One of many beloved bugaboos bruited by EV boo-birds is that EV batteries will shortly put on out. Now that there are vital numbers of high-mileage EVs on the highway, this deceitful dirge has been definitively debunked. Automobile and Driver (amongst many different sources) estimates {that a} typical EV battery ought to final between 10 and 20 years (the typical new automotive within the US is predicted to final 12.5 years). A current examine by scientists on the SLAC-Stanford Battery Heart discovered that almost all EV batteries are prone to final even longer than researchers had beforehand forecast. Actual-world accounts of long-serving batteries, for instance in Tesla taxis, abound.
Scientific research and particular person anecdotes give us two views on battery longevity—a standardized take a look at that measures the well being of a person EV’s battery offers us yet one more. German testing group DEKRA has developed simply such a take a look at, and has now accomplished greater than 25,000 state-of-health checks utilizing its patented process. Primarily based on the info collected, DEKRA studies (by way of Electrive) that “the batteries of electrical vehicles are extra sturdy than customers generally worry.”
DEKRA’s speedy battery take a look at, which was launched in 2022, is presently out there for round 130 completely different automobile fashions and is obtainable in a number of European international locations. The process takes quarter-hour, and features a static take a look at and a brief acceleration drive of round 50 to 100 meters.
The actual-world outcomes of a person take a look at are in comparison with the “parameterization” of the person automobile fashions, which incorporates knowledge gathered from complicated take a look at drives beneath all kinds of circumstances. “This creates a type of coordinate construction that our system makes use of to research and consider the precise measured values throughout the take a look at,” explains Christoph Nolte, Govt Vice President of DEKRA. “The underside line is a press release on the battery situation that no different technique available on the market can provide as shortly and similtaneously exactly.”
The rising knowledge pool permits the DEKRA consultants to make extra basic statements about battery getting old, they usually say that “even with greater mileages, the overwhelming majority of traction batteries are nonetheless in good situation.” As one instance, DEKRA cites a fleet of Jaguar I-Tempo electrical taxis that went into service in Munich in 2018. DEKRA examined six of the automobiles in 2024, and located that, with mileages between 180,000 and 260,000 kilometers, the state of well being of the traction batteries was between 95 and 97 p.c.
“On common, we charged the automobiles about one and a half occasions a day, and never significantly gently, however at all times totally charged to present the drivers the suitable degree of security by way of vary,” mentioned Gregor Beiner, Managing Director of the Munich Taxi Centre (MTZ). “The batteries are very, very sturdy and, particularly with the protection buffers that the producers set up, they keep their capability for a really very long time.”
Supply: Electrive
