is already here – the average age of a car on US roads is 12 years old and rising. But now this will shift towards better quality, plus fuel savings, for more people.

New business models and services will help customers take advantage — especially those customers for whom lower cost EVs will represent a step up and savings on the cost of living.

At Houston-based Octopus Electric Vehicles, we are doing this today with something virtually unheard of: leasing pre-owned cars. With electric cars that are 1 to 4 years old, with clean histories and in excellent cosmetic and mechanical condition but depreciated relative to new EV prices, we are frequently able to offer discounts of 30 percent or more, even against heavily incentivized lease offers from automakers. And, because EV maintenance needs are lower, we can throw in free scheduled maintenance with our monthly payment, delivered by a mobile mechanic service.

The secret value of higher-mileage EVs won’t stay secret for long. There’s no replacing first hand experience, and you can probably get that the next time you order an Uber or Lyft by choosing their EV ride options. Before your ride is up, try to guess what’s on the odometer. You may be surprised to hear from your driver that the car you thought was brand new has 50,000 or 100,000 miles on it.

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Nathan Wyeth is the United States co-lead at Octopus Electric Vehicles.

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A View From HETI

Ten climatetech startups were named most-promising at this annual Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum. Photo courtesy Rice Alliance.

Investors at the Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum have named the 10 most-promising startups among the group of 100 clean tech companies participating in the event.

The 22nd annual event was held yesterday, Sept. 18, at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business and was part of the second Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week.

The most-promising startups will receive $7,000 in in-kind legal services from Baker Botts.

The 10 most-promising companies included:

  • Houston-based Xplorobot, which has developed laser gas imaging technology for the first handheld methane detection device approved by the EPA as an alternative test method
  • Seattle-based Badwater Alchemy, a desalination company that uses nano materials to purify saline water at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods
  • San Francisco-based Ammobia, which is developing a clean ammonia production process
  • Illinois-based Celadyne Technologies, which is building hydrogen for industrial decarbonization with durable and efficient fuel cells and electrolyzers
  • Massachusetts-based MacroCycle Technologies, which converts plastic waste in the form of bottles, food trays and polyester textiles into virgin-grade mPET resin
  • Yorkshire, England-based AtoMe, a global developer of zero-carbon fertiliser products
  • Colorado-based Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (ATS) Energy, a renewable energy semiconductor manufacturing company
  • North Carolina-based Lukera Energy, which is converting waste methane into high-value fuel
  • Midland, Texas-based AI Driller, a company that uses AI and machine learning to enable remote operations and provide historical drilling data for survey management, anti-collision monitoring and iob reporting
  • New York-based Fast Metals Inc., which has developed a chemical process to extract valuable metals from complex toxic mine tailings that is capable of producing iron, aluminum, scandium, titanium and other rare earth elements using industrial waste and waste CO2 as inputs

Arculus Solutions won the People's Choice Award. The New Jersey-based company retrofits natural gas pipelines for safe hydrogen transportation. It also won Track A: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, Buildings, Water, & Other Energy Solutions at the Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition during CERAWeek earlier this year.

The 100 energy technology ventures selected to participate in the forum were named earlier this year. See the full list here.

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