It doesn't take much to junk an electric car

Insurers are being forced to write off many electric vehicles with only minor damage to battery packs, sending the batteries to scrap yards and hindering the climate benefits of going electric, Reuters reported.

Battery packs typically represent roughly half the cost of an electric vehicle, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars, often making it more economical for insurers to consider a car as totaled than replace a battery pack, according to Reuters. While many carmakers, including Ford and GM, told Reuters that their battery packs were repairable, many are unwilling to share key data with third-party insurers to help assess damage.

“The number of cases is going to increase, so the handling of batteries is a crucial point,” Christoph Lauterwasser, managing director of the research institute Allianz Center for Technology, told Reuters. “If you throw away the vehicle at an early stage, you’ve lost pretty much all advantage in terms of [carbon dioxide] emissions.”