Geotab is a Canadian company developing and marketing vehicle telematic software. This system enables its engineers to store and retrieve information, using the global navigation satellite system. The company released an update on the rate of electric car battery degradation on its blog on September 3, 2024. This information reveals a great improvement from five years ago.
Electric Car Battery Degrading Significantly Slower
Electric car battery degradation is a gradual process that progressively reduces the amount of energy the vehicle can store. This equates to the amount of power its batteries put out, and this in turn affects its driving range between charges.
This ‘state of health’ (SOH) gradually deteriorates to the point where the battery requires replacement. This can cost as much as half the price of a new electric vehicle. The perceived threat of this ‘second purchase’ is significantly slowing down electric transport adoption.
Six years ago, Geotab developed a software suite that enabled it to compare degradation rates between various electric vehicles. The accumulated body of data suggests that ‘the vast majority of [new]batteries will outlast the usable life of the vehicle, and will never need to be replaced.
More About the Data and Its Implications
In 2019, Geotab found that electric vehicles were losing their storage capacity at an average rate of 2.3% per year. However, their 2024 analysis suggests this rate has dropped to 1.8% on average. The following diagram reveals how this differs across 11 electric car models.
Most electric car owners are initially unaware of this degradation, because their batteries contain more energy than their vehicle power train can use. However, they may notice that the number of miles they can travel between charges is gradually shrinking.
Despite this significant reduction in electric car battery degradation, Geotab concedes that all batteries will eventually wear out. However, they believe, ’the vast majority will outlast the usable life of the vehicle, and will never need to be replaced’.
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