It was Sandy Monroe who most famously suggested that Tesla make the battery into a structural member because he noticed the frame was made stronger/heavier than necessary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
If the next day your car is totaled and according to the insurance company worth only $5,000, there's an extremely small chance you'd be able to get both your $5,000 plus the $8,000 you just spent on your battery. So you wouldn't be able to go and buy another $5,000 Leaf, just like yours, and put in a new battery, just like you had done.
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Good point. I wonder how an insurance company would appraise that scenario. They don't cover stuff the owner installs like expensive stereo systems or custom rims, so I wonder how they would treat the battery. It's not exactly custom gear, as it's essential to the operation of the vehicle.
I once argued with an adjuster for a couple months about their valuation of my Subaru. They argued it wasn't worth much because there wasn't a straight piece of bodywork and it had 220,000 miles on it. I argued it ran perfectly, and I valued it for the utility and not for picking up babes. Comps for vehicles that ran perfectly were much higher; it's not my fault they hadn't used up the bodywork as much as me. I ended up negotiating 2.5x their initial offer.
A similar problem will occur where an old EV will have a new battery, and there will be no comps to base replacement price off of. Then it becomes a matter of who is more stubborn on which value is settled on.