EV batteries last longer than we think, research suggests | Hacker News Reader

EV batteries last longer than we think, research suggests

pcmag.com

29 pointsTaurenHunter18 comments

My 2012 Chevy Volt has over 170k miles.

When it was new, the battery would average about 9.7 kWh per drive cycle. Nowadays, I only get 8.6 kWh. It is very consistent.

I can boost that number to well over 9 (in the old days, well over 10), if I "let the car warm up" (via leaving it plugged with the power on, this tops off the battery).

Needless to say, all my "friends" who told me the car would be an utter failure 10 years ago: they are no longer my friends.

Too bad it was all of my friends :(

At least the car is my friend :)

...

The battery is made up of 300+ cells, I bet my car has 'dead/damaged cells', but it'll never tell.

The residents of Trump country had exiled and shunned me when I bought that car.

They still do.

A lot of "Trump country" runs on coal, including EVs. Maybe that's why?

I think some is related to battery chemistry, but some is related to battery size (with a little battery management thrown in).

smaller batteries cycle more. People still seem to drive a certain amount, and if a leaf discharges and charges once per day, a model 3 with a bigger battery, more efficiency and better battery management may cycle once per week. (charge to 80%)

This is indeed a good point. I recently had an older Leaf (2017) and had to charge it daily to the max, even with light use, in case I needed it because total range was low.

My new car has over twice the max range so now I charge once or twice a week, and then just to 80%.

In addition my new car has much better thermal management of the battery compared to the Leaf, which should help prolong the life as well.

I don't understand why Nissan didn't add thermal management to the battery, they had the technology in the EV vans they sold.

Bogus conclusion. It's quite a leap from "not replaced" to "lasting longer."

Years ago my suspension needed to be replaced, but I didn't replace it because it was expensive. I just dealt with the nausea for several additional years, as likely did the guy I sold it to.

Diminished range is still diminished range, even if you are stuck with it.

good thing they also measured how the range diminished over time, and in fact for most vehicles there's not much change.

Not really. They recorded what the "expected range" might be based on what the computer suggested after putting miles on the cars. That's hardly scientific and, from experience, likely an overestimation.

This story is a huge reach that doesn't make any attempt towards scientific rigor.

Idk mine is 11 years old and has no signs of needing replaced.

But it's not one big battery, it is hundreds of cells, with a complicated partition management system.

At least one of those cells has to be messed up after 11 years!

But you're right, my gas engine comes on just a little bit earlier than it used to. Diminished range is indeed, diminished range.

Good thing you can still "charge" 300+ miles in under 5 minutes.

5 minutes? Once a week? I don’t fancy spending half a working day a year standing around petrol stations.

Obviously I’m being sarcastic but in reality I’ve spent the same amount of time waiting for my EV to charge as waiting for my mobile phone to charge for day to day usage: 0 minutes. It charges at night, off peak for 3p/mile.

Even on long journeys I haven’t waited any extra time - plugged in and grabbed the usual coffee I would have gotten anyway and it’s done.

Also: Nissan Begins Repurposing Leaf Car Batteries as Portable Power Stations

https://www.extremetech.com/cars/nissan-begins-repurposing-l...

> The battery in the BMW i3 has held up fairly well.

This is likely because the car limited usage to between 20% and 80% of actual capacity. I verified this by looking at the raw data.

In comparison my new Renault Megane E-tech has 0-100% available. You can limit daily charging to say 80%, but the manual states that if the range goes below 15km the car may shut off at any moment.

On a different note, not all cars have easily replaceable batteries. So labor cost might be quite high, in addition to the new battery. The i3 was decent and I saw someone doing a swap for about the same total cost as replacing an automatic transmission say.

Not sure how my current car will fare, I certainly haven't planned on replacing it after the 8 year warranty expires...

>the manual states that if the range goes below 15km the car may shut off at any moment.

I hate this so much. Just display the range as (range-15km) then. If you're going to lie about range, why not just say the car has 1300km+ range, but it may shut off suddenly any time you're below 1000km.

I admit it surprised me so much I didn't think to check it before I bought it. Besides that I'm happy with the car so far, but that was a bit of a bummer.

Whenever I see discussions about EV battery lifetime, I always wish they included ICE mileage degradation in the discussion as well.

Ain't no way a 200,000 mile ICE car that may or may not have been well maintained is still getting factory mileage either.

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