The power in a car battery depends on its chemistry, and the number of individual cells inside it. That much is largely a given, after we make our purchasing decision. However, the health of car batteries is another matter. If we treat them thoughtfully, they should last longer. And allow us to drive further between battery charges.
Factors Affecting The Health of Car Batteries
It could be helpful if electric car owners had more real-time information about the state of their car batteries. Remaining charge is useful, as the Car Sales website suggests. Although we could learn much more by tracking the underlying causes of battery degradation.
Meanwhile, we have to go semi-blindly with tips from the likes of theoretical physicist David Maibach. He opens the discussion by sharing his ideas on how we charge electric batteries, and we quote:
- “If you mainly charge at home using AC – 22kW or below – it’s very good.
- If you use 150kW or above you see some variance, but it’s actually quite good.”
We already know that high ambient temperature affects the health of car batteries. But the prevailing culture also plays a role. For example, residents in some inner cities may only have limited access to home charging. Whereas in Scandinavian countries the facility is more abundantly available.
Battery Warranties Versus Customer Experience
Talk on the streets suggests that batteries generally perform better as electric vehicles age, than their warranties suggest. David Maibach observes that when they do fall below 80%, this may be due to as few as 5% of their individual battery cells failing.
‘If only a small percent of them are bad, why would you replace the whole pack?” he asks. “So what we are doing is trying to make it easier for workshops to open up the packs, remove the ones that are bad and replace them.”
We were pleased to learn that legislation may soon enforce better real-time information concerning the health of car batteries. “It would be very, very hard to take an electric car to a workshop, and accurately determine the state of health of the battery as things stand,” the theoretical physicist asserts.
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