Electric vehicles can last six years longer than ICE vehicles: Study

A new survey by Geotab has shown that most electric vehicle (EV) batteries can last six years longer than an ICE car. The UK-based vehicle telematics company shows that EV batteries can last at least 20 years with minimal annual degradation, Inside EVs reported. EV batteries degrade by roughly 1.8% per year throughout this time. This implies that a battery will lose 1.8% of its initial range at the end of every year. If nothing disastrous happens, an EV can still have 64% of its initial range after 20 years. The study has analysed more than 10,000 EVs to provide this data.

Although negligible, the study also underlines the probability of failure of high-voltage EV batteries. According to a different study, the battery failure rate for EVs manufactured during the past ten years has been less than 0.5%, Inside EVs reported further.

Moreover, the degradation of the battery also depends on the geographical factors. Hot climate is responsible for fast battery degradation if not provided with a good temperature control system. However, when charging, it is preferable to keep the EV in the shade. Moreover, it causes problems with DC fast charging, which somewhat accelerates the pace of degradation in contrast to Level 1 and Level 2 slow charging.

To keep your EV battery's life long, it is advised that users keep their state of charge (SOC ) between 20% and 80% on nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) and nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries. Although lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries are not limited to this, the study has shown that the 

To prolong battery life, it is recommended to keep the SOC between 20% and 80% on nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) and nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries. This limitation generally doesn’t apply to lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, but a study has shown that continuous topping off of an LFP battery pack may shorten its lifespan.