Lease return difficulties

[JoshG]

What Lucid REALLY should be checking on a lease return is the battery health. They should ding lessees who always charged to 100%, figuring it was just a lease and therefore long-term battery degradation would just be someone else's problem.

THAT would be in good service to the second buyer of the car, though I imagine it might require changes in the lease documents to make this clear to initial lessees.

But wouldn't it be smart of Lucid to let lessees know up front that battery health will be checked at the end of the lease and if you did more than just an occasional "100% (distance)" charge, you might be subject to a fee at the end of the lease?

 

[Leftlane]

If you are gonna sell me an electric car and then penalize me because I charge it to 100%, you can go jump in a lake. Can you imagine creating the longest range EV and that bragging point is a major differentiator for you, but then penalizing your customers if they do the very thing that gives them that range?

I charge to 100% any time I need max range. If the car seems to have a problem with that, then the battery warranty can cover it. This kind of nonsense is what turns people off about EVs.

 

[JoshG]

OK, I suspect we're getting into a controversial area that may belong in its own thread... but I'll reply and try to clarify my intent. Penalties may be the wrong approach. My point was, since the car and the app and everything else tells you each time you charge to 100% that it will be affecting long term battery health (range), then should the second buyer of the car be at least be made aware of there being some damage to the battery range/health when they buy? right now, i don't think there's a way for a buyer of a used Lucid to know that info.

I can examine if the tires have excess where when i buy a lease return vehicle. I can see if the seats have excess wear. i just can't see if the battery life will be shortened by the usage and patterns of the previous owner.

Maybe the better approach would be that used-car price should reflect battery health (like is done for mileage) rather than assess penalties on the initial owner.

 

[Pragmatic]

How do we know if the loss of battery capacity is due to frequent DCFC to 100% or bad design?

Lease residuals should reflect the odds that a short-term owner will/might abuse the battery.

I agree used car values should reflect the battery health but a leasee should not be dinged for using what the OEM supplied. Better to have the initial lease estimates account for possible battery abuse.

 

[borski]

I would be very upset if Lucid did this, fwiw, and I don't have a leased vehicle. While you lease it, it's your car. Drive it however you need to, within the mileage restrictions.

Leased cars command less value on the used market, because to your point, lessees often drive their cars harder. But just like no ICE vehicle is going to charge you for abusing the transmission, no EV is going to charge you for charging the battery however you need or want to.

 

[JoshG]

OK, I hear you @borski, but let me try one more way to make my case. In a used ICE vehicle, mileage is extremely important... it's a judge of how much wear and tear have been put on many moving engine components that have some usable lifespan. So leases have limits on mileage... and you can pay more to be "allowed" to drive more. Or you can pay a fee at the end of your lease if you went above the agreed upon amount, because the car is worth less with more mileage than was agreed/expected in the lease. As mileage increases, you're getting closer to where expensive components may give out or need replacing. So you would never buy an ICE (or any vehicle) if there was no information about mileage on the vehicle, and leasing companies would never ignore mileage when setting a residual value.

EVs are somewhat different, as we all know. Mileage definitely still matters, but less so because of far fewer moving parts that wear down with miles. But on an EV, the most expensive component by FAR, the battery, has a lifespan that is directly affected by charge cycles and how much charge is added, particularly above 80%. So in this new world, isn't SOME measure of how close the car is getting to a potentially very expensive service relevant to used-car buyers?

For me, I'd still want to know mileage on an EV I'm considering, but it sure would be valuable to also know charge cycles and how often it was charged to 100% so I can gauge the risk of it needing a new main battery at some point during my ownership.

If I'm not mistaken, Tesla has a service menu that anyone can pull up to show this battery health indicators, and savvy used Tesla buyers would pull that up just to gauge battery health. Probably something that will eventually be there for all EVs if you buy my argument on the importance of this.

 

[borski]

So in this new world, isn't SOME measure of how close the car is getting to a potentially very expensive service relevant to used-car buyers?

Yes. And that is what the battery warranty is for, which guarantees 70% after 8 years.

If the battery health has somehow degraded past 70%, I’d agree with you, and Lucid would have to replace the battery anyway.

With a few exceptions, most leased ICE cars do not also have 8-10 year powertrain warranties.

The difference is when ICE components fail, they *fail*. A battery can degrade over a very long period of time, and no matter what you do will always degrade the most in the first year. After that, it degrades much, much slower, pretty much no matter what you do. It is true that certain charging patterns will make it degrade more, but, and this is important:

1) We don’t actually know what the best charging pattern is, as evidenced by Emad’s flabbergasting recent comment that it would appear, in the Lucid data, the best charging pattern is some DCFC charging between Level 2 charges - which does not jive with common sense.

2) It doesn’t matter, because unlike ICE components, the battery will not suddenly fail faster just because it was charged to 100% more often. It may degrade slightly faster, but it will still be covered by the battery warranty, at least to 70%, at least for eight years.

Does that make sense?

 

[JoshG]

Hard to tell if that final question in your post is condescending or not. I like your posts in general, so i'm going to assume it wasn't and was asked genuinely if I am following your thought pattern.

I hear you on the battery warranty. That's a reasonable point, but at some point these cars will be approaching that battery warranty limit. A measure of battery health is helpful (OK, to me... not to you it sounds), whether in or out of battery warranty time.

I just like more information if it's available. Apple monitors your device's battery health, used phone buyers can pull that up when comparing two used phones. Tesla does same, probably for the reasons i offered, even with a similar battery warranty covering degradation for some fixed period of time. I prefer more info to less info when buying a used car. It sounds like you don't agree, and that's fine. we can disagree on whether this info is of any value or not to a used car buyer.

So if a Tesla-style battery health rating* was offered by Lucid, you would not even look at that when checking out a used Lucid, and it would "upset you" (from your previous post) that Lucid offered that data to you as a potential buyer of a used Lucid?

* source: https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/check-tesla-battery-health-for-free

 

[JoshG]

(better link than the above one in my footnote: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2...your-battery-health-in-app-or-in-service-mode)

 

[Leftlane]

I would lease a car specifically because I couldn’t care less what happens to it or what the battery condition is beyond my lease term - not my problem at all, and I am not going to pay a fee for using the vehicle as I needed while I leased it as long as it is within the terms of the lease. If the second buyer doesn’t like that, they can go lease new as well. If the manufacturer has a problem, then they need to tell me before the lease that I can only charge to 80% or whatever else they want to measure, and in that case I go elsewhere. What happens after my lease - that I paid for - is of zero concern to me and not my responsibility at all. I understand what you are saying but I don’t think it would work.