Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyasaxa
I wouldn’t buy any used car with a battery. Car batteries degrade just like cell phone batteries and we all know that after a few years of ordinary usage you’re lucky to get 80% of new capacity. For that reason, any hybrid/electric car should be a lease.
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I think you're really overstating how much the batteries in these cars degrade.
First of all, at least on the X5 PHEV, 30% of the battery is locked away by software as a buffer for degradation. It has a 24 kwh battery but only 17 is usable in the US. So it's going to be a *really* long time before the battery degrades to the point where it actually impacts your capacity. 530e must have a similar system, but I don't know its exact capacities.
Secondly, (again), they just don't degrade that much. There's plenty of data from teslas and other EVs. 80% after a few years? No way.
Also there's a long warranty on the battery capacity. Iirc it's minimum 70% capacity remaining after 8 years, or 10 if you're in California. Obviously they're not making different batteries for the state of CA, all of their batteries will last for the min. 70% @ 10 year target. (70% of the usable charge - that means on an X5 PHEV you're guaranteed to have 12 kwh left after 10 years)