The battery of an electric car is an important factor in its performance and price, and if the battery ages badly enough to require replacement, the cost of repairs could be a sky-high sum. This is a significant risk for consumers who want to buy a used electric car. So, how long does an electric car battery last in the end?
A Seattle-based battery analysis company, Recurrent Motors Inc. recently released a large-scale real-world study that collected battery data from 15,000 different makes and models of electric vehicles across the United States. The data included charging status, battery remaining and estimated range. The company tested each vehicle’s battery multiple times a day through a communication system connected to the car.
The study found that most electric cars with more than 160,000 miles on them still had more than 90 percent of their original range remaining. This means that battery degradation is not significant. Of course, this varies from vehicle to vehicle, and Recurrent’s data is constantly being updated.
In an interview, the study’s author, Liz Najman, a researcher and marketing manager at Recurrent, said she was surprised by the reliability and durability of the batteries. “I was surprised how well the batteries held up and how few people needed to replace them,” She said.
The study also tracked two areas: the battery replacement rate, the percentage of car batteries that fail completely and need to be replaced, and the decline in range as batteries age. In the former case, only 1.5 percent or about 225 of the 15,000 vehicles in the study had their batteries replaced without an official recall. On the latter side, there was significant variation between makes and models, and even between the same models. For example, Recurrent found that Tesla’s Model S 100 kWh battery version lost an average of about 120 kilometers of range after 160,000 kilometers of driving. The Model S 70 and 85 kWh battery versions, on the other hand, lost almost no range after driving the same distance. The earlier BMW i3, both the 2014 and 2017 models, still had an average remaining battery capacity of about 80 percent of its original capacity after 160,000 kilometers. And the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which goes on sale in late 2021, loses about 25 kilometers of range after 32,000 kilometers, but then decays a little further by 130,000 kilometers.
“For electric cars produced from 2018 or 2019, I think it could be 15 to 20 years before they show significant battery degradation.” Najman said, “I guess I’m not the only one who thinks the batteries in modern electric cars should last longer than the cars themselves.”
The Recurrent’s latest study is broadly in line with a number of previous studies, including one published in 2020 by Canadian transportation technology company Geotab, which found that electric vehicle battery decay is fairly mild, with an average loss of 2.3% of capacity per year.
