Another myth busted - EV battery can easily outlast the vehicle itself
Another myth busted - EV battery can easily outlast the vehicle itself
A comprehensive analysis of over 10,000 electric vehicles reveals that battery degradation is a slow process, with most power packs capable of lasting 20 years and retaining a majority of their original range.
An EV battery experiences a loss of capacity of about 1.8% per year on average. This means a gradual reduction in the vehicle's original range, but it's hardly a catastrophic failure. After 20 years on the road, an EV could still keep about 64% of its initial range - a surprisingly practical number for many drivers.
Nah. Losing 36% of range is quite a lot. That's the safety buffer I depend on.
Over buying capacity by an extra 1/3rd is either noticeably more expensive, or just not available yet.
Gas vehicles can run into a similar issue. Though, I don't know how many. I've got a Gen 2 Prius and it only holds about 65% of it's rated capacity of gas. Why? Bladder in the tank that's meant to reduce gas vapors. Gets stiffer over time. Not worth spending the money to get it replaced.
Didn't even know it was a thing that could happen until it had already happened.
That's a strange and specific problem. Gas tanks don't shrink.
As another said, That is very specific, can't say I've heard of that before, but not a Prius connoisseur, However is right regardless when it comes to ICE engines (internal combustion engine). An engines efficiency goes down over time, there is a lot of mechanical movement and a lot of its components decay overtimes, bearings, piston rings, springs, valves, gaskets, just everything in the engine is not a "lifetime" part. In 20 years, if you on average drive 2 hours a day, 5 days a week at 2,000rpm, just 1 piston has done 41,600,000 strokes, crankshaft has spun 20,800,000 rotations, Camshaft has spun 10,400,000 rotations as has the intake and exhaust cam opened/closed, fuel has been injected into the engine and exploded. It comes at a cost that would honestly be similar to the lost of charge in an EV battery, however the EV battery will lose its charge at a same rate even if "neglected". An engines overall efficiency over time also correlates to the maintanace you put in. Late in a oil service can cause problems causing poor efficiency, as can using the wrong oil, or using the wrong octane/cetane rating fuel/diesel, poor engine cooling, etc, a lot of maintenance is required, and you'll still have poor efficiency after 20 years, at least with a battery, as long as you aren't constantly discharging it completely then filling it, and it is being cooled correctly, it should consistently lose its charge over time.
Not to mention that many vehicles are programmed to disable themselves after a certain threshold of capacity loss.
it goes from a useful car to more of a commuter car.
but even then, no one expects any costumer machine to last 20 years.
imagine saying that no one should buy a fridge because it'll have to be replaced in 20 years?
It certainly can vary quite a bit as the graphs in the article show. Seems that cell chemistry, thermal management, and total cycles are the largest drivers of degradation. EV's with generally smaller, more frequently cycled packs, no active thermal management, and cell chemistry not optimized for that use case will not fare well in hot climates. Something with a larger liquid cooled pack, that doesn't experience as many cycles, will fare much better regardless of the chemistry and easily still have useful amounts of capacity after 20 years.
As a data point, this is from an early 2016 EV with 90,000 miles, roughly 50% DCFS, and about half of its life in a temperate climate. Nearing 10 years and just under 3% degradation.
When I bought my EV in 2020 it had a stated range of 274km. The first time I fully charged it I got 320km.
They did an ECM reset last service. The range estimate dipped to 290 but since then has readjusted to 330km.
So I seem to be gaining here.
Am I reading their data wrong? Looking at the bottom graph, the battery loses 20% of it's life in 4 years if I fast charge once a month & live somewhere hot (yes to both for me). That's 5% a year, but the article says 1.8%. That's a pretty big difference once we account for real world conditions.
Not quite a full 20%, but yeah, in your situation, that's a big longevity problem. This data is obviously better for people not living in very hot climates. It looks like the first graph (which the 1.8% average is pulled from) is keeping climate constant (and probably temperate.)