Electric Vehicle Battery Life

Many Irish consumers who consider switching to an electric vehicle (EV) worry about the life span of the EV’s battery and fear incurring an expensive replacement cost.

Today, we’d like to ease the anxiety and squash that myth.  

Yes, the battery is indeed the most expensive part of an electric vehicle.  It can range anywhere from €5,000 to €20,000, depending on the size of the EV battery. However, it is improbable a replacement would be required, and most car manufacturers & dealerships offer EV drivers extended warranties on the batteries. For example, our partner, Toyota Liffey Valley, is confident enough to provide clients with an 8-year/160,000 KM warranty. 

Car manufacturers and dealerships understand the technical components of an EV battery, which breeds confidence. The lithium-ion batteries used to power EVs are mistakenly compared to batteries used in smartphones or laptops.  It is misleading because the smaller devices rely on a single battery, whereas EVs tap into battery ‘packs’, comprised of thousands of lithium-ion working simultaneously. The fail-safe and modular design ensure damage is isolated, and the battery can continue performing as expected or only require partial repair.

It is also vital to review battery degradation. As a general rule of thumb, EV batteries will degrade at an estimated 2% per year if maintained well. For example, a new EV with a battery range of 300 KM will drop by an estimated 15% after eight years (to a 255 KM range). Believe it or not, this is not too dissimilar to a petrol or diesel vehicle, which will lose miles per gallon over time.

In addition, your electric car will have lower maintenance costs during this period – The EV will require fewer fluids to change (oil or transmission fluid), fewer moving parts to maintain, and the EV has reduced brake wear with regenerative braking technology.

We hope this introduction to the electric car battery life cycle helps ease any worries about the longevity of EV batteries. As always, the team at  WattCharger are here to help, so don’t hesitate to contact us via email (Rowan -  rpe@wattcharger.com) or telephone: (083014681) and here are five tips for EV battery maintenance: 

• Avoid full battery charging cycles, i.e. charging from 0-100%. This heats your battery, which in turn degrades it.
• Maintain your battery between 20%-80%. By doing this, when you charge, your battery will be at its coolest.
• Control the optimal battery percentage during prolonged storage, i.e. between 20%-80%.
• Avoid DC rapid chargers. The speed of these chargers heats your battery considerably.
• Don’t charge every night.