EV Batteries Can Outlast A Vehicle’s Lifetime With Minimal Degradation, Study Finds

One of the biggest fears that consumers have about EVs is the high cost should they ever need to replace a battery pack. And it can be very high, in some cases upwards of $20,000!

But some of those fears may be unwarranted as a recent study has shows that the battery degradation rate in modern EVs has gone down by almost a quarter in the past five years! And that means that even after 20 years on the road, most of today's electric vehicles will still have more than enough battery range for your typical daily driving needs. 

Geotab is a Canada-based fleet management company that, among other things, analyzes telematics data from electric vehicles. In 2019, the firm reported that EV batteries degrade by 2.3% on average every year. Now, though, there’s a new study that shows things are even better.

After looking at the battery health of almost 5,000 fleet and private EVs representing nearly 1.5 million days of telematics data, Geotab found that the average annual degradation rate of modern electric vehicle batteries is just 1.8%. That’s 22% better than five years ago and, more comforting, the top-performing vehicles have a battery degradation rate of just 1% per year.

Using the average annual 1.8% degradation rate means that in 20 years, the battery of an EV would theoretically still have 64% life in it. In other words, it could still theoretically achieve 64% of its original range figures. So in the case of a Tesla Model Y Long Range All-Wheel Drive, one of the best-selling EVs in the world, its original 320-mile range would go down to 204.8 miles, which would still be plenty for town driving or even short road trips.

Of course, there are a lot of variables that will ultimately factor into the battery's degradation rate including heat and cold of the climate where the vehicle is located, the type of cooling system that the automaker built into the car (such as air cooled vs. liquid cooled), and even the type of charging that the car has undergone.

Battery degradation is inescapable, but studies like this show that some simple habits are enough to prolong the life of what is essentially the most expensive part of an EV. And that may be one less thing for consumers to have to be concerned about!

Intertek is actively working with automakers all around the world to bring their electric vehicles to market, and a big part of that is testing and validating their battery and charging systems. For more information, visit www.intertek.com/batteries/automotive-battery-ev-testing/