I have to admit some of the stories I’ve read about battery failures have contributed to my apprehension of owning an EV. Whether or not battery failures with £5k-£15k bills are fake news or not, it’s the fear of owning a car that I wouldn’t be able to afford to repair. Every car is a gamble I realise, but if I ever owned a car that required me to pay several thousand pounds to repair, it would be torched on waste ground and claimed for lol.
They are not fake. It can cost upwards of $20K USD for a new battery. Just replace your engine with the battery being the high cost item if it craps out. Now the FUD is the battery will fail within 5 years. Tons of Tesla's running on 10 year old batteries and/or 250,000 miles on the original HV battery pack. Also if it does fail within 5 years, covered by a 8 year/100,000 mile warranty. People tend to equate their phone batteries to how long an EV battery will last.
Transmission replacements are not cheap anymore either. Engines are getting expensive as well due to their complexity.
This person has Model 3 Performance with 120,000 miles. Didn't exactly treat it easy, but only experienced 12% degradation of the battery.