If this argument were true:
(A) a Prius replacement battery with now dinosaur NiMH tech would have fallen from $4k new to nothing.
(B) any existing hybrid / EV would be getting bonkers range improvements w/ updated cell technology.
The best analogy I can think of:
a battery cell / chemistry (akin to standardized RAM) is not equal to a battery pack (similar to a motherboard with soldered RAM).
For a variety of reasons (consumer preference, automaker greed?), unlike a bus / plane, a modern automobile is engineered to last 5 - 10 years (200k - 400k miles). The entire industry is predicated on selling new vehicles (much like smartphones, or computers) = no mainstream automaker is going to invest in building, testing, and then certifying a new battery pack to take advantage of new chemistry. You might cite Tesla's work on the Roadster as an example, but I'd argue this is an exception (a sendoff for their original halo car) rather than the norm.
& until we have a vehicle with enough scale, there exists no incentive for aftermarket to invest in building a new pack for a specific car. You could also argue, (& I'll concede) that Model 3 / Model Y might be the first car at scale to attract such investment – although I have doubts given (A) the barrier to entry for a pack is higher than a rando ICE part (e.g. would said company be able to build a BMS that talks to the vehicle?!) & (B) would any aftermarket company even try, given manufacturers will surely go out of their way to prevent this (we've already seen OTA disabling of features on EVs & I don't have to cite all the right to repair fighting that's ongoing…).
Is this a good thing? Absolutely not.
Is it how it should be? Also no.
But a lot of us (present party included) enable this when we want nice new things.
Until that changes, we're not getting cheaper battery packs for a legacy vehicle.
The best analogy I can think of: a battery cell / chemistry (akin to standardized RAM) is not equal to a battery pack (similar to a motherboard with soldered RAM).
For a variety of reasons (consumer preference, automaker greed?), unlike a bus / plane, a modern automobile is engineered to last 5 - 10 years (200k - 400k miles). The entire industry is predicated on selling new vehicles (much like smartphones, or computers) = no mainstream automaker is going to invest in building, testing, and then certifying a new battery pack to take advantage of new chemistry. You might cite Tesla's work on the Roadster as an example, but I'd argue this is an exception (a sendoff for their original halo car) rather than the norm.
& until we have a vehicle with enough scale, there exists no incentive for aftermarket to invest in building a new pack for a specific car. You could also argue, (& I'll concede) that Model 3 / Model Y might be the first car at scale to attract such investment – although I have doubts given (A) the barrier to entry for a pack is higher than a rando ICE part (e.g. would said company be able to build a BMS that talks to the vehicle?!) & (B) would any aftermarket company even try, given manufacturers will surely go out of their way to prevent this (we've already seen OTA disabling of features on EVs & I don't have to cite all the right to repair fighting that's ongoing…).
Is this a good thing? Absolutely not. Is it how it should be? Also no. But a lot of us (present party included) enable this when we want nice new things.
Until that changes, we're not getting cheaper battery packs for a legacy vehicle.