Other challenges include access to battery materials and battery degradation, though CATL claims this second pain point is not an issue with its latest battery.
That's already not the case. Not only do you not need to replace the battery (the range is just slightly reduced over time), the degredation is a lot slower than that.
Yes reduced range is very important- especially when you live in a cold climate where range is already significantly reduced from that. The cold climate also speeds up the degradation of the battery.
Do you have experience? Adoption of EV vehicles in Norway is really high without much issue, and it's likely colder than wherever you live. Plus, 400km is a lot. The average commute in America is 66km. 400km might be used on a fairly long road trip, but if you can charge in 10m it's not really an issue. The everyday experience is just plug it in at home and it's done by morning. No gas station visits or anything else.
They aren't just replacing them. That's a disingenuous argument. The fear mongering that EVs can't work in cold climates is just mostly made up. There are plenty of ways to handle it that saying they don't make sense is a horrible argument.
It may have changed in recent years but several years ago when I was more into EVs it was a reasonable concern. But I do somewhat question the legitimacy of this seeing as how quickly small electronics Lithium batteries degrade.
There are now soooo many studies out showing that capacity in EVs drops significantly slower than ever expected. An EV that is used "normal" is basically best-case for Li-Ion batteries. You are charging the car once to twice a week and then you are charging it slowly over night or at your office, only using fast-charging when you are on roadtrips. You rarely drop your battery percentage below 30% and a lot of cars also dont go higher than 90% capacity without you explicitly activating it
Do you mean phone batteries? Cause they are often cycled at least once a day. If you drive your ev for 500km a day, yes, don't expect it to last five years. But I would think an ICE car would handle that either.