The Expert Podcast

We've been talking about battery life on electric vehicles for a couple of years now, and here's another third-party industry professional getting into detail and describing some of the facts about electric vehicle battery life. Do they degrade? Do they run out? Do they become unusable over time? And how do you protect your battery life to ensure that it lasts a long time? This great article covers everything you need to know about things that affect your vehicle's battery life and how to keep the battery in optimum condition.

This is a repeat of some things we've talked about in videos past, but this editor from AutoWeek gets into the details. Let's take a closer look at battery degradation and its causes. If you have an electric vehicle, this device right here—this battery—is the most expensive and important part of the vehicle. Your electric vehicle does not have an engine like a regular ICE car; it has a battery and some electric motors. Battery degradation is just like battery packs in cell phones or notebook computers. They start to degrade over time, just like everybody here has a cell phone, and your battery will wear out over a few years. Your mobile devices and laptop computers have batteries that degrade, and cars will do the same thing with electric vehicles.

Why does it happen, and how fast will it happen? That's the question. Depending on the car, extreme temperatures can mimic true battery degradation. Hot and cold temperatures have similar effects by reducing range and slowing charging speeds.

So how do you preserve your electric battery pack? Here are some key things to keep in mind when you're switching from gasoline to electric. Park away from extreme weather and temperatures. Extreme hot or cold weather can harm your battery. If you live in places like the Northeast, the South, or the Southwest, you may find that you can't avoid climate and weather, so you might need to park in a garage if possible. Protecting the battery from the most extreme temperatures will help. If you can, park your EV somewhere out of the elements. Extreme temperatures reduce battery performance and can also degrade the lifespan of the battery.

Try not to leave the car plugged in to fully charge every time. What that means is, in order to keep the battery lasting a long time, don't top it off like when you go to your gas station to fill up your car. You top off your tank to get the most range. Batteries are happiest in the middle charge state. Operating repeatedly at the top or bottom charge levels can cause damage, so don’t top it off to maximum. Also, completely emptying the battery can cause problems. If you have a 200-mile range on your car, try not to plan your trip for 200 miles. Plan it for maybe 150 miles so you're not draining it to zero.

Another reason you don’t want to cut it close is because you want to watch your charging speeds. Using the fastest charger isn’t always the best idea, even though it’s convenient and gets you back to full charge quickly. Ramming as much power into your battery causes wear and tear and can lead to premature failure. We did a video a couple of weeks ago where one of the manufacturers will actually void your warranty if you do fast charging three consecutive times without doing a slow charge in between. So, if you're going on a long trip, you might think, "I can drive 200 miles, plug it in, and blast the battery back to full, then drive another 200 miles and blast it to full again." You may want to back off on that a little bit. The same goes for discharge speeds. Repeatedly using launch control or high speed can damage the battery quickly and eventually degrade the battery capacity.

How long do EV car batteries last? That’s a big question. Most new electric vehicles come with a warranty of eight years or 100,000 miles, but it's not a guarantee of eight years of trouble-free operation. Some manufacturers’ warranties have stipulations on battery condition or operation, so it's important to understand your warranty. Like we said, some manufacturers may say you can't use fast charging repeatedly, or if there’s any operation outside of the owner’s manual guidelines, it might void the warranty. However, most batteries should have a life expectancy of at least 100,000 miles before showing noticeable signs of degradation. So, if you have a battery with a 200-mile range, after 100,000 miles, it might come down to maybe 150 or 160 miles. Most of the warranties guarantee up to 70 percent battery capacity, so if you only have an 80 percent reduction, they may consider that not to be a warranty claim.

We’ve also talked about some of the disadvantages of electric cars, such as access to charging and the time it takes to charge. A lot of times, people think the big problem is access to chargers. But the biggest problem is how long it takes to charge. If charging takes an hour and a half or two hours, that’s as much time as it takes to drive to the next charger. It’s not so much about access to plug-in chargers; it’s the amount of time you have to spend there to charge up. You also can’t charge too fast too often, because it may void your warranty. These are good reasons to keep track of your potential use of an electric vehicle to make sure your battery life is maintained and monitored.

If you're buying a used electric vehicle, make sure you test it beforehand to ensure the battery isn’t already run down to the point where you won’t have any life left.