Electric vehicle battery life
The truth is that batteries degrade over time and use, meaning they become less efficient as they age and, in the case of electric cars, their range decreases. Current battery technology is also not cheap, with electric car battery replacements sometimes costing nearly the entire value of the car. This is why people often opt to get a new mobile phone rather than replace their old one.
However, there are many ways to increase the life of a car battery and keep it running stronger and more efficiently for a longer period of time. Notably, although performance may degrade over time, the battery cells will still ultimately provide at least 70% of their capacity even after the car has traveled more than 200,000 miles.
Why do electric car batteries short circuit or degrade?
Continued advances in battery technology are increasingly helping to mitigate many of the issues that cause battery degradation. However, even the latest lithium-ion cells are not completely immune to the risk of performance degradation over time.
Perhaps the biggest cause of performance degradation is battery use and charge cycles. Over time, regularly draining a battery after it has been fully charged can damage its ability to retain and store optimal energy.
That is why manufacturers often recommend customers to only charge up to 80% and limit the use of electric vehicles to the point of exhaustion. In addition, the habit of using fast charging is also on the list of causes of battery failure, because transmitting too much electrical energy and quickly will create a much higher temperature in the battery pack.
Liquid cooling of the cells helps mitigate this, but frequent use of fast chargers and over time these extreme heat cycles will damage the lithium ion packs. In fact, cars used in hot climates tend to suffer a more noticeable performance loss than cars operated in cooler conditions.
How to effectively care for electric vehicle batteries
Fortunately, there are a number of ways to help maintain battery performance over time. One of the main ways to protect your cells is to pay attention to how you charge and use them. Ideally, you should try to avoid discharging your battery below 20% capacity and charging it above 80% – this is because overcharging a battery tends to heat up, which can damage the delicate chemistry of the cell.
With today's advanced technology, most electric car models allow owners the option to program a charging schedule for their car, allowing them to decide when the electricity flows and, most importantly, users can easily set the exact limit of the amount of electricity being charged.
Just as you shouldn’t overcharge your battery, you shouldn’t completely drain it either. Most electric cars will always keep a minimum amount of charge even when they’re not moving, but of course, leaving your car idling for long periods of time and letting the charge drain is something you want to avoid.
In addition, users should not abuse the DC fast charger for their electric cars. Although this is an extremely useful equipment when needing to "fill up" on long trips or in emergencies; but the side effect of saving time when charging is the phenomenon of increased temperature leading to the risk of damaging the lithium-ion in the battery.
If the car is used in extremely hot or cold weather conditions, the owner should regularly charge the car (taking into account the maximum battery limit of 80%) regardless of the operating range. Such trickle charging allows the battery's thermal management system to continue to operate and keeps the cells at the optimal temperature to prolong their life.
Finally, how you drive an EV can also affect its battery life. Like fast charging, rapid depletion of cells can cause damage that over time reduces efficiency and range. The faster you drive and the more you use the instantaneous torque that is characteristic of electric vehicles to go faster, the more you cause harmful heat buildup in the battery. So it’s best to drive your EV at a steady speed.
Electric vehicle battery warranty
Electric car manufacturers are acutely aware that potential buyers may be swayed by the possibility of premature battery failure and costly battery repairs. But the truth is that when properly cared for, most modern lithium-ion batteries are capable of lasting the life of a vehicle. Even so, companies are offering competitive individual battery warranties.
Most car warranties are around three years and 100,000km, but a number of brands are offering customers more generous warranties. For example, Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Nissan and Renault cover batteries for eight years and 160,000km, while Hyundai increases the mileage limit to 200,000km.
Tesla has the same eight-year time frame but limits the range to 150,000 miles on the Model S and Model X, 120,000 miles on the Model 3 Long Range, and 100,000 miles on all other models. In addition, most manufacturers, aside from Audi and Tesla, offer battery replacement services if the maximum allowable battery capacity falls below 70 to 75 percent during the warranty period./.
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