Volkswagen plans to offer used-vehicle leases on its new family of ID electric vehicles as it looks to keep control of their battery packs.
While speaking to members of the media during the Munich Motor Show, Volkswagen Group chief executive Herbert Diess revealed that secondary leases would allow the automaker to recycle the battery packs into new uses, such as home power centers and fast chargers.
According to Diess, the value of a large battery pack will remain relatively stable while the rest of the car will depreciate over time. As such, the German automaker wants to make sure they use these battery packs as much as possible.
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“In Europe, we are trying to get a second lease and even a third lease, and keep the car in our hands,” Diess told Auto News. “Battery life, we think today is about 1,000 charging cycles and around 350,000 km (~215,000 miles), something like that. So, the battery would probably live longer than the car, and we want to get hold of the battery. We don’t want to give the battery away. There already is an indication that residuals for electric cars might be higher than for (internal combustion) cars because, even if the car is totally worthless, still there is a battery.”
VW Group of America chief executive Scott Keogh added that preset residual values will keep the brand’s leased EVs in customers’ hands for up to eight years before they are returned, the batteries removed, and the rest of the vehicle recycled back into raw materials.
“The task for our organization is to really try to keep hold of the batteries, and probably get into a second or third lease cycle for the car and then reuse the batteries,” Diess added. “In the regions, it has to be worked out, it has to be agreed with the dealers, but we would like to keep every one of the batteries forever.”
