- EV battery degradation is sort of a non-issue, a brand new examine discovered.
- On common, a contemporary EV’s battery degrades by 1.8% per 12 months.
- Most batteries can final 20 years or extra.
The high-voltage battery pack of an electrical car is commonly the principle weapon of alternative for individuals who have by no means pushed an EV however prefer to discredit the know-how. “It received’t final greater than a few years” is a sentence that I’ve heard time and time once more when speaking to fuel automotive fanatics about EVs.
Regardless of the overwhelming quantity of information that proves in any other case, there are nonetheless folks on the market who assume a contemporary EV will conk out in case you even have a look at it the improper means. Effectively, now there’s much more information relating to battery well being in the long term, and it’s excellent news for each present EV house owners and those that wish to get their first battery-powered automotive.
In keeping with Geotaba United Kingdom firm offering car telematics, most EV batteries can final 20 years with minimal annual degradation. That’s six years greater than the typical automotive age in the USA.
Over this beneficiant timespan, EV batteries undergo from about 1.8% degradation per 12 months. Which means you’ll lose 1.8% of the unique vary yearly–not perfect, however definitely not a dealbreaker. After 20 years, if nothing goes catastrophically improper, you possibly can nonetheless take pleasure in 64% of an EV’s unique vary. The info comes from analyzing over 10,000 EVs.
With all this being mentioned, it’s price noting that high-voltage EV batteries do fail, however the failure fee is statistically insignificant. In keeping with one examine, EVs made within the final decade have had a battery failure fee of lower than 0.5%.
Battery degradation isn’t linear, and it’s additionally location-dependent. The largest hit comes within the first few years of a battery’s life, nevertheless it tapers out after that, earlier than taking one other hit towards its final legs. Sizzling climates additionally improve battery degradation, so preserve your EV within the shade if attainable, particularly when charging it.
Fashionable EVs have environment friendly cooling and heating methods to maintain the battery’s temperature in examine, nevertheless it’s at all times higher to maintain issues cool as a substitute of scorching. This additionally results in the difficulty of DC quick charging, which marginally will increase the degradation fee in comparison with Stage 1 and Stage 2 sluggish charging.
Having a liquid-cooled battery pack is essential, as it could actually preserve temperatures in examine irrespective of the local weather. The newest technology Nissan Leaf has a liquid-cooled battery, however the earlier two generations had passively cooled packs, making them vulnerable to elevated degradation.
Picture by: Nissan
Maintaining the state of cost between 20% and 80% on nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) and nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries can be a positive approach to extend battery life. On lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, this limitation typically doesn’t apply, however one examine discovered that continually topping off an LFP pack may probably scale back its lifespan.
Even in case you observe all these simple suggestions, there’s no escaping the truth that batteries degrade over time, whether or not they’re used or not. Simply as a fuel automotive’s hoses and pumps will degrade if it’s sitting for years on finish, a battery will lose a few of its capability over time.
