One of the biggest concerns of those considering buying electric vehicles is the battery – will its range live up to expectations? Will the charging time be sufficient? And above all, will it wear out and die after a year or two, forcing us to replace it, which costs almost as much as buying a new basic car? Recent studies have made some surprising revelations about the first question as well, but especially about the latter.
A March study by Recurrent Motors, a Seattle-based battery analysis firm, sheds light on the durability of electric vehicle batteries. The study, which looked at real data (i.e., not lab tests in a controlled environment) from 15,000 cars from various U.S. manufacturers and models, offers an encouraging outlook for the future of electric mobility.
By leveraging the vehicle's connectivity systems, the company collected extensive battery data, including charging patterns, battery levels and estimated ranges. The findings completely contradicted expectations, revealing that electric vehicle batteries are not only reliable enough, but may be so durable that they will last longer than the vehicles themselves.
The most striking discovery was that most electric vehicles, even after driving around 160,000 km, retained at least 90% of their original battery capacity. This impressive robustness is the opposite of the fear of rapid battery wear. In addition, the company discovered that the driving range of the vehicles after each charge, although it decreases over time, stops decreasing or at least slows down its wear after several tens of thousands of kilometers (in Tesla about 50-100, depending on the model and battery capacity; in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 after about 40) and remains fairly stable over time. The most comforting statistic is that only 1.5% of EV owners have needed a battery replacement to date (apart from recalls of vehicles with faulty batteries, which occurred mainly abroad).
These promising figures can reassure consumers considering switching to electric cars, even used ones. However, it is important to note that as with everything, there are exceptions – as mentioned above, 1.5% of electric cars did require battery replacements, in addition to those that were forced to replace them due to fear of catching fire.
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