- Battery degradation on high-mileage EVs is not as big a deal as some might make you believe.
- Real-world data shows that EVs with over 150,000 miles are still going strong, with minimal degradation.
- Older EVs are more affected by high mileage, but technology has made newer models more resilient.
Battery degradation is inevitable, but new research shows that EV owners should just keep driving their cars without worrying about what happens with the thousands of cells that live in their cars’ floors.
That’s because battery degradation–especially in newer electric cars–is pretty much a non-issue, according to real-world data published by Recurrent, a company that keeps track of thousands of EVs worldwide using its telematics tools.
The firm looked at the real-world range of about 1,000 EVs in its portfolio that have driven over 150,000 miles since new. Then, Recurrent compared these findings with the real-world range of the vehicles when they were new, instead of the official EPA estimates.
The findings clearly show that technology has progressed a lot in the past decade, to the point where a 2023 model has 10% less degradation than a 2012 EV with the same mileage on the clock. Advancements in battery chemistry, thermal management and buffer strategies have made third-generation electric cars extremely dependable.
The oldest EVs with 150,000 miles in Recurrent’s analysis are from 2012, while the newest were made in 2023. The 14-year-old cars on the chart have an average range retention of 81%, but the trend is obviously toward better range retention. With every passing year, EVs have gotten better at retaining their original range to the point where 2023 models still deliver 91% of their original capacity.
In other words, if a Tesla Model 3 could drive 270 miles when it was new in 2023, it can now do roughly 247 miles on a full charge. Similarly, if a brand-new 2015 Nissan Leaf could deliver a real-world range of around 67 miles, it can do about 56 miles on a full charge after 150,000 miles. Besides being hit harder by degradation, older EVs also have much smaller-capacity batteries to begin with.
This data goes hand in hand with another set of findings from Recurrent, which show that the latest wave of EVs, which were made starting in 2022, have an extremely low battery replacement rate.
According to the telematics company, only 0.3% of Gen 3 EVs have so far needed a battery replacement. That’s a big improvement from the previous generation of cars, built between 2017 and 2021, where 2% of the batteries have been replaced (excluding recalls). It’s also a huge leap in the right direction compared to the first mass-produced EVs–think first-generation Nissan Leaf and Volkswagen E-Golf–where 8.5% of the batteries have been replaced.
In an interview with InsideEVs last year, Liz Najman, Recurrent's director of market insights, said that the company now expects new EVs to not have any issues for at least 15 years. "I think that car companies have really figured out how to keep lithium-ion batteries safe and happy," she said.
Problems can still occur, but when they do, it’s usually because of a manufacturing defect that will be handled through a recall, so owners don’t have to pay out of pocket for the repairs. And even if something happens out of warranty, battery prices and the costs to replace them have gone down significantly in the past 10 years.
