{"id":74393,"date":"2023-05-23T10:40:35","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T00:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=74393"},"modified":"2023-05-24T12:59:24","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T02:29:24","slug":"ev-batteries-lifetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/","title":{"rendered":"US Study Shows EV Batteries Should Last An EV&#8217;s Lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_75140\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75140\" class=\"size-full wp-image-75140\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life.jpg\" alt=\"a very old Tesla\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life-768x402.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-75140\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Good news! As your EV gets old, its battery should be fine.<\/p><\/div>\r\n<p>How long do electric vehicle batteries last?\u00a0 According to a study by Recurrent &#8212; a US company devoted to helping people buy and sell used EVs &#8212; it&#8217;s a long time. <!--more--><\/p>\r\n<p>Their findings were:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Not many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/electric-vehicles\/\">Electric Vehicles<\/a> have had batteries replaced so far.<\/li>\r\n<li>The decline in range of the EVs look at was modest, even when driving over 160,000km.<\/li>\r\n<li>The greatest decline in range normally occurs early in an EV&#8217;s life.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>The study supports claims by manufacturers that their EVs and their battery packs will last 15-20 years.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve previously said the majority of EVs sold today will still have their original batteries in 15 years, so I&#8217;m glad they&#8217;ve backed me up on this.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>You can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.recurrentauto.com\/research\/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last\">check out the Recurrent study here<\/a>.\u00a0 It has some neat graphs and is easy to read, so it doesn&#8217;t need to be translated from tech-head.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>In this article, I will put their findings into an Australian context, including the liberal use of kilometres instead of miles.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll also happily engage in what they seem too polite to do and directly compare the range loss for the EV in the study.\u00a0 I&#8217;m throwing the following EVs into the range combat arena:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Nissan Leaf<\/li>\r\n<li>Tesla Model S<\/li>\r\n<li>Tesla Model 3<\/li>\r\n<li>BMW i3<\/li>\r\n<li>Hyundai Ioniq 5<\/li>\r\n<li>Ford Mustang Mach-E<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>The study also looked at the Chevy Volt, but I&#8217;m leaving that plug-in hybrid out.\u00a0 Firstly, because it&#8217;s not a pure EV and, secondly, only around 250 were sold in Australia as the Holden Volt.\u00a0 Because they&#8217;re no longer produced and they stopped putting the steering wheel on the right side <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drive.com.au\/news\/the-holden-volt-is-dead\/\">a long time ago<\/a>, we&#8217;re not likely to see any more here.<\/p>\r\n<h2>15-20 Years Battery Life?<\/h2>\r\n<p>The study says manufacturers claim their EVs should last 15 to 20 years.\u00a0 While it&#8217;s definitely a good thing they don&#8217;t give a figure less than that, as an Australian, I have to say that&#8217;s a bit piss-weak.\u00a0 Here cars are used for over 21 years on average before they&#8217;re scrapped.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>Some people mistakingly think cars don&#8217;t last that long because they look at the average age of cars on the road which, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abs.gov.au\/statistics\/industry\/tourism-and-transport\/motor-vehicle-census-australia\/latest-release\">2021 motor vehicle census<\/a>, is 10.6 years.\u00a0 But this means their average age at the end of their life has to be twice that at 21.2 years.\u00a0 That&#8217;s basic maths.\u00a0 You&#8217;d have to be thick to not immediately realise that.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t immediately realize that when I first saw the average age figures, but I have an excuse.\u00a0 I&#8217;m very thick. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>But the situation is probably better than the manufacturer&#8217;s 15 to 20 year figure suggests.\u00a0 US cars are driven around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/1266927\/us-average-annual-mileage-of-vehicles-in-use\/\">21,000km a year<\/a>; in Australia, the average is only around 13,000km.\u00a0 So for us, it may be more like 24 to 32 years, although that&#8217;s very optimistic.\u00a0 While most wear and tear on EV <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/\">batteries<\/a> is caused by km driven, some is simply from the passage of time, and that will rack up the older batteries get.\u00a0 Heat can also contribute to deterioration and &#8212; with regard to temperature only &#8212; Australia isn&#8217;t the coolest of countries.<\/p>\r\n<p>On the bright side, provided the battery holds out, a lot less can go wrong with an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/electric-vehicles\/\">electric car<\/a> than a conventional one.\u00a0 Electric motors are extremely simple and can operate for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/eere\/amo\/articles\/extend-operating-life-your-motor\">over 30,000 hours<\/a>.\u00a0 That&#8217;s over 100 years of Oz average annual driving.\u00a0 There&#8217;s no exhaust, catalytic converter, oil pump, or mystery belts mechanics always claim need to be replaced.\u00a0 This gives EVs the potential to be very long-lived.\u00a0 So fingers crossed, Australia gets at least 21 years of use from the average EV and its original battery.<\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_75068\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75068\" class=\"size-full wp-image-75068\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-elderly.jpg\" alt=\"Cartoon of an elderly battery.\" width=\"500\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-elderly.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-elderly-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-elderly-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-elderly-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-75068\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Now I&#8217;ve discovered the DALL-E AI image generator, I&#8217;m going to fill my articles with vast amounts of visual crap. If there aren&#8217;t at least 50 more stupid and awful images below, blame my editor!<\/p><\/div>\r\n<h2>Battery Replacements Low So Far<\/h2>\r\n<p>According to the study, only a small portion of EVs have required battery replacements so far.\u00a0 Of the around 15,000 EVs Recurrent keeps tabs on, only 1.5% have had their batteries ripped out and replaced.\u00a0 But there are a couple of reasons why that figure isn&#8217;t as good as it seems:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>EVs are still relatively new; in the US, their average age is under six years.\u00a0 But at least it&#8217;s longer than here.<\/li>\r\n<li>The figure doesn&#8217;t include battery replacements from major recalls.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>If the average age of cars was 5 years and the 1.5% rate remains constant, then after 20 years, only around 6% of EVs will need battery replacements.\u00a0 Of course, it doesn&#8217;t actually work that way, and the older a vehicle gets, the more likely a replacement will be needed.\u00a0 If the 1.5% chance doubles every 5 years then the odds are 22% an EV will need its battery replaced at least once by the time it&#8217;s 20 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>But I don&#8217;t think the figure will turn out that high here.\u00a0 Firstly, the cars in the study have, on average, been driven many more kilometres than the Australian average.\u00a0 Secondly, batteries are still a new technology, and manufacturers constantly work to improve them.\u00a0 There&#8217;s good reason to believe future batteries will be far more reliable than the average today.\u00a0 I would also hope and expect that battery packs in EVs sold today are more reliable than the ones in the study.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Recalls Will Continue To Occur<\/h2>\r\n<p>The 1.5% replacement figure doesn&#8217;t include large-scale recalls.\u00a0 The largest was for the Chevy Bolt, not sold in Australia.\u00a0 Another big recall was for the Hyundai Kona.\u00a0 This would have affected more Australians, but still not many.<\/p>\r\n<p>There will be further large recalls in the future.\u00a0 Manufacturers are continually updating battery manufacturing processes.\u00a0 This is necessary to improve batteries, but there will inevitably be mistakes and recalls will occur.\u00a0 As batteries become a more mature technology, recalls will become less common, but I don&#8217;t know if we&#8217;ll ever be rid of them entirely.\u00a0 Conventional cars still have recalls after over 130 years of practice.<\/p>\r\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-75088\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-recall.jpg\" alt=\"An EV on mars\" width=\"500\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-recall.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-recall-300x297.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-recall-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-recall-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<h2>Warranties: Often 8 Years &amp; Many km<\/h2>\r\n<p>If your EV battery is replaced under warranty, that&#8217;s annoying but not disastrous.\u00a0 It can even be to your advantage if you end up with a brand-new battery after subjecting your old one to a few years of wear and tear.\u00a0 Most battery pack warranties in the US are for 8 years or 100,000 miles.\u00a0 Whichever comes first.\u00a0 Translated into Australian, that&#8217;s 8 metric years or 160,000km.\u00a0 Technically, it should be 160,934km, but it gets rounded down.\u00a0 While that&#8217;s not a huge sin, they sometimes &#8220;round down&#8221; the years.\u00a0 Hyundai offers 10 years or 100,000 miles warranty in the US, but here it&#8217;s only 8 years or 160,000km.\u00a0 Hopefully, Hyundai will soon give us 10 years as well.\u00a0 It&#8217;s only fair since we&#8217;re better looking.<\/p>\r\n<h2>EV Range Loss<\/h2>\r\n<p>The study says the most range loss from battery degradation occurs early in an EV&#8217;s life, and the results back this up in all but one case.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll give what percentage of range remains when the EVs hit 60,000 miles and, when information&#8217;s available, 100,000 miles.<\/p>\r\n<p>Because there is 1.60934km in a mile and the average annual distance vehicles are driven in Australia is 13,000km, this means:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>60,000 miles = 96,500km or 7.4 years of average Oz driving.<\/li>\r\n<li>100,000 miles = 161,000 km or 12.4 years of average Oz driving.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Note the EVs in this study have been driven much more than the Australian average each year.\u00a0 This means we should expect greater range loss per km for those driven the Oz average due to the effects of time.\u00a0 The good news is, because the rate of loss flattens off in all EVs studied, the extra range loss &#8212; hopefully &#8212; will not be great.<\/p>\r\n<p>All the range percentages I give are average results.\u00a0 There can be considerable variation between individual vehicles.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Nissan Leaf<\/h2>\r\n<p>The Nissan Leaf is the first EV produced on a large scale this century<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#en-74393-1' id='enref-74393-1' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(74393)'>1<\/a><\/sup> and began production in 2010.\u00a0 Over the years, several battery pack capacities have been available.<\/p>\r\n<p>The largest and newest battery pack is 62 kilowatt-hours (kWh).\u00a0 Because it&#8217;s the newest the study only gave information on it up to 125,500km:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>62kWh Nissan Leaf at 96,500km\u00a0 95%<\/li>\r\n<li>62kWh Nissan Leaf at 125,500km\u00a0 95%<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>The largest battery pack Nissan Leaf held up well and suffered no significant range loss over its final 29,000km.<\/p>\r\n<p>While the 40kWh Leaf isn&#8217;t as new, its results still didn&#8217;t reach 161,000km.\u00a0 The study only has information to 153,500km, but that&#8217;s 95% of the way, so it&#8217;s not far off :<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>40kWh Nissan Leaf at 96,500km\u00a0 99%<\/li>\r\n<li>40kWh Nissan Leaf at 153,500km\u00a0 99%<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>As you can see, the 40kWh Leaf has superb range retention and only lost around 1% of its range after being driven over 150,000km<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#en-74393-2' id='enref-74393-2' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(74393)'>2<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\r\n<p>I didn&#8217;t expect a great result from the 22kWh Leaf, as the study would have included some of the earliest lithium EV battery packs created.\u00a0 But while it didn&#8217;t retain as much range as newer Leafs, it still did well:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>22kWh Nissan Leaf at 96,500km\u00a0 93%<\/li>\r\n<li>22kWh Nissan Leaf at 161,000km\u00a0 91%<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_75100\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75100\" class=\"size-full wp-image-75100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-leaf.jpg\" alt=\"Nissan Leaf\" width=\"600\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-leaf.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-leaf-300x163.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-75100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is a real picture of a real Gen 2 Nissan Leaf. It&#8217;s not an AI hallucination. (Image Credit: Nissan)<\/p><\/div>\r\n<h2>Tesla Model S<\/h2>\r\n<p>The Tesla Model S has had several battery pack sizes available, and the study looked at the two most common.\u00a0 The largest, and only size available today, is 100kWh.\u00a0 The other is 75kWh.\u00a0 Many of these vehicles were sold with unlimited Tesla supercharging, and so people tended to use that a lot.\u00a0 Because it&#8217;s harder on battery packs than a normal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/electric-vehicles\/ev-charging-guide\/\">home EV charger<\/a> it may have significantly contributed to range loss, but the study didn&#8217;t attempt to quantify this.<\/p>\r\n<p>The 100kWh battery retained the following amounts of original range:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>100kWh Tesla Model S at 96,500km:\u00a0 79% of original range<\/li>\r\n<li>100kWh Tesla Model S at 161,000km:\u00a0 77% of original range<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Losing over 20% of its range before hitting 100,000km surprised me because it&#8217;s very different from this graph provided by Tesla:<\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_56763\" style=\"width: 1295px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-56763\" class=\"wp-image-56763 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/evmyth_deterioration.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1285\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/evmyth_deterioration.png 1285w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/evmyth_deterioration-300x132.png 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/evmyth_deterioration-1024x452.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/evmyth_deterioration-768x339.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1285px) 100vw, 1285px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-56763\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This graph is from page 22 of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tesla.com\/ns_videos\/2020-tesla-impact-report.pdf\">Tesla\u2019s 2020 Impact Report<\/a>.\u00a0 They use the same graph in their 2022 Impact Report but made the colours greener.\u00a0 (I added the red arrow and comic sans myself.)<\/p><\/div>\r\n<p>Fortunately, there wasn&#8217;t much change over the next 144,000km as the range only dropped down to 77%.\u00a0 So while not nearly as good as Tesla&#8217;s graph would suggest, this does suggest the battery will last a long time.<\/p>\r\n<p>The 75kWh Model S did a lot better:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>75kWh Model S at 96,500km:\u00a0 96% of original range<\/li>\r\n<li>75kWh Model S at 161,000km:\u00a0 92% of original range<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Now that&#8217;s much more like Tesla&#8217;s graph.\u00a0 However, the 75kWh Model S is no longer produced.\u00a0 New ones all have 100kWh battery packs, but it&#8217;s not the same as the original 100kWh battery many or most of the vehicles in this study would have had.\u00a0 This makes me hope a 100kWh Model S sold today would suffer range loss similar to or less severe than the 75kWh version.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Tesla Model 3<\/h2>\r\n<p>Tesla Model 3 EVs with 75kWh batteries fared well:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>75kWh Tesla Model 3 at 96,500km:\u00a0 93% of original range<\/li>\r\n<li>75kWh Tesla Model 3 at 161,000km:\u00a0 92% of original range<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>While they&#8217;d lost more range at around 100,000km than the 75kWh Tesla Model S, at 161,000km they were the same.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>The 50kWh Model 3 didn&#8217;t do as well:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>50kWh Tesla Model 3 at 96,500km:\u00a0 84% of original range<\/li>\r\n<li>50kWh Tesla Model 3 at 161,000km:\u00a0 83% of original range<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>While its early range loss was considerably worse than its bigger battery brother, there was little loss from 100,000km to 160,000km, which is a good sign.<\/p>\r\n<p>The version of the 50kWh Model 3 currently sold in Australia is made in Shanghai and has a different battery pack from the American-made ones in this study.<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#en-74393-3' id='enref-74393-3' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(74393)'>3<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 It uses a different lithium chemistry from the American one, so its range loss may be very different.\u00a0 Because it&#8217;s newer, I&#8217;ll cross my fingers and hope it suffers less range loss.<\/p>\r\n<h2>BMW i3<\/h2>\r\n<p>Recurrent looked at BMW i3 EVs with 3 battery pack sizes.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll give information on the larger 42kWh and 33kWh ones.<\/p>\r\n<p>Because the 42kWh BMW i3 hasn&#8217;t been around that long, the study only gave information up to 88,500km:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>42kWh BMW i3 at 88,500km:\u00a0 93% of original range<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Because range loss from 50,000km onwards was minimal, it looked likely to still be at 93% at around 100,000km.<\/p>\r\n<p>Information for the 32kWh BMW i3 didn&#8217;t start until it hit 16,000km, so all I can do is indicate how much range was lost from that point on:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>32kWh BMW i3 at 96,500km:\u00a0 93% of range at around 16,000km<\/li>\r\n<li>32kWh BMW i3 161,000km:\u00a0 83% of range at around 16,000km<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>While the actual range loss is unlikely to be significantly worse than this, it&#8217;s impossible to be certain from the study results.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Hyundai Ioniq 5<\/h2>\r\n<p>Information on the Hyundai Ioniq 5 was only available up to 134,500km:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>77kWh Hyundai Ioniq 5 at 96,500km:\u00a0 93% of original range<\/li>\r\n<li>77kWh Hyundai Ioniq 5 at 134,500km:\u00a0 93% of original range<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>From 50,000km onwards range held extremely steady with no noticeable loss.\u00a0 I hope the battery can maintain this out to 161,000km and beyond.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Ford Mustang Mach-E<\/h2>\r\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drive.com.au\/reviews\/2023-ford-mustang-mach-e-gt-electric-suv-review\/\">Ford Mustang Mach-E<\/a> isn&#8217;t currently available in Australia but should soon arrive in small numbers.\u00a0 Right-hand drive versions are already on sale in the UK and New Zealand.\u00a0 Clearly, Ford is testing them out in lesser countries to see if their product is worthy of us<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#en-74393-4' id='enref-74393-4' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(74393)'>4<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 The Premium Rear Wheel Drive Extended Range version has been around in the US long enough for the study to have measured range loss out to 93,500km:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium RWD Extended Range at 93,500km:\u00a0 99%<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>After a mild decline, the vehicle&#8217;s range began to slowly improve after 45,000km.\u00a0 But there&#8217;s nothing strange going on.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not a magic pudding battery.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_75090\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75090\" class=\"size-full wp-image-75090\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-magic.jpg\" alt=\"Magic pudding electric car.\" width=\"500\" height=\"462\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-magic.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-magic-300x277.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-75090\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apparently, this is an Australian magic pudding electric car. If you don&#8217;t like it, take it up with Skynet.<\/p><\/div>\r\n<p>As a manufacturer becomes more confident about a new EV and its battery pack, they can send updates that can improve the car&#8217;s performance or allow more battery capacity.\u00a0 Over time, the improvements tend to become minor, so don&#8217;t expect any miracles from this. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n<h2>Winners &amp; Not Exactly Losers &#8212; 96,500km<\/h2>\r\n<p>Ranking the vehicles&#8217; remaining range from best to worst at 96,500km gives:<\/p>\r\n<ol>\r\n<li>40kWh Nissan Leaf 99%<\/li>\r\n<li>Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium RWD Extended Range\u00a0 99%?<\/li>\r\n<li>75kWh Tesla Model S\u00a0 96%<\/li>\r\n<li>62kWh Nissan Leaf 95%<\/li>\r\n<li>22kWh Nissan Leaf 93%,\u00a0 42kWh BMW i3 93%,\u00a0 77kWh Hyundai Ioniq 5 93%,\u00a0 75kWh Tesla Model 3\u00a0 93%<\/li>\r\n<li>32kWh BMW i3 93%?<\/li>\r\n<li>50kWh Tesla Model 3\u00a0 84%<\/li>\r\n<li>100kWh Tesla Model S\u00a0 79%<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<p>There&#8217;s a question mark next to the Ford Mustang Mach-E because its info only went up to 93,500km.\u00a0 There&#8217;s also one next to the 32kWh BMW i3 because we can&#8217;t be certain about its range loss.\u00a0 But I think putting the Ford in 2nd and the 32kWh BMW in 6th place is reasonable.<\/p>\r\n<p>The 40kWh Nissan Leaf took the top spot, and in clear last place was the 100kWh Tesla Model S that only retained 79% of its original range after being driven fewer km than the average Australian car racks up in 8 years.\u00a0 This is in surprising contrast to the 75kWh Tesla Model S, which still retained 96% of its range.\u00a0 So Tesla can clearly make EVs that lose little range.\u00a0 It just doesn&#8217;t always happen &#8212; at least not in the past.<\/p>\r\n<p>There were no major losers because, while a couple of Tesla models weren&#8217;t great, none of the range loss was excessive.\u00a0 They did well enough to put fossil fool claims about EV range to shame.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Winners &amp; Not Really Losers &#8212; 161,000km<\/h2>\r\n<p>When all the EVs that did the distance &#8212; or close to it &#8212; are ranked from best to worst for range retention at 161,000km, it gives:<\/p>\r\n<ol>\r\n<li>40kWh Nissan Leaf\u00a0 99%?<\/li>\r\n<li>75kWh Tesla Model S\u00a0 92%,\u00a0 75kWh Tesal Model 3\u00a0 92%<\/li>\r\n<li>22kWh Nissan Leaf\u00a0 91%<\/li>\r\n<li>50kWh Model 3\u00a0 83%<\/li>\r\n<li>32kWh BMW i3\u00a0 83%?<\/li>\r\n<li>100kWh Tesla Model S\u00a0 77%<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<p>The 40kWh Nissan Leaf has a question mark next to it because its information only went up to 153,500km, but since it retained 99% of its original range while covering 95% of the distance, I think it&#8217;s fair to give it 1st place.\u00a0 The 75kWh Tesla Model S did well, taking 2nd place, but the 100kWh version came last with 77% range retention over km, equal to around 12 years of average Australian driving.<\/p>\r\n<p>The 32kWh BMW i3 has a question mark next to it because it&#8217;s impossible to be certain about its range loss.\u00a0 But because I&#8217;m confident it did better than the 100kWh Tesla Model S, 5th place seems reasonable.<\/p>\r\n<h2>Minor Range Loss After 50,000km<\/h2>\r\n<p>While there&#8217;s considerable variation between EVs, generally speaking, most of the decline in range occurs before 90,000km.\u00a0 For vehicles that went the full distance &#8212; as well as the 40kWh Nissan Leaf which nearly did &#8212; the range loss between 96,500km and 161,000km &#8212; as a percentage and as percentage points<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#en-74393-5' id='enref-74393-5' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(74393)'>5<\/a><\/sup> &#8212; was:<\/p>\r\n<ol>\r\n<li>40kWh Nissan Leaf\u00a0 0%\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li>75kWh Tesla Model 3\u00a0 1%,\u00a0 50kWh Tesla Model 3\u00a0 1%\u00a0 (1 percentage point)<\/li>\r\n<li>22kWh Nissan Leaf 2%,\u00a0 100kWh Tesla Model S\u00a0 2%\u00a0 (2 percentage points)<\/li>\r\n<li>75kWh Tesla Model S\u00a0 4%\u00a0 (4 percentage points)<\/li>\r\n<li>32kWh BMW i3\u00a0 11% range loss (10 percentage points)<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<p>The 40kWh Nissan Leaf only lost a few km of range, which is next to nothing and &#8212; after rounding &#8212; it is!\u00a0\u00a0 The only EV without good range retention was the 32kWh BMW i3.\u00a0 The majority had their range drop by ~2% or less over 64,000km or around 5 years of average Australian driving.\u00a0 While there may be some range loss early on, this suggests range loss later in life will be very slow for most EVs.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>While it would be nice if this gradual decline continued for decades or millions of km, at some point range loss will either increase or the battery will fail in a more sudden way.\u00a0 Hopefully, this will take a long time to occur in most cases.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_75101\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75101\" class=\"size-full wp-image-75101\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-ford.jpg\" alt=\"Ford Mustang Mach-E\" width=\"600\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-ford.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-ford-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-75101\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is what the Ford Mustang Electric looks like. (Image Credit: Ford)<\/p><\/div>\r\n<h2>EV Battery Replacement Cost In The US<\/h2>\r\n<p>If an EV battery needs to be replaced while it&#8217;s not under warranty, it can be bloody expensive.\u00a0 Recurrent gives US replacement costs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.recurrentauto.com\/research\/costs-ev-battery-replacement\">on this page<\/a>.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve put the prices they give for 5 EVs below.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve converted them directly into Australian dollars at the current exchange rate of 66 US cents to the Dollarydoo.\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t tried to adjust them to account for GST or US taxes:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Nissan Leaf:\u00a0 $8,300-$14,400<\/li>\r\n<li>Tesla Model S:\u00a0 $18,200-$33,300<\/li>\r\n<li>Tesla Model 3:\u00a0 $24,000<\/li>\r\n<li>BMW i3:\u00a0 $3,800-$24,200<\/li>\r\n<li>Volkswagen e-Golf:\u00a0 $35,500<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>As you can see, replacing a battery pack can be extremely expensive even in a country with a more mature EV market like the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>At the moment manufacturers pay around $200 per kWh for EV battery packs.\u00a0 That&#8217;s $10,000 for a 50kWh pack.\u00a0 When battery packs get down to $100 per kWh, which they eventually will &#8212; in today&#8217;s money at least &#8212; it will only be $5,000.\u00a0 But in the same way it&#8217;s nearly impossible to buy a car part at the same price vehicle manufacturers pay, it may be very difficult to get a replacement battery at close to cost. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_75102\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75102\" class=\"size-full wp-image-75102\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-mustang.jpg\" alt=\"Robot horse\" width=\"500\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-mustang.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-mustang-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-mustang-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/recurrent-mustang-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-75102\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This isn&#8217;t what the Ford Mustang Electric looks like. (Image Credit DALL-E image generator)<\/p><\/div>\r\n<h2>How To Improve Things<\/h2>\r\n<p>At the moment, there are a considerable number of subsidies and incentives for EVs in Australia and around the world.\u00a0 If we want to incentivise longer-lasting batteries, governments should consider directing more subsidies towards EVs that have&#8230;<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li><strong>Longer battery pack warranties:<\/strong>\u00a0 I think 10 years should be a minimum for an EV battery pack warranty rather than the 8 years that&#8217;s currently typical.\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Longer vehicle warranties:<\/strong>\u00a0 Apart from the battery, there&#8217;s not a lot that can wrong with an EV, so it should not be difficult or expensive to provide long warranties for them.<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Minimal or no maintenance requirements:<\/strong>\u00a0 Car companies will be tempted to charge people for maintenance that is not required.\u00a0 This should not be encouraged, as it wastes resources and reduces the value of second-hand vehicles.<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>No restrictions on third-party battery replacements:<\/strong>\u00a0 If manufacturers can control which batteries can be used as replacements, or who can replace them, they will jack up prices.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h2>Is Recurrent Gilding The Lily?<\/h2>\r\n<p>The results of the Recurrent study show EVs are generally very good at retaining range even after racking up enough km to travel 44 times the distance between Sydney and Perth.\u00a0 But it is fair enough to wonder &#8212; are they incentivised to exaggerate battery longevity?\u00a0 Their goal is to help sell second-hand EVs, so they have a vested interest in portraying EVs as lasting a long time.<\/p>\r\n<p>Fortunately for my faith in American trustworthiness, which isn&#8217;t that high &#8212; in part due to someone whose name rhymes with &#8220;Elon Musk&#8221;<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#en-74393-6' id='enref-74393-6' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(74393)'>6<\/a><\/sup> &#8212; their results are similar to what I&#8217;ve heard from EV owners online and other sources.\u00a0 So I&#8217;m confident they aren&#8217;t putting their thumb on the scales.<\/p>\r\n<h2>EV Batteries Can &#8212; Usually &#8212; Go the Distance<\/h2>\r\n<p>The Recurrent study shows EV batteries can last a long time.\u00a0 While most suffer a modest decrease in capacity early in their life, for all but one EV in the study, it dramatically reduces over time. \u00a0One vehicle, the 40kWh Nisssan Leaf, suffered only around 1% range loss after travelling over 150,000km, which shows it&#8217;s possible to make battery packs that suffer minimal deterioration.<\/p>\r\n<p>While battery reliability is improving, because the technology is changing rapidly, some people will inevitably get bum batteries that have to be replaced &#8212; either as part of mass recalls or in individual vehicles.\u00a0 But as batteries improve in quality, this will happen less often.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>Provided a battery replacement occurs under warranty, it&#8217;s not a major issue.\u00a0 But if you do have to pay out-of-pocket, it is a serious problem because it&#8217;s bloody expensive at the moment, and it may remain so in the future.\u00a0 You can partially protect yourself by ensuring your EV has a good warranty.\u00a0 For most Australians, the number of years a battery warranty has is more important than the number of km covered.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>The results of this study, as well as information from other sources, has improved my EV optimism, and I&#8217;ll say that I&#8217;m confident the majority of EVs sold in Australia today, for household use, will still have their original batteries in 20 years&#8217; time.\u00a0 Unless, of course, they&#8217;re all replaced by robo-taxis.\u00a0 Or our robo-masters force us to travel by catapult or something.<\/p>\r\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How long do electric vehicle batteries last?\u00a0 According to a study by Recurrent &#8212; a US company devoted to helping people buy and sell used EVs &#8212; it&#8217;s a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":75140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[684],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electric-vehicles","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>US Study Shows EV Batteries Should Last An EVs Lifetime<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Will your EV&#039;s battery will be a brick in under ten years? Of course not! We look at a US study on EV battery life in an Australian context.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US Study Shows EV Batteries Should Last An EV&#039;s Lifetime\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Will your EV&#039;s battery will be a brick in under ten years? Of course not! We look at a US study on EV battery life in an Australian context.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SolarQuotes Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolarQuotes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-23T00:10:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-05-24T02:29:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ronald Brakels\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@BrakelsRonald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ronald Brakels\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d0ce1779b3f5cb67cb4f146732af2fc7\"},\"headline\":\"US Study Shows EV Batteries Should Last An EV&#8217;s Lifetime\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-05-23T00:10:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-05-24T02:29:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/\"},\"wordCount\":3916,\"commentCount\":35,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Electric Vehicles\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/\",\"name\":\"US Study Shows EV Batteries Should Last An EVs Lifetime\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/ev-batteries-lifetime\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ev-battery-life.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-05-23T00:10:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-05-24T02:29:24+00:00\",\"description\":\"Will your EV's battery will be a brick in under ten years? 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