Chevy is having issues.... Look up the Volt's "Shift to Park" issue. A bleeping $1.50 rendered switch rendered my car useless and I have to have to towed to the dealership spending $1,500 and waiting 2 months to get the car back. It appears the switches are getting damaged by a voltage spike from the shifting gear solenoid. There should be a recall to install a zener diode. But NO, they are sticking it to the customer. Some dealers are selling that $1.50 switch for $425.00.
As far as the Volts, they could be Spinlaunched into space.
There is a class-action law suit going on about this "shift to park issue" in Illinois. It may expand to cover the whole USA if enough people from other states want to jump in.
EVs are viable products and is not in the same class of ideas such as city/nation wide pipe-delivery (pipe-dreams) or spinlaunch. SpinLaunch and Pipe-Dream are products by it's very own design while technically feasible but impractical and with little to no possibility of ever becoming viable.
SpinLaunch could engineer all the launching problems away at great cost, but the Laws of Physics dictates that
your payload must be able to withstand (approx) 11,000g centrifugal force at the current 100meter diameter spinner and mach3 launch. The time and cost to harden the payload to withstand 11000g makes it non-viable. EVs can be practical - just not long lasting enough.
Per
SiliconWizard's earlier reply, a 5 year old car without a replacement battery says something about
attitude of the manufacturers. While it is outside the scope of the "shift to park" law suit, it is a problem caused by the same manufacturers' attitude: "We are in a throw-away world and manufacturers are here to take your money. You brought it and it's your problem now."
While all parts in the car are expected to died sooner or later, the battery pack being such a huge percentage of cost makes buying or selling used EV's a very big question. 10 year old cars are fairly common and typical for average American middle-class and first time purchasers. Perhaps in time, EV's can have cross-manufacturer standardized smaller sub-packs, like 100x 18650's in a sub-pack to make up the whole battery pack for the car. People can swap out the worst few sub-packs and regain some usage of the car. That would make it a lot more viable.