Yahoo Autos New Study Explores How Long Electric Vehicle Batteries Actually Last
When discussing new electric vehicles, one of the most common questions people have is how long the battery will actually last. Sometimes it’s a snarky question from someone who just hates EVs, but most of the time, it’s a person who’s genuinely concerned. Especially after seeing stories about how much a replacement battery can cost. So how long do EV batteries actually last in the real world?
Recurrent recently conducted a study to answer that exact question, looking at data from about 15,000 cars. That’s a pretty large number of participants, but even the researchers admit the report can’t give us the full story largely because so many EVs on the road today are only a couple of years old. Also, battery technology has come a long way in the last decade, so an early Nissan Leaf’s battery life doesn’t necessarily tell us much about how long a Porsche Taycan’s will last.
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But even within the limitations of the study, the results show some encouraging news. If you don’t count cars such as the Chevrolet Bolt that were hit with a battery recall, replacements are pretty uncommon. The oldest mass-market EVs, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, had the highest percentage of battery replacements, but overall, only 1.5 percent of EVs in the study had their batteries replaced.
