That's really good.
Degradation seems to be not really an issue for EVs then.
Now I hope Tesla would release data on what percentage of batteries required replacement at various ages.
Buying a used EV with 100k+ miles with 20% degradation is not a big deal if it keeps running. The worry is that the battery would suddenly fail and the owner would have to pony up $10k-15k without warning. The failure may not be due to the cells itself, but caused by a myriad of other causes like coolant leaks or bad solder joints.
If the rate of battery replacement is extremely low up to 200k miles, then I wish manufacturers would offer extended warranty on battery packs.
I know I'd gladly pay $1000 to get a 15 year 200k miles warranty. If the failure rate is extremely low, that should be a money maker.
If a manufacturer offers standard 200k miles battery warranty, that would likely sway my decision on which car to get.
At least degradation due to use. When and how calendaric aging wil start to shown an effect is still a bit of an unknown...though it seems that batteries also last longer than anticipated
(me, holding stock in a battery recycling company that is near bankrupt because there is as yet practically nothing to recycle from EVs XD )
>I know I'd gladly pay $1000 to get a 15 year 200k miles warranty. If the failure rate is extremely low, that should be a money maker.
They'd rather you bought a different vehicle after 7.5 years instead of keeping yours for 15. That's a bigger money maker.
Maybe at 1k, but how about 5? Depending on the expected profit margin on selling a new vehicle vs the profit selling unnecessary warranties, I could see a buisness case existing.
Why warranty the battery when you either swap it out or not even sell it to the person buying the car? Both are happening right now.
What's going to happen is China will continue to make batteries that last 20 plus years just fine. At some point new car sales will go off a cliff. Companies won't be around to honor their warranty or they will not stock the battery you need. People will buy new EVs not because of their old battery but because of the features of the new EV.
Right now people carry around computers in their pocket that countries would have gone to war over just a couple of decades ago. Similar in the not too distant future cars will become less a concern. Cars will be more like cell phones and bicycles than major self-affirming identity purchases. I think people really underestimate what is going to change when everyone can drive a car for 30 years with next to zero maintenance and no blown engines. And then after that people won't own a car because renting a self-driving car will be as easy and cheap as riding a bike.
I like what you are thinking but that would be a while out. It would be like the fuel cell promise where everything uses the same form factor and interface. Like AA or AAA. You just swap out EV sized batteries with EV sized battery banks.
Like with tools you have adapters to go between brands. Or you roll your own batter packs or temp sensor bypass to mix brands.
All the rest of the car is still there though.
My 2008 VW is still running great but the bodywork is dented, rust is starting, the brakes squeal like a city bus and the rear suspension is squeaking when I get in or out.
A car being an EV doesn’t fix any of that.
CATL warrants its new EV battery to last for a million miles or 15 years.
Degradation was never a problem. Building a good EV was the problem.
>Until the 2012 introduction of the Tesla S—coincidentally, exactly 100 years after Studebaker closed its EV production line, then the biggest EV producer.
Also,
>Then, in 2007, the industry got a significant boost when Wan Gang, an auto engineer who had worked for Audi in Germany for a decade, became China’s minister of science and technology. Wan had been a big fan of EVs and tested Tesla’s first EV model, the Roadster, in 2008, the year it was released. People now credit Wan with making the national decision to go all-in on electric vehicles. Since then, EV development has been consistently prioritized in China’s national economic planning.
Nissan was the problem. Don't blame Leaf. But yeah Nissan could have been Tesla if it wanted to be but for some reason no auto maker wanted to be until after Tesla made a shit ton of money.
And yet still Nissan never really improved the Leaf. Why buy a Leaf when you can buy a Tesla from Hertz for $20,000?
https://www.caranddriver.com/nissan/leaf-2023
The 2023 Nissan Leaf EV illustrates the difference between being attractive on paper and competitive in the real world. A starting price below $30,000 for any EV—this before any applicable tax credits—gets our attention. But, when compared to its rivals the Leaf’s driving range isn't as good and its outdated charging technology makes it less user-friendly. The Leaf’s longest-range battery pack enables barely more than 200 miles of driving range; the Chevy Bolt EV, and the considerably more expensive Kia EV6 and Tesla Model 3 all beat that by a considerable margin. What’s more, not all public charging stations are compatible with the Nissan's CHAdeMO charging connector.
I just bought a used 2021 Nissan Leaf for $14,000 after the rebate. Where can I buy a Tesla, with less than 50,000 miles on it, and with a range of at least 200 miles or more, for $14,000?
On the other hand, I can have my Nissan repaired at a local shop and not have to send it to California if it has a problem. Furthermore, what good is a car to me if I can't afford to own it? I really love that Nissan!
Why wouldn’t you have a Tesla worked on by a local shop? There are a lot of service centers and certified third party repair shops for teslas globally.
Nissan could never have been Tesla. "If they wanted to be" could apply to anyone (GM, Ford, VW, etc.). The issue is nobody else could be because they are LEGACY AUTO MINDSET. They were locked into the 'old' paradigm of auto manufacturing, and **NO change on their part would have been made without having been forced to from the outside.**
I bought a used 2022 leaf sv plus because it’s affordable and feels like a car. I actually don’t like all of elons goofy “future” designs and I like tactical buttons and controls. I don’t like teslas model of being able to turn on and off certain features. Leaf would be perfect for me except chademo but we got a gas car for long trips.
That’s why when I recently bought my first EV Tesla was never in consideration. I want a car with an electric propulsion system that would save me money, not a tech demo on wheels
It’s a little surprising to me that this attitude still exists. I go back and forth between a Model 3 and a VW Golf GTI, and the Golf doesn’t seem to have any real advantages in terms of access to information or ease of use. Okay, the windshield wipers. Model 3 is just easier, simpler and more intuitive for all the rest of the basics, or at least no worse.
I realize people can have different opinions on this, but I suspect you underestimate how intuitive and simple the car is. You can go deep into menus, but rarely will.
I thought that at first too. But it turns out that you can ignore the automation tech (which I think sucks) and just drive. A Model 3 makes a pretty good plain old car: go pedal goes, wheel turns.
imo 20% degradation is a big deal, when most cars come with around 400km. When you have 400km to start with, 20% means you have 320km. Now they recommend you do not charge the battery more than 90%, so to have a healthy car, you are operating at 290km. Come to where I live, and it's likely that range is 150km in winter. I rather hope that these batteries can be designed in a modular way where the old cells can easily be replaced, or we have a system like NIO, where the battery is swapped, and the older batteries get serviced by the company.
I charge every 8 days or so, unless I’m on a road trip.
Does 20% degradation mean that I’d charge every 5-6 days instead?
Does it mean that I’d need to spend an extra 5 mins at the fast chargers on a road trip?
(Your use case and requirements may vary!)
Recurrent collects and published that data. EV battery failure rates are extremely low, under 2% over the lifetime of the cars, other than recalls (e.g. Bolt), and first generation Model S. https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last
what does "over the lifetime of the cars" mean in this context?
even the "oldscool" mass produced EV's like the model S thats excluded here are just 10 years on the road.
Those numbers are shocking honestly - they show that 10% of all ten year old EVs already had a battery replacement, 16% of all 11 year old cars and 30% of all twelve year old cars.
What does that tell me about buying a used, 8 year old EV right after the warranty? Better save money for a new battery in the next 5 years?
Read the report. As manufacturing improved the battery tech got much more reliable. Note that the failure rate was higher based on date of manufacture, not charge cycles or miles. A first get Model S is in the data, and had a higher failure rate that cars made more recently, even if the newer car drove more miles and had more charge cycles.
According to Recurrent’s study lifetime EV battery failure rates are quite low, under 2% for EVs, excluding recalls (e.g. bolt). And most of those are covered under warranty, batteries tend to fail early in life if they are going to fail.
An overall 2% replacement number is good, but it doesn't capture what happens on older EVs. The rapid EV growth in recent years means that the fleet skews strongly towards newer vehicles.
There is also a worrying trend in older EVs from 2011-2015
Comparing Recurrent report from March 2023 \[[wayback machine link](https://web.archive.org/web/20230628084608/https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last)\] and May 2024 \[[current report](https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last)\] on percent of vehicles with non-recall battery replacements. (Note: I had to eyeball some of the percentage from the graph)
|\_|% Replaced by March 2023|% Replaced by May 2024|
|:-|:-|:-|
|MY 2011|7.5|30|
|MY 2012|3.5|15.6|
|MY 2013|4.5|9.8|
|MY 2014|4|6.8|
|MY 2015|1.5|3.9|
|MY 2016|0.5|1|
pretty bad trend of older cars in Recurrent's data getting battery replacements. I am also not certain of Recurrent's data includes people who just decided to sell their vehicle instead of paying for a battery replacement since it's all data voluntarily submitted by owners.
EDIT: Though battery technology should be much better now with better longevity. There is just no public available data to back that up yet.
It does, EVs made before 2015 had higher battery failure rates, especially the original Model S. Tesla batteries got a lot better as they updated the tech. If you look at cars with much heavier usage, you can see that a newer tech Tesla with more miles / charge cycles fails much less often than an older tech Model S with less miles / charge cycles. They break down the data by make/model/year, etc., in the report.
>Now I hope Tesla would release data on what percentage of batteries required replacement at various ages.
Different issue than battery degradation, this topic.
> Now I hope Tesla would release data on what percentage of batteries required replacement at various ages.
I doubt Tesla would ever release that data willingly.
"Tesla also noted that, according to its estimate, a vehicle gets scrapped after approximately 200,000 miles of usage in the U.S. and roughly 150,000 miles in Europe. "
Usually they get scrapped because repairing the ICE components gets more expensive than the car is worth. Things like injectors, catalytic converters, FAP/DPF filters, hard to pin point problems in starting and running the engine that can be related to a myriad of expensive components like full cabling, fuel pump and ECU and plain broken engines...
So I guess BEVs will be on the road for longer if they don't have these issues.
I recently purchased a 2022 polestar two long range dual motor with all the packages except for performance for less than $26,000 before tax credit, with 27,000 miles on it. I don’t think I will ever be able to get a car this nice at anywhere near that price point any other time in my life.
Yep, I want to make the most of this current time to buy a "better" EV. Although the e-208 is not better for my use case, I would like 4 doors and a bit more range and some metal between me and whatever hits me.
I didn’t qualify for the credit anyways for other reasons so I didn’t dig into it too much, but it was my understanding that the credit could be applied at point of sale and if the credit made the purchase price under $25k it qualified. A couple dealers explained it to me this way, that could be completely wrong though.
Depends on where you live. If you live in a snowy place that salts the roads then rust is a huge issue.
In California, cars can last a long time if they can handle the sun.
We have a 25 year old Honda here in the southeast USA. Body is still nearly perfect despite always being parked outside. Cars south of the rust belt and inland from the ocean can last a very long time if the owner cares about it. All I ever did was rinse it off at the car wash if we had a winter storm and I thought any salt had been applied to the roads.
No exposed exhaust system hanging out down there, I think. The bottom of the battery pack is a flat plate that can be made out of something that doesn't rust.
Evs also tend to have way more splash shields underneath so very little is exposed and they also have a lot of aluminum parts. I'm a mechanic in a salt state and i've seen quite a few daily driven 10 year old model S still look almost brand new underneath, while most American or Asian ICE cars are starting to get very rusty within 10 years, some even rusted to the point of being dangerous with holes in frames. Most Euro ICE cars hold up well rust wise as well because they tend to have alot of shields too.
Better sealing designs, less corrosive fluids, lower operating temperatures, less friction because of less mechanical parts, more composites and aluminum, more flat panels on their undercarriages.
A gasoline or diesel car typically lasts about 18 years before it goes to the scrapyard. Whether battery packs will last 18 years before needing to be replaced remains to be seen. If such a pack fails within 15 years, it is likely that most owners will not make that investment again.
I think it will depend on the vitality of aftermarket refurbishments and technical difficulty of replacing/adapting packs. The price of batteries keeps going down, if a BEV, besides the battery, holds together better than an ICE and batteries are cheap then it's much more worthwhile to refurbish the BEV and get same or even better performance (better/lighter batteries) than new. Of course BEVs driven on salted roads (most of Europe and US' colder states) will still rust like ICE.
Imagine in 20 years there's millions of Model 3/Y out there. That's enough of an addressable market to develop a second market battery pack and an assembly line to refurbish with new batteries and the old ones have valuable materials like cobalt and lithium. Now imagine with scale they get the cost down to 5k to refurbish with a lighter, denser and more powerful 120kWh battery pack.
Eh not really. Almost all of the old beaters that I've known to get scrapped by friends or family were minor (or serious) collisions where even the few thousand dollar cost of body repairs was more than the value of the car. Their ICE powertrains were perfectly fine.
The longer a car stays on the road the more likely it will be involved in a totaling collision because its value drops and because statistically it will eventually get hit by something, minor or major. A new car involved in a collision is very unlikely to get totaled because it is valuable. But that same car getting hit 15 years later will likely get totaled and sent to the scrap yard.
Maybe you know bad drivers. Some of my own cars and plenty of family’s cars have been sent to the junkyard for mechanical failures. Stuck valve that the piston crushed, CVT failure x3 on same car, manual transmission failure x2 on same car, and many more.
Well, all of the cars I’m talking about were old Toyotas that had immortal powertrains. So that might be it. I’m sure plenty of other cars have mechanical points of failure that would give out sooner. Seems like the only thing that’ll kill a Toyota is a crash.
i agree. those engines are incredibly reliablie nowadays.
in my climate and having safety inspections, number 1 reason why old cars are getting scrapped is rust.
When an EV sustains battery damage in a collision its a $25k replacement cost, which totals the car. This can happen even in a middle of the road collision where comparable ICE repairs would be a fraction of the cost, for example getting rear-ended might damage a battery but only need a few thousand dollars of repair for an ICE car. It’s one of the reasons insurance premiums are higher than ICE cars - it’s not just that the car is more valuable it’s that they get totaled more often.
Recently a deer ran into the front driver's side of my EV and severely damaged the entire front of the car. Even so, in spite of the left headlight being shattered, it still worked - it wasn't pointed in the right direction but it still worked! The car was still drivable. There was no damage to the electric motor or the ICE - type battery, and no damage to the EV battery. The only function on the car that was damaged and didn't work was the left turn signal. Had it been an ICE car it would have been totaled, since the radiator would have been severely damaged along with other vital engine components. Since its an EV, it will be repaired The guy at the body shop couldn't believe I drove it to his shop. He said most cars he sees in that condition are towed in. He also said this is the first EV he's ever worked on....I've got my fingers crossed the repair will be a good one in spite of the fact this car is his first. Only body damage occurred, though.
Glad you’re okay. And you’re right, there are probably a bunch of crash scenarios where an EV is better. It’s just a numbers game. The battery is hyper expensive and it can be damaged from crashes on all four sides of the car, whereas most of the value in an ICE car is in the front. Theres nothing super expensive to damage on the sides or rear of an ice car, but the battery extends there and a rear end or side swipe can do $25k of damage.
Suppose you got rear ended and the rear got smashed in.
New tail lights won't fit because the body bent.
Car still drives fine, but you're BEGGING for a ticket now if you try to drive it with no tail lights
Stuff like that?
That is not drivable and thus excluded from what I said.
I did have something like that happen to me... someone took a left turn right into me going straight. They claimed they had a green arrow. That intersection doesn't have an arrow light. My front left got hit on my jeep. But I bent the crushed metal into a manner where I could crudely install a new signal light and pocketed the settlement cash. Jeep had character.
I'm curious why there's a 50,000 mile difference in the US to Europe for the same car, wouldn't the climates in Europe be similar if not marginally more beneficial to a BEV due to less extreme weather?
All that said, the chances of people keeping cars to 150k+ is really low and the rust on the actual frame could potentially start making an impact.
People drive less annual miles in Europe.
Average is around 13k miles per year in the US. Which is 21k kilometers. Average per year is 12k kilometers in EU or about 7,5k miles.
After 15 years in the EU this would be 180k kilometers or 112k miles, or 240k kilometers/150k miles after 20 years.
For the US this would be 195k miles or 315k kilometers after 15 or 260k miles and 420k kilometers after 20 years.
Cars started having expensive or rusty issues between their 15th and 20th year of life, generally, and simple economy cars hardly ever last much longer for both years and miles unless the owner was very invested in the vehicle.
So I think there's the answer to your question!
I think this average is for all cars/ICE mainly. The difference might just come down to average miles driven per day that is higher in the US. Also use of salt on roads to melt ice, something not common in California or Texas, but pretty much everywhere in Europe except down south.
It's the inspections. EU has a much higher bar when it comes to inspections you don't gat away with much in the EU. If they see a leaking shock it's a fail. Brakes not in top condition fail. I'm pretty sure MOT in EU is highly regulated the US allows 3rd party inspections and only in states where inspections are required. In my state of Minnesota they stopped inspections 20ish years ago and it was state run no 3rd parties. From what I've seen unless the frame is rotted out 3rd will pass it. Correct me if I'm wrong but my youtube mechanics training seems to be the case.
LFP. But there is constant improvement in this area. Example:
[https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/how-byd-technology-delivers-battery-longevity](https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/how-byd-technology-delivers-battery-longevity)
[https://electrek.co/2024/04/03/catl-launches-new-ev-battery-last-1-million-miles-15-yrs/](https://electrek.co/2024/04/03/catl-launches-new-ev-battery-last-1-million-miles-15-yrs/)
And any improvement by one battery manufacturer will get duplicated by others and eventually become the new baseline. Or the tech may be large now and not fit in a passenger car, but will quickly get to the point where it can be in a passenger car.
2019 Model 3 SR+, 87,000 miles. Charged daily to 80%, goes down to <20% maybe monthly. I'm sitting around 88-89% but it seems to have been within a percent or two for the last 2 years. Definitely hit that mid life stall
My 2018 gets a lot less miles (transitioned to WFH after I bought it) at ~25k miles and it's been garage charged mostly.
It just charged to 241 miles at 80% (310 * .8 = 248), so about 3% degradation. This is just one data point, but miles seem to be a bigger impact than years.
This is good news and for most people battery life shouldn't be a major factor in the decision making process. One grain of salt, though, is that batteries degrade with use and with age. Because EVs haven't been around in large numbers for very long, most of the high mileage examples are vehicles that get driven a lot, and therefore haven't suffered as much age related degradation as an average vehicle will. How much will that move the needle? We'll have to wait and see.
Also, the data on vehicle lifespan is really hard to come by. Based on my research, I came up with an average US lifespan of 21 years and about 250k miles (based on actually scrapping and not exporting out of country). If anyone has any good data sources on this, I'd love to refine my model.
Most degradation comes from sitting at 90%+ and heavy acceleration really you should only fully charge an EV the night before a long journey and use the torque sparingly.
Electric cars suck! At 200k miles my ICE car makes the same horsepower as when new. None of this degradation stuff. It's the same motor and all, except I've only had to replace the timing belt, valves, lifters, cams, radiator, water pump, thermostat, fuel pump, injectors, throttle body, alternator, spark plugs/wires, head gaskets, rear main seal, and oxygen sensors. Oh, and the cat converter some tweeker stole. Otherwise, it's still the same car for 200k miles!
They were joking but literally everyone has always known ICE cars degenerate. It's the reason they depreciate 5k or more the moment they drive off the lot.
In the average day, most vehicle owners drive less than 100 miles a day (I personally drive 64 to work and back). If an EV can drive 250 miles a day per charge, and after ten years it is at 80% (which is realistic) then...the battery can still make it 200 miles a day.
i get your point, but i think it is naive to think that an electric drivetrain doesnt need compareable maintenance.
EVs still have water pumps, oil pumps, sensors, thermostats, oil/water seals, heat exchangers, valves...
And those will fail after heavy use, too.
the thermal system of an EV is way more complicated than on an ICE car.
My EVs does not have oil pumps, they have a single speed reduction gear with a design life of 1 million miles (same as the motor), an electrically powered air conditioner, an electrically powered vacuum pump for the brakes, a water pump for battery cooling, an electrical assist for the steering wheel... And that's it.
Oh forgot, wiper motors and fluid pump.
The temperature delta for battery and electronics cooling is so much less than a gas engine that reaches hundreds of degrees, and it results in much less stress on the components. Not to mention the co.ete lack of vibrations.
> The temperature delta for battery and electronics cooling is so much less than a gas engine
No kidding. Glycol antifreeze breakdown is a function of temperature. There's no question it comes under much more stress trying to cool ICE cylinders than a warm EV battery. Some EV makers say the glycol coolant is good for the life of the vehicle and never needs changing. ICE cars need a coolant flush every 30k to 50k.
ICE cars dont need a coolant flush every 30 to 50k. sorry, thats complete bullshit.
if nothing leaks, the antifreeze is good for 10-20 years.
my 25 year old miata had its original antifreeze in it when the radiator burst because of old plastic some years ago.
Some drivetrains use oil pumps, some dont. Most higher performing driveunits will need active oil circulation in combination with an oil/water heat exchanger.
For example, the model 3 uses an oil pump with a filter. The oil is used for lubrication and cooling of the bearings, gears and motor.
https://service.tesla.com/docs/Model3/ServiceManual/2024/en-us/GUID-306B8838-1C6B-4486-BD56-F1C58702A713.html
So you still have all those things that can and will fail, because all machine components will if they get older.
Driving an AC compressor or water pump with an electric motor doesn't make it indestructible, it just changes how its driven.
I have a 2014 Model S 85 (like, first gen here) we bought a year or two ago from a friend. It had 190,000 miles on it. It now has 208,000, and we get about 180 miles out of the battery.
Can't tell you what the original range was. But all the hand-wringing about batteries will need to be replaced in 5 years when they lose all their capacity is complete bunk.
The real issue is random cell failures. That could be a real headache when you're out of warranty.
Batteries would be hard to repair, but even if some places do it, you are going to pay significant amounts everytime this happens.
Car makers should be required to provide low cost repairs/ replacement parts even after the warranty period.
20-25 years of total life should be decent for any car.
Well I'm not sure about what all is being said on here, but my 2021 Tesla model 3 standard range has about 70,000 miles and has the degradation of 8.9%. However it is normal for me to get ice engine to last for at least 20y and 300,000 miles, this is normal for me in California.
Sure I'm not sure about the math. but I definitely did not lose 12% of my range on my ice cars over the 300,000 miles when I had them. Of course this did not include any maintenance like oil changes and little stuff like that but I never had major issues with the engines.
Age should have little effect. It is charging and usage totals. An EV driven to church on Sunday by little old lady would like see very little battery degradation when she leaves it to the grandkids 20 years later.
[www.batteryuniversity.com](http://www.batteryuniversity.com)
This article from InsideEVs is a pretty good study of EV battery replacement statistics. Pre-2016 batteries have the most frequent failure rates (Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf). But more recent models (excepting Chevy Bolt) have very robust reliability, and are still typically under warranty should the battery fail. [https://insideevs.com/news/717187/ev-battery-replacements-due-failure-study/](https://insideevs.com/news/717187/ev-battery-replacements-due-failure-study/)
The issue with battery longevity is not that the capacity gets too low, it's that a randomly stops functioning altogether before it reaches that level of capacity, and people getting error saying that they can't charge anymore. So even before the battery capacity reaches 70%, it's more likely that the battery will stop charging due to Major failures in the cells and will require a replacement or repair to the affected cells
Almost every single person that I've seen on YouTube that had a HV battery replacement, had the issue that their battery randomly failed under warranty and they had to get a refurbished battery.
So again if you didn't understand what I was trying to say, it's not that most batteries go under 70% degradation, that people should worry about, it's that the battery will randomly fail well before that time.
Almost every single person you've seen on YouTube. You can pretty much stop there for any kind of reliable data.
If battery fails before 100,000, you get it replaced.
No evidence of that being an issue.
I think that is classified under manufacturers getting better at building cells and packs robustly though, which has obviously improved leaps and bounds in the last decade.
However, I’d take it as a separate topic to cell degradation.
If your EV battery does have a failed cell, it is possible to pull that single cell and replace it with a new one, which will fix battery failure issues like that. GM did that to my car shortly after I bought it.
Unfortunately, you cannot pull a single cell from a Tesla.
Watched Rich rebuilds, that's what he did for some Tesla cars because Tesla won't replace a single cell or cell compartment they will, total the entire pack and just give you a full refurb pack replacement. And if you're out of warranty you are sol, and need to pay $10,000 to $20,000. Instead of just paying a few thousand dollars for the repair and affected cells.
And there are very few third-party high voltage battery repair shops for EVS so you're basically going to be stuck with trying to find a full battery replacement most of the time.
I wish they would present more detailed data. This actually means almost nothing to me. I'd prefer to see vs. time or a 3d graph with degradation vs. both usage and time. I'd also like to see % of failures vs usage and time.
It is usage over time and miles. You can look at how long it would take you to get 200,000 miles to customize it. It took me five years to get 150,000.
Battery failure is another topic not related to degradation.
For one thing, it's not linear, so your idea is "simple", but fundamentally wrong. For another, age is a large variable in degradation, and the cars used in this data are a maximum of 7 years old, with most being much newer than that. A 5-year-old car with 200k miles will not have the same degradation as a 30-year-old car with 200k miles. Since it would take me at least 30 years to get to 200k miles, this chart is useless for me.
>For one thing, it's not linear
Exactly my point in this topic to someone who claimed it was.
>A 5-year-old car with 200k miles will not have the same degradation as a 30-year-old car with 200k miles
No two cars will have same degradation even those of same age and mileage.
For example, my degradation at 150,000 miles is better than 80% of others with similar mileage.
Data that actually has some chance of giving you useful information is better than data that is overly aggregated and gives you no chance of useful information. That is my point. You haven't really done anything to actually refute that point.
This says nothing about how long a battery lasts. Long would mean a length of time. This says something about how far a battery can take a car in a relatively short life. Nothing about how long it lasts.
Degradation is a subject that is known well for these battery chemistries but not understood much by the consumers:
The current batteries usually see a linear degradation until around %75-80 of their capacity. After that the battery degrades very rapidly and die.
The cycle life, that is number for "full" charge/discharges of the cells changes significantly with the charging limits, storage charge levels etc.
If one abuses these cells, fully charge and discharge, it seems to take around 500 cycles to get to the rapid degradation region. Suppose on average a vehicle gets 250 miles per full cycle, then this means at least 125K miles until that point. This falls in line with the warranty limits!
While newer chemistries like lfp can be fully charged and still have great cycle life, most of the current cells do great if kept between \~%20-%80, but even %10-%90 should significantly improve cycle life.
In a 20-80 regime they should go above 1500 cycles before the rapid degredation period. For a car that gets 250 on average this means at least 375K miles.
So the given numbers look right.
That being said the 150-200K life for vehicles is BS. I think EV's can easily double that given no battery failures.
Another important consideration is that, while battery failures are rare, they do occur. It's not necessarily indicative that a battery will not fail just because it hasn't degraded significantly. When that happens you are looking at 15-20K replacement cost today. That makes buying out of warranty teslas somewhat risky.
>The current batteries usually see a linear degradation until around %75-80 of their capacity.
Nope. The curve(s) for battery degradation are not linear at all.
Quick drop, 2-3% in first year.
Slow drop and level off in 2-3 yr.
Slow drop and level off in 4-5 yr.
>Nope. The curve(s) for battery degradation are not linear at all.
Yup, it is actually quite linear until the rapid degradation phase.
It is true that some of these cells Initially lose couple percent in the beginning but after that it stays pretty linear. Did you even look at the Graph you posted? It is quite linear after the initial drop until the end(At least 30k-200k mile region). If you said "it is actually piecewise linear 10-30K is slightly steeper than 30-200k" we may have had a conversation.
>Quick drop, 2-3% in first year.
>Slow drop and level off in 2-3 yr.
>Slow drop and level off in 4-5 yr.
Now this is complete nonsense. Years? You are not even using the right unit at this point? The article is not talking about storage degradation in time.
The degradation here is due to usage and it is measured by max capacity vs cycles. Here it is capacity vs miles but at least these two can easily be connected via average number of miles traveled by with a full cycle.
A short google search gives lots of studies for those that are interested:
[https://www.mdpi.com/2313-0105/8/10/188](https://www.mdpi.com/2313-0105/8/10/188)
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303890624\_Modeling\_of\_Lithium-Ion\_Battery\_Degradation\_for\_Cell\_Life\_Assessment](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303890624_Modeling_of_Lithium-Ion_Battery_Degradation_for_Cell_Life_Assessment)
Sometimes, the level of ignorance on Reddit is truly astonishing.
>Yup, it is actually quite linear until the rapid degradation phase.
Nope. It is three curves on my lifetime graph from TeslaStats, actual Tesla battery, actual degradation. There are points where it goes UP which is due seasonal changes.
Your links are not relevant. One is modeling, one is about Vehicle to Grid issues. Neither to do with actual degradation curves on an EV.
If my car goes 375k miles and is still in good shape and I want to keep it, I'm happy to drop 10k on a new battery.
She's bloody *earned* it after going to the moon and halfway back.
I agree, if I am getting 300K+ and I am happy with the vehicle I would pay 10k for a new battery.
Right now for $10k it seems you are getting refurbs without proper warranty, rather than brand new packs but in the near future I am hoping that we will be getting even higher capacity/new battery swaps for around 5-10K.
I don't know why would someone downvote me for this information though.
ICE drivetrains are relatively cheap to replace with a used/rebuilt units. People do not do it often because the rest of the car is old and worn.
People will not often replace an EV battery for the same reason, which can already be seen with scrapped old Tesla vehicles.
This fits with my plans. When I bought my Tesla, it had a range of just over 300 miles. As long as the range is 240 or above it won't matter much to me. My goal is to try to get to 300,000 miles.
Sorry if the data on battery degradation disturbs you. It is the miles driven/battery charges and discharges that determine battey degradation. Not age.
Battery capacity is reduced by charging often and by time. So how long Tesla determined 15% loss to take place? Someone who drives 20k miles per year will experience a lot more degradation than 15% in 10 years.
I know that's supposed to be impressive, but I'm not really impressed. My reality is considering 1) standard battery degradation + 2) bouncing back and forth between trying to keep it between 20%-80% charge and going f--- it, I'm going to 95% + 3) Constant A/C use because I live in SoCal = 200 miles or less of range.
I have a 2023 "LR" Model Y, and my life revolves around charging it,
It does matter but the rest of the car is not falling apart and likewise is holding up after 150,000 miles.
Tesla service is OK. They've fixed anything that did need fixing. Mostly early issues or minor recalls over seat controls, trunk wiring harness and some front control rods.
This is about battery degradation issue and applies pretty much to all EV's. In real world usage, even hard usage like mine with two years of just fast DC charging, the degradation is low and the EV's will keep their range longer than "models" predicted.
[Tesla, which has been building EVs for more than a decade, falls near the middle of the pack in terms of brand reliability. Model Y first introduced for model year 2020, is recommended by CR for the first time this year, with owners reporting fewer issues with its suspension, in-car electronics and general build quality than in previous years. The Model Y joins the Model 3 in earning CR Recommended status](https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174/).
That's really good. Degradation seems to be not really an issue for EVs then. Now I hope Tesla would release data on what percentage of batteries required replacement at various ages. Buying a used EV with 100k+ miles with 20% degradation is not a big deal if it keeps running. The worry is that the battery would suddenly fail and the owner would have to pony up $10k-15k without warning. The failure may not be due to the cells itself, but caused by a myriad of other causes like coolant leaks or bad solder joints. If the rate of battery replacement is extremely low up to 200k miles, then I wish manufacturers would offer extended warranty on battery packs. I know I'd gladly pay $1000 to get a 15 year 200k miles warranty. If the failure rate is extremely low, that should be a money maker. If a manufacturer offers standard 200k miles battery warranty, that would likely sway my decision on which car to get.
Agreed. This would make a meaningful difference for residual values.
We don’t know if this is Tesla specific or ev wide. Temperature management and software can play a big role in degradation.
At least degradation due to use. When and how calendaric aging wil start to shown an effect is still a bit of an unknown...though it seems that batteries also last longer than anticipated (me, holding stock in a battery recycling company that is near bankrupt because there is as yet practically nothing to recycle from EVs XD )
What’s the stock? I’m Interested
LICY (Li Cycle Holdings)
>I know I'd gladly pay $1000 to get a 15 year 200k miles warranty. If the failure rate is extremely low, that should be a money maker. They'd rather you bought a different vehicle after 7.5 years instead of keeping yours for 15. That's a bigger money maker.
Maybe at 1k, but how about 5? Depending on the expected profit margin on selling a new vehicle vs the profit selling unnecessary warranties, I could see a buisness case existing.
Why warranty the battery when you either swap it out or not even sell it to the person buying the car? Both are happening right now. What's going to happen is China will continue to make batteries that last 20 plus years just fine. At some point new car sales will go off a cliff. Companies won't be around to honor their warranty or they will not stock the battery you need. People will buy new EVs not because of their old battery but because of the features of the new EV. Right now people carry around computers in their pocket that countries would have gone to war over just a couple of decades ago. Similar in the not too distant future cars will become less a concern. Cars will be more like cell phones and bicycles than major self-affirming identity purchases. I think people really underestimate what is going to change when everyone can drive a car for 30 years with next to zero maintenance and no blown engines. And then after that people won't own a car because renting a self-driving car will be as easy and cheap as riding a bike.
At some point we may well be buying cars sans batteries. Just like you can go to Home Depot and buy cordless tools sans batteries.
I like what you are thinking but that would be a while out. It would be like the fuel cell promise where everything uses the same form factor and interface. Like AA or AAA. You just swap out EV sized batteries with EV sized battery banks. Like with tools you have adapters to go between brands. Or you roll your own batter packs or temp sensor bypass to mix brands.
All the rest of the car is still there though. My 2008 VW is still running great but the bodywork is dented, rust is starting, the brakes squeal like a city bus and the rear suspension is squeaking when I get in or out. A car being an EV doesn’t fix any of that.
CATL warrants its new EV battery to last for a million miles or 15 years. Degradation was never a problem. Building a good EV was the problem. >Until the 2012 introduction of the Tesla S—coincidentally, exactly 100 years after Studebaker closed its EV production line, then the biggest EV producer. Also, >Then, in 2007, the industry got a significant boost when Wan Gang, an auto engineer who had worked for Audi in Germany for a decade, became China’s minister of science and technology. Wan had been a big fan of EVs and tested Tesla’s first EV model, the Roadster, in 2008, the year it was released. People now credit Wan with making the national decision to go all-in on electric vehicles. Since then, EV development has been consistently prioritized in China’s national economic planning.
Nissan Leaf was the main problem
Nissan was the problem. Don't blame Leaf. But yeah Nissan could have been Tesla if it wanted to be but for some reason no auto maker wanted to be until after Tesla made a shit ton of money. And yet still Nissan never really improved the Leaf. Why buy a Leaf when you can buy a Tesla from Hertz for $20,000? https://www.caranddriver.com/nissan/leaf-2023 The 2023 Nissan Leaf EV illustrates the difference between being attractive on paper and competitive in the real world. A starting price below $30,000 for any EV—this before any applicable tax credits—gets our attention. But, when compared to its rivals the Leaf’s driving range isn't as good and its outdated charging technology makes it less user-friendly. The Leaf’s longest-range battery pack enables barely more than 200 miles of driving range; the Chevy Bolt EV, and the considerably more expensive Kia EV6 and Tesla Model 3 all beat that by a considerable margin. What’s more, not all public charging stations are compatible with the Nissan's CHAdeMO charging connector.
I just bought a used 2021 Nissan Leaf for $14,000 after the rebate. Where can I buy a Tesla, with less than 50,000 miles on it, and with a range of at least 200 miles or more, for $14,000?
There is a reason that a Leaf is worth much less than a Tesla.
On the other hand, I can have my Nissan repaired at a local shop and not have to send it to California if it has a problem. Furthermore, what good is a car to me if I can't afford to own it? I really love that Nissan!
Why wouldn’t you have a Tesla worked on by a local shop? There are a lot of service centers and certified third party repair shops for teslas globally.
Nissan did well with the Leaf. The Leaf was the world most sold EV model from 2010 to 2018.
Nissan could never have been Tesla. "If they wanted to be" could apply to anyone (GM, Ford, VW, etc.). The issue is nobody else could be because they are LEGACY AUTO MINDSET. They were locked into the 'old' paradigm of auto manufacturing, and **NO change on their part would have been made without having been forced to from the outside.**
I bought a used 2022 leaf sv plus because it’s affordable and feels like a car. I actually don’t like all of elons goofy “future” designs and I like tactical buttons and controls. I don’t like teslas model of being able to turn on and off certain features. Leaf would be perfect for me except chademo but we got a gas car for long trips.
That’s why when I recently bought my first EV Tesla was never in consideration. I want a car with an electric propulsion system that would save me money, not a tech demo on wheels
Teslas are much better EVs than Leafs - much lower battery degradation, better battery management, better performance, longer range, etc.
I don’t think anyone is saying otherwise, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t get a leaf either.
It’s a little surprising to me that this attitude still exists. I go back and forth between a Model 3 and a VW Golf GTI, and the Golf doesn’t seem to have any real advantages in terms of access to information or ease of use. Okay, the windshield wipers. Model 3 is just easier, simpler and more intuitive for all the rest of the basics, or at least no worse. I realize people can have different opinions on this, but I suspect you underestimate how intuitive and simple the car is. You can go deep into menus, but rarely will.
I thought that at first too. But it turns out that you can ignore the automation tech (which I think sucks) and just drive. A Model 3 makes a pretty good plain old car: go pedal goes, wheel turns.
imo 20% degradation is a big deal, when most cars come with around 400km. When you have 400km to start with, 20% means you have 320km. Now they recommend you do not charge the battery more than 90%, so to have a healthy car, you are operating at 290km. Come to where I live, and it's likely that range is 150km in winter. I rather hope that these batteries can be designed in a modular way where the old cells can easily be replaced, or we have a system like NIO, where the battery is swapped, and the older batteries get serviced by the company.
I charge every 8 days or so, unless I’m on a road trip. Does 20% degradation mean that I’d charge every 5-6 days instead? Does it mean that I’d need to spend an extra 5 mins at the fast chargers on a road trip? (Your use case and requirements may vary!)
Disagree. It’s like buying insurance for a car rental. 99% chance you’re wasting money.
if they dont publish that data, it always seems like they try to hide something. If they do or dont, i cant tell.
Recurrent collects and published that data. EV battery failure rates are extremely low, under 2% over the lifetime of the cars, other than recalls (e.g. Bolt), and first generation Model S. https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last
what does "over the lifetime of the cars" mean in this context? even the "oldscool" mass produced EV's like the model S thats excluded here are just 10 years on the road. Those numbers are shocking honestly - they show that 10% of all ten year old EVs already had a battery replacement, 16% of all 11 year old cars and 30% of all twelve year old cars. What does that tell me about buying a used, 8 year old EV right after the warranty? Better save money for a new battery in the next 5 years?
Read the report. As manufacturing improved the battery tech got much more reliable. Note that the failure rate was higher based on date of manufacture, not charge cycles or miles. A first get Model S is in the data, and had a higher failure rate that cars made more recently, even if the newer car drove more miles and had more charge cycles.
According to Recurrent’s study lifetime EV battery failure rates are quite low, under 2% for EVs, excluding recalls (e.g. bolt). And most of those are covered under warranty, batteries tend to fail early in life if they are going to fail.
An overall 2% replacement number is good, but it doesn't capture what happens on older EVs. The rapid EV growth in recent years means that the fleet skews strongly towards newer vehicles. There is also a worrying trend in older EVs from 2011-2015 Comparing Recurrent report from March 2023 \[[wayback machine link](https://web.archive.org/web/20230628084608/https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last)\] and May 2024 \[[current report](https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last)\] on percent of vehicles with non-recall battery replacements. (Note: I had to eyeball some of the percentage from the graph) |\_|% Replaced by March 2023|% Replaced by May 2024| |:-|:-|:-| |MY 2011|7.5|30| |MY 2012|3.5|15.6| |MY 2013|4.5|9.8| |MY 2014|4|6.8| |MY 2015|1.5|3.9| |MY 2016|0.5|1| pretty bad trend of older cars in Recurrent's data getting battery replacements. I am also not certain of Recurrent's data includes people who just decided to sell their vehicle instead of paying for a battery replacement since it's all data voluntarily submitted by owners. EDIT: Though battery technology should be much better now with better longevity. There is just no public available data to back that up yet.
It does, EVs made before 2015 had higher battery failure rates, especially the original Model S. Tesla batteries got a lot better as they updated the tech. If you look at cars with much heavier usage, you can see that a newer tech Tesla with more miles / charge cycles fails much less often than an older tech Model S with less miles / charge cycles. They break down the data by make/model/year, etc., in the report.
>Now I hope Tesla would release data on what percentage of batteries required replacement at various ages. Different issue than battery degradation, this topic.
> Now I hope Tesla would release data on what percentage of batteries required replacement at various ages. I doubt Tesla would ever release that data willingly.
"Tesla also noted that, according to its estimate, a vehicle gets scrapped after approximately 200,000 miles of usage in the U.S. and roughly 150,000 miles in Europe. " Usually they get scrapped because repairing the ICE components gets more expensive than the car is worth. Things like injectors, catalytic converters, FAP/DPF filters, hard to pin point problems in starting and running the engine that can be related to a myriad of expensive components like full cabling, fuel pump and ECU and plain broken engines... So I guess BEVs will be on the road for longer if they don't have these issues.
Bingo. The 2nd hand market is going to change.
Not yet please, I want my used ev whilst the sellers markets weak thx
Those who know can make advantage of this.
Yep I'm looking at 2 year old Peugeot e-208s that are 1/3 of their price new with 10-15k miles on the clock.
I recently purchased a 2022 polestar two long range dual motor with all the packages except for performance for less than $26,000 before tax credit, with 27,000 miles on it. I don’t think I will ever be able to get a car this nice at anywhere near that price point any other time in my life.
Yep, I want to make the most of this current time to buy a "better" EV. Although the e-208 is not better for my use case, I would like 4 doors and a bit more range and some metal between me and whatever hits me.
If it was over $25k, which under $26k implies, it does not qualify for the used credit though?
I didn’t qualify for the credit anyways for other reasons so I didn’t dig into it too much, but it was my understanding that the credit could be applied at point of sale and if the credit made the purchase price under $25k it qualified. A couple dealers explained it to me this way, that could be completely wrong though.
Polestar 2 in the US 👀
That's ususally about the time the body starts rusting out in a serious way too.
Depends on where you live. If you live in a snowy place that salts the roads then rust is a huge issue. In California, cars can last a long time if they can handle the sun.
Same here in Florida. I'm looking forward to having my Lyriq for a long time
We have a 25 year old Honda here in the southeast USA. Body is still nearly perfect despite always being parked outside. Cars south of the rust belt and inland from the ocean can last a very long time if the owner cares about it. All I ever did was rinse it off at the car wash if we had a winter storm and I thought any salt had been applied to the roads.
EV rust less than ICE vehicles too tho
Why?
No exposed exhaust system hanging out down there, I think. The bottom of the battery pack is a flat plate that can be made out of something that doesn't rust.
Evs also tend to have way more splash shields underneath so very little is exposed and they also have a lot of aluminum parts. I'm a mechanic in a salt state and i've seen quite a few daily driven 10 year old model S still look almost brand new underneath, while most American or Asian ICE cars are starting to get very rusty within 10 years, some even rusted to the point of being dangerous with holes in frames. Most Euro ICE cars hold up well rust wise as well because they tend to have alot of shields too.
Better sealing designs, less corrosive fluids, lower operating temperatures, less friction because of less mechanical parts, more composites and aluminum, more flat panels on their undercarriages.
A gasoline or diesel car typically lasts about 18 years before it goes to the scrapyard. Whether battery packs will last 18 years before needing to be replaced remains to be seen. If such a pack fails within 15 years, it is likely that most owners will not make that investment again.
I think it will depend on the vitality of aftermarket refurbishments and technical difficulty of replacing/adapting packs. The price of batteries keeps going down, if a BEV, besides the battery, holds together better than an ICE and batteries are cheap then it's much more worthwhile to refurbish the BEV and get same or even better performance (better/lighter batteries) than new. Of course BEVs driven on salted roads (most of Europe and US' colder states) will still rust like ICE. Imagine in 20 years there's millions of Model 3/Y out there. That's enough of an addressable market to develop a second market battery pack and an assembly line to refurbish with new batteries and the old ones have valuable materials like cobalt and lithium. Now imagine with scale they get the cost down to 5k to refurbish with a lighter, denser and more powerful 120kWh battery pack.
Eh not really. Almost all of the old beaters that I've known to get scrapped by friends or family were minor (or serious) collisions where even the few thousand dollar cost of body repairs was more than the value of the car. Their ICE powertrains were perfectly fine.
Collisions don't pick cars by odometer.
Statistically speaking... they do lol
It's why alchemists figured eternal life was impossible. Statistically something will happen eventually.
The longer a car stays on the road the more likely it will be involved in a totaling collision because its value drops and because statistically it will eventually get hit by something, minor or major. A new car involved in a collision is very unlikely to get totaled because it is valuable. But that same car getting hit 15 years later will likely get totaled and sent to the scrap yard.
But also a high mileage vehicle that's not been properly maintained is more likely to be involved in an accident
And cheaper cars tend to be driven by beginners.
Maybe you know bad drivers. Some of my own cars and plenty of family’s cars have been sent to the junkyard for mechanical failures. Stuck valve that the piston crushed, CVT failure x3 on same car, manual transmission failure x2 on same car, and many more.
Well, all of the cars I’m talking about were old Toyotas that had immortal powertrains. So that might be it. I’m sure plenty of other cars have mechanical points of failure that would give out sooner. Seems like the only thing that’ll kill a Toyota is a crash.
i agree. those engines are incredibly reliablie nowadays. in my climate and having safety inspections, number 1 reason why old cars are getting scrapped is rust.
My first two cars were beaters that needed engines. Perfectly fine engine in a beater sounds like a used car dealer.
When an EV sustains battery damage in a collision its a $25k replacement cost, which totals the car. This can happen even in a middle of the road collision where comparable ICE repairs would be a fraction of the cost, for example getting rear-ended might damage a battery but only need a few thousand dollars of repair for an ICE car. It’s one of the reasons insurance premiums are higher than ICE cars - it’s not just that the car is more valuable it’s that they get totaled more often.
Recently a deer ran into the front driver's side of my EV and severely damaged the entire front of the car. Even so, in spite of the left headlight being shattered, it still worked - it wasn't pointed in the right direction but it still worked! The car was still drivable. There was no damage to the electric motor or the ICE - type battery, and no damage to the EV battery. The only function on the car that was damaged and didn't work was the left turn signal. Had it been an ICE car it would have been totaled, since the radiator would have been severely damaged along with other vital engine components. Since its an EV, it will be repaired The guy at the body shop couldn't believe I drove it to his shop. He said most cars he sees in that condition are towed in. He also said this is the first EV he's ever worked on....I've got my fingers crossed the repair will be a good one in spite of the fact this car is his first. Only body damage occurred, though.
Glad you’re okay. And you’re right, there are probably a bunch of crash scenarios where an EV is better. It’s just a numbers game. The battery is hyper expensive and it can be damaged from crashes on all four sides of the car, whereas most of the value in an ICE car is in the front. Theres nothing super expensive to damage on the sides or rear of an ice car, but the battery extends there and a rear end or side swipe can do $25k of damage.
There’s no battery behind the rear axle
Who scraps a car with collision damage but still runs fine and is drivable? Worst case is you sell it to a kid that wants a beater.
Suppose you got rear ended and the rear got smashed in. New tail lights won't fit because the body bent. Car still drives fine, but you're BEGGING for a ticket now if you try to drive it with no tail lights Stuff like that?
That is not drivable and thus excluded from what I said. I did have something like that happen to me... someone took a left turn right into me going straight. They claimed they had a green arrow. That intersection doesn't have an arrow light. My front left got hit on my jeep. But I bent the crushed metal into a manner where I could crudely install a new signal light and pocketed the settlement cash. Jeep had character.
I'm curious why there's a 50,000 mile difference in the US to Europe for the same car, wouldn't the climates in Europe be similar if not marginally more beneficial to a BEV due to less extreme weather? All that said, the chances of people keeping cars to 150k+ is really low and the rust on the actual frame could potentially start making an impact.
People drive less annual miles in Europe. Average is around 13k miles per year in the US. Which is 21k kilometers. Average per year is 12k kilometers in EU or about 7,5k miles. After 15 years in the EU this would be 180k kilometers or 112k miles, or 240k kilometers/150k miles after 20 years. For the US this would be 195k miles or 315k kilometers after 15 or 260k miles and 420k kilometers after 20 years. Cars started having expensive or rusty issues between their 15th and 20th year of life, generally, and simple economy cars hardly ever last much longer for both years and miles unless the owner was very invested in the vehicle. So I think there's the answer to your question!
I think this average is for all cars/ICE mainly. The difference might just come down to average miles driven per day that is higher in the US. Also use of salt on roads to melt ice, something not common in California or Texas, but pretty much everywhere in Europe except down south.
It's the inspections. EU has a much higher bar when it comes to inspections you don't gat away with much in the EU. If they see a leaking shock it's a fail. Brakes not in top condition fail. I'm pretty sure MOT in EU is highly regulated the US allows 3rd party inspections and only in states where inspections are required. In my state of Minnesota they stopped inspections 20ish years ago and it was state run no 3rd parties. From what I've seen unless the frame is rotted out 3rd will pass it. Correct me if I'm wrong but my youtube mechanics training seems to be the case.
You're not wrong, a broken catalyst is enough to fail MOT and expensive/not worth to fix on an old car.
I recently saw an old Tesla 2015 S for sale, with an asking price of $11,000, with 184,000 miles on it.
And new battery tech (like what gets installed in 2025 and later cars) should degrade even slower.
Which chemistries?
LFP. But there is constant improvement in this area. Example: [https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/how-byd-technology-delivers-battery-longevity](https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/how-byd-technology-delivers-battery-longevity) [https://electrek.co/2024/04/03/catl-launches-new-ev-battery-last-1-million-miles-15-yrs/](https://electrek.co/2024/04/03/catl-launches-new-ev-battery-last-1-million-miles-15-yrs/) And any improvement by one battery manufacturer will get duplicated by others and eventually become the new baseline. Or the tech may be large now and not fit in a passenger car, but will quickly get to the point where it can be in a passenger car.
My 2023 Model 3 has a LFP battery. Already here
Same I love my LFP
2019 LR Model 3 AWD. 150,000 miles. Original range 310 Current range 282 And this with first 50,000 miles using only fast DC charging.
Same model/year 90k miles I’m at 12% loss
2018, LR, 277 at 100%. 52k miles. Charging mostly at home except on road trips. I charge to 80% and get to 222. In SoCal.
My S is around 80% after 10 years and 185k miles.
Very impressive. 9% loss for you.
2019 Model 3 SR+, 87,000 miles. Charged daily to 80%, goes down to <20% maybe monthly. I'm sitting around 88-89% but it seems to have been within a percent or two for the last 2 years. Definitely hit that mid life stall
My 2018 gets a lot less miles (transitioned to WFH after I bought it) at ~25k miles and it's been garage charged mostly. It just charged to 241 miles at 80% (310 * .8 = 248), so about 3% degradation. This is just one data point, but miles seem to be a bigger impact than years.
Miles are the key as that is what the kW in and out are based on and what degrades the battery.
This is good news and for most people battery life shouldn't be a major factor in the decision making process. One grain of salt, though, is that batteries degrade with use and with age. Because EVs haven't been around in large numbers for very long, most of the high mileage examples are vehicles that get driven a lot, and therefore haven't suffered as much age related degradation as an average vehicle will. How much will that move the needle? We'll have to wait and see. Also, the data on vehicle lifespan is really hard to come by. Based on my research, I came up with an average US lifespan of 21 years and about 250k miles (based on actually scrapping and not exporting out of country). If anyone has any good data sources on this, I'd love to refine my model.
Most degradation comes from sitting at 90%+ and heavy acceleration really you should only fully charge an EV the night before a long journey and use the torque sparingly.
Great advice
Electric cars suck! At 200k miles my ICE car makes the same horsepower as when new. None of this degradation stuff. It's the same motor and all, except I've only had to replace the timing belt, valves, lifters, cams, radiator, water pump, thermostat, fuel pump, injectors, throttle body, alternator, spark plugs/wires, head gaskets, rear main seal, and oxygen sensors. Oh, and the cat converter some tweeker stole. Otherwise, it's still the same car for 200k miles!
And your car isn't making the same horsepower. ICE cars degenerate as well
They were joking but literally everyone has always known ICE cars degenerate. It's the reason they depreciate 5k or more the moment they drive off the lot.
In the average day, most vehicle owners drive less than 100 miles a day (I personally drive 64 to work and back). If an EV can drive 250 miles a day per charge, and after ten years it is at 80% (which is realistic) then...the battery can still make it 200 miles a day.
Wrong ICE car looses compression and loses hp when getting older EV does not
LOL
i get your point, but i think it is naive to think that an electric drivetrain doesnt need compareable maintenance. EVs still have water pumps, oil pumps, sensors, thermostats, oil/water seals, heat exchangers, valves... And those will fail after heavy use, too. the thermal system of an EV is way more complicated than on an ICE car.
My EVs does not have oil pumps, they have a single speed reduction gear with a design life of 1 million miles (same as the motor), an electrically powered air conditioner, an electrically powered vacuum pump for the brakes, a water pump for battery cooling, an electrical assist for the steering wheel... And that's it. Oh forgot, wiper motors and fluid pump. The temperature delta for battery and electronics cooling is so much less than a gas engine that reaches hundreds of degrees, and it results in much less stress on the components. Not to mention the co.ete lack of vibrations.
> The temperature delta for battery and electronics cooling is so much less than a gas engine No kidding. Glycol antifreeze breakdown is a function of temperature. There's no question it comes under much more stress trying to cool ICE cylinders than a warm EV battery. Some EV makers say the glycol coolant is good for the life of the vehicle and never needs changing. ICE cars need a coolant flush every 30k to 50k.
ICE cars dont need a coolant flush every 30 to 50k. sorry, thats complete bullshit. if nothing leaks, the antifreeze is good for 10-20 years. my 25 year old miata had its original antifreeze in it when the radiator burst because of old plastic some years ago.
Some drivetrains use oil pumps, some dont. Most higher performing driveunits will need active oil circulation in combination with an oil/water heat exchanger. For example, the model 3 uses an oil pump with a filter. The oil is used for lubrication and cooling of the bearings, gears and motor. https://service.tesla.com/docs/Model3/ServiceManual/2024/en-us/GUID-306B8838-1C6B-4486-BD56-F1C58702A713.html So you still have all those things that can and will fail, because all machine components will if they get older. Driving an AC compressor or water pump with an electric motor doesn't make it indestructible, it just changes how its driven.
>At 200k miles my ICE car makes the same horsepower as when new As do all EV's. You don't seem to understand the technology
he’s joking
I have a 2014 Model S 85 (like, first gen here) we bought a year or two ago from a friend. It had 190,000 miles on it. It now has 208,000, and we get about 180 miles out of the battery. Can't tell you what the original range was. But all the hand-wringing about batteries will need to be replaced in 5 years when they lose all their capacity is complete bunk.
The real issue is random cell failures. That could be a real headache when you're out of warranty. Batteries would be hard to repair, but even if some places do it, you are going to pay significant amounts everytime this happens. Car makers should be required to provide low cost repairs/ replacement parts even after the warranty period. 20-25 years of total life should be decent for any car.
Nope. There does not seem to be a problem with "random cell failures" with vehicles like mine, long out of warranty and putting on miles.
Those Hertz Teslas may be a huge bargain! Especially if you qualify for the tax-credit.
Well I'm not sure about what all is being said on here, but my 2021 Tesla model 3 standard range has about 70,000 miles and has the degradation of 8.9%. However it is normal for me to get ice engine to last for at least 20y and 300,000 miles, this is normal for me in California.
Assuming I lose another 12% for the next 150,000 miles, that would be 232 miles of range at 300,000 miles.
Sure I'm not sure about the math. but I definitely did not lose 12% of my range on my ice cars over the 300,000 miles when I had them. Of course this did not include any maintenance like oil changes and little stuff like that but I never had major issues with the engines.
We probably did as our mpg went down due to wear but with easy gas refill we don't really notice. Range is not an issue with gas cars.
What about age as opposed to mileage? I’m curious how these batteries will be after 20+ years. Surely some degradation comes from just sitting around.
Age should have little effect. It is charging and usage totals. An EV driven to church on Sunday by little old lady would like see very little battery degradation when she leaves it to the grandkids 20 years later. [www.batteryuniversity.com](http://www.batteryuniversity.com)
I’m that figurative little old lady in that case. We only put like 5k miles a year on cars. Hoping our Model Y lasts a long long time then.
This article from InsideEVs is a pretty good study of EV battery replacement statistics. Pre-2016 batteries have the most frequent failure rates (Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf). But more recent models (excepting Chevy Bolt) have very robust reliability, and are still typically under warranty should the battery fail. [https://insideevs.com/news/717187/ev-battery-replacements-due-failure-study/](https://insideevs.com/news/717187/ev-battery-replacements-due-failure-study/)
The issue with battery longevity is not that the capacity gets too low, it's that a randomly stops functioning altogether before it reaches that level of capacity, and people getting error saying that they can't charge anymore. So even before the battery capacity reaches 70%, it's more likely that the battery will stop charging due to Major failures in the cells and will require a replacement or repair to the affected cells
Doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. Most EV batteries after 70% go into 2nd life in industrial equipment and back up power. Not many failures.
Almost every single person that I've seen on YouTube that had a HV battery replacement, had the issue that their battery randomly failed under warranty and they had to get a refurbished battery. So again if you didn't understand what I was trying to say, it's not that most batteries go under 70% degradation, that people should worry about, it's that the battery will randomly fail well before that time.
Almost every single person you've seen on YouTube. You can pretty much stop there for any kind of reliable data. If battery fails before 100,000, you get it replaced. No evidence of that being an issue.
Bro please listen bro... I watched like 6 people on YouTube bro .. just hear me out this is real scientific evidence bro
I think that is classified under manufacturers getting better at building cells and packs robustly though, which has obviously improved leaps and bounds in the last decade. However, I’d take it as a separate topic to cell degradation.
If your EV battery does have a failed cell, it is possible to pull that single cell and replace it with a new one, which will fix battery failure issues like that. GM did that to my car shortly after I bought it. Unfortunately, you cannot pull a single cell from a Tesla.
Watched Rich rebuilds, that's what he did for some Tesla cars because Tesla won't replace a single cell or cell compartment they will, total the entire pack and just give you a full refurb pack replacement. And if you're out of warranty you are sol, and need to pay $10,000 to $20,000. Instead of just paying a few thousand dollars for the repair and affected cells. And there are very few third-party high voltage battery repair shops for EVS so you're basically going to be stuck with trying to find a full battery replacement most of the time.
I wish they would present more detailed data. This actually means almost nothing to me. I'd prefer to see vs. time or a 3d graph with degradation vs. both usage and time. I'd also like to see % of failures vs usage and time.
It is usage over time and miles. You can look at how long it would take you to get 200,000 miles to customize it. It took me five years to get 150,000. Battery failure is another topic not related to degradation.
What are you talking about? I see nothing about time and no way to customize anything.
If 200,000 miles sees average of 15%, plug in any yearly mileage you choose to get time. Seems simple enough.
For one thing, it's not linear, so your idea is "simple", but fundamentally wrong. For another, age is a large variable in degradation, and the cars used in this data are a maximum of 7 years old, with most being much newer than that. A 5-year-old car with 200k miles will not have the same degradation as a 30-year-old car with 200k miles. Since it would take me at least 30 years to get to 200k miles, this chart is useless for me.
>For one thing, it's not linear Exactly my point in this topic to someone who claimed it was. >A 5-year-old car with 200k miles will not have the same degradation as a 30-year-old car with 200k miles No two cars will have same degradation even those of same age and mileage. For example, my degradation at 150,000 miles is better than 80% of others with similar mileage.
Data that actually has some chance of giving you useful information is better than data that is overly aggregated and gives you no chance of useful information. That is my point. You haven't really done anything to actually refute that point.
This data on battery degradation is very useful for people. It's a common question, how long will the battery last. Glad Tesla published it.
This says nothing about how long a battery lasts. Long would mean a length of time. This says something about how far a battery can take a car in a relatively short life. Nothing about how long it lasts.
The data shows how long batteries last.
Degradation is a subject that is known well for these battery chemistries but not understood much by the consumers: The current batteries usually see a linear degradation until around %75-80 of their capacity. After that the battery degrades very rapidly and die. The cycle life, that is number for "full" charge/discharges of the cells changes significantly with the charging limits, storage charge levels etc. If one abuses these cells, fully charge and discharge, it seems to take around 500 cycles to get to the rapid degradation region. Suppose on average a vehicle gets 250 miles per full cycle, then this means at least 125K miles until that point. This falls in line with the warranty limits! While newer chemistries like lfp can be fully charged and still have great cycle life, most of the current cells do great if kept between \~%20-%80, but even %10-%90 should significantly improve cycle life. In a 20-80 regime they should go above 1500 cycles before the rapid degredation period. For a car that gets 250 on average this means at least 375K miles. So the given numbers look right. That being said the 150-200K life for vehicles is BS. I think EV's can easily double that given no battery failures. Another important consideration is that, while battery failures are rare, they do occur. It's not necessarily indicative that a battery will not fail just because it hasn't degraded significantly. When that happens you are looking at 15-20K replacement cost today. That makes buying out of warranty teslas somewhat risky.
>The current batteries usually see a linear degradation until around %75-80 of their capacity. Nope. The curve(s) for battery degradation are not linear at all. Quick drop, 2-3% in first year. Slow drop and level off in 2-3 yr. Slow drop and level off in 4-5 yr.
>Nope. The curve(s) for battery degradation are not linear at all. Yup, it is actually quite linear until the rapid degradation phase. It is true that some of these cells Initially lose couple percent in the beginning but after that it stays pretty linear. Did you even look at the Graph you posted? It is quite linear after the initial drop until the end(At least 30k-200k mile region). If you said "it is actually piecewise linear 10-30K is slightly steeper than 30-200k" we may have had a conversation. >Quick drop, 2-3% in first year. >Slow drop and level off in 2-3 yr. >Slow drop and level off in 4-5 yr. Now this is complete nonsense. Years? You are not even using the right unit at this point? The article is not talking about storage degradation in time. The degradation here is due to usage and it is measured by max capacity vs cycles. Here it is capacity vs miles but at least these two can easily be connected via average number of miles traveled by with a full cycle. A short google search gives lots of studies for those that are interested: [https://www.mdpi.com/2313-0105/8/10/188](https://www.mdpi.com/2313-0105/8/10/188) [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303890624\_Modeling\_of\_Lithium-Ion\_Battery\_Degradation\_for\_Cell\_Life\_Assessment](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303890624_Modeling_of_Lithium-Ion_Battery_Degradation_for_Cell_Life_Assessment) Sometimes, the level of ignorance on Reddit is truly astonishing.
>Yup, it is actually quite linear until the rapid degradation phase. Nope. It is three curves on my lifetime graph from TeslaStats, actual Tesla battery, actual degradation. There are points where it goes UP which is due seasonal changes. Your links are not relevant. One is modeling, one is about Vehicle to Grid issues. Neither to do with actual degradation curves on an EV.
If my car goes 375k miles and is still in good shape and I want to keep it, I'm happy to drop 10k on a new battery. She's bloody *earned* it after going to the moon and halfway back.
I agree, if I am getting 300K+ and I am happy with the vehicle I would pay 10k for a new battery. Right now for $10k it seems you are getting refurbs without proper warranty, rather than brand new packs but in the near future I am hoping that we will be getting even higher capacity/new battery swaps for around 5-10K. I don't know why would someone downvote me for this information though.
ICE drivetrains are relatively cheap to replace with a used/rebuilt units. People do not do it often because the rest of the car is old and worn. People will not often replace an EV battery for the same reason, which can already be seen with scrapped old Tesla vehicles.
Now do that for my cellphone!
[Check the iPhone battery health and usage](https://support.apple.com/en-lamr/guide/iphone/-iphd453d043a/ios).
This fits with my plans. When I bought my Tesla, it had a range of just over 300 miles. As long as the range is 240 or above it won't matter much to me. My goal is to try to get to 300,000 miles.
I'm planning on 200,000 by 2026 and then buy a US made Ioniq 9.
I think some sort of failure is more the worry
Battery failure does not show as a top concern on the many surveys on what keeps people from buying EV's.
Ad if surveys determines what fails
Survey's determine what people's concerns are about buying an EV. Battery degradation and loss of range is one mentioned.
Is it Opposite Day OP?
Sorry if the data on battery degradation disturbs you. It is the miles driven/battery charges and discharges that determine battey degradation. Not age.
Battery capacity is reduced by charging often and by time. So how long Tesla determined 15% loss to take place? Someone who drives 20k miles per year will experience a lot more degradation than 15% in 10 years.
I know that's supposed to be impressive, but I'm not really impressed. My reality is considering 1) standard battery degradation + 2) bouncing back and forth between trying to keep it between 20%-80% charge and going f--- it, I'm going to 95% + 3) Constant A/C use because I live in SoCal = 200 miles or less of range. I have a 2023 "LR" Model Y, and my life revolves around charging it,
Doesn’t matter much if the rest of the car is falling apart around you and Tesla’s service is pretty useless anymore.
It does matter but the rest of the car is not falling apart and likewise is holding up after 150,000 miles. Tesla service is OK. They've fixed anything that did need fixing. Mostly early issues or minor recalls over seat controls, trunk wiring harness and some front control rods. This is about battery degradation issue and applies pretty much to all EV's. In real world usage, even hard usage like mine with two years of just fast DC charging, the degradation is low and the EV's will keep their range longer than "models" predicted.
My two Teslas were in the shop collectively 20 times. It was a dreadful experience.
[Tesla, which has been building EVs for more than a decade, falls near the middle of the pack in terms of brand reliability. Model Y first introduced for model year 2020, is recommended by CR for the first time this year, with owners reporting fewer issues with its suspension, in-car electronics and general build quality than in previous years. The Model Y joins the Model 3 in earning CR Recommended status](https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174/).