Featured How long do electric vehicle batteries actually last? NPR

NPR: How long do electric vehicle batteries actually last?

... As the fleet of EVs on the road ages, new data pooled from tens of thousands of vehicles is showing those batteries are lasting longer than expected. ...

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At auto auctions, a lot of healthy batteries
... "We were expecting battery health to be experiencing mass degradation over the first one to three years of owning a vehicle," George says. "What we have seen, though, is that these 2, 3, 4-year-old off-lease cars that are coming back have battery health scores well upwards of 95%."

Recurrent's data also shows that cars from most major brands retain 95% or more of their expected range after 3 years, thanks in part to software and battery management systems that are designed to correct for the battery's early degradation, and give drivers consistent range.

So the initial drop-off in that S curve is in the range of 5% or so, give or take. After that? Well, Cox Automotive has tested nearly 80,000 EVs, and found an average battery health of 92%.

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But based on their community, among EVs that are 10 years old or older, only 8.5% have ever had a battery replacement. More than 90% of them are still on their original battery.

"EV batteries are holding up phenomenally well," Najman says.

Recurrent has also looked at EVs of any age that have more than 150,000 miles on them, which provides a closer look at the effects of that cyclical aging. There, too, the batteries outperformed expectations.

"Cars with 150,000 miles or more, and that have not had battery replacements, are getting at least 83% of their original range," Najman says.

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Why are batteries outlasting expectations?
The engineers who developed modern EVs knew that prolonging battery life would be crucial. They designed systems to actively manage temperatures to improve battery lifespan, and software to constantly check battery health. Years have shown those efforts paid off.

But there's another reason EV batteries have out-performed expectations. It turns out that testing batteries is harder on them than the real world. Their lifespan was underestimated.
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See also (referenced by above NPR article):

New Data: How Long Do Electric Car Batteries Last?

Battery life is a big question for EV shoppers, and for good reason. Lithium ion batteries are an expensive black box — they can be up to 30-50% of an electric car’s value, but are very hard to evaluate. If your EV’s battery dies, you won’t be going anywhere until it’s repaired.

Recurrent’s team of battery scientists looked at battery replacements in our community of 30,000+ electric cars and found:

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  • Unsurprisingly, the highest rate of battery replacements come from the very first generation of EVs on the road. These cars are now 14+ years old and were built on early technology.
  • Between 2015 and 2024, average battery sizes increased by 167%, meaning that newer EV batteries can stand to lose more capacity before they need replacement.
  • As battery management systems improve and we migrate to newer battery chemistries, we should see even better battery life and fewer replacements in modern EVs.

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The NPR article does separately address batteries aged 10+ years: "Decade-old EVs are overwhelmingly on their original batteries"

Is it really a shell game if the software artificially caps the initial available capacity to what they expect the actual capacity will be a few years down the road, so the customer experiences no range loss during that time? This artificial cap would also contribute to extending the battery life.