Likely Normal

We’re racing toward an all-electric future like it’s a utopian dream, but let’s be honest—we’re just trading one dependency for another, and the new one comes with a countdown timer. Sure, Tesla swears their car batteries will last “a lifetime”, but so did my “10-year” LED bulbs, and yet here I am, living in what can only be described as a cave illuminated by the faint glow of a dying flashlight. My phone battery, which once lasted a full day, now holds a charge for roughly the same amount of time it takes to read this sentence. So forgive me if I’m skeptical that my electric car’s power pack will still be roadworthy in a decade.

The future is coming, and it’s going to be littered with useless batteries. Imagine a world where every Walmart parking lot has a mountain of spent EV batteries taller than the store itself, and the “core charge” for a replacement is more than your mortgage. You’ll roll into the auto shop, your car wheezing like an asthmatic golf cart, and the mechanic will say, “Yep, your megapack’s toast. That’ll be $22,000—or, if you’re feeling lucky, we’ve got some refurbished ones that might explode for $12,000.” Suddenly, the phrase “range anxiety” won’t just mean “Will I make it to the next charger?” but “Will my battery even turn on tomorrow?”

And let’s not forget the used car market. Right now, you check a car’s mileage; in five years, you’ll be frantically scrolling through battery health reports like *”83% capacity… okay, but is that real-world or Tesla’s ‘optimistic’ math?”* Buying a used EV will be like buying a used iPhone—technically functional, but only if you keep it plugged in at all times and never, ever open more than one app at once.

The real kicker? We’ll probably still be guilt-tripped into recycling these things properly. “Bring your old battery to one of our approved disposal centers!” (Which, by the way, are located in a remote part of the desert that requires another fully charged EV to reach.) So yes, the electric revolution is coming. But so is the battery reckoning—and when it hits, we’ll all be stuck in the slow lane, watching our power bars drop faster than our credit scores.

Going green is great… until you realize everything runs on disposable juice boxes the size of a couch.