New Study: How Long Do Electric Car Batteries Last?

[Bonehead]

Study takeaways by Recurrent's team of battery scientists:

• Battery replacements are quite rare. In our community of 15,000 cars, only 1.5% have been replaced (outside of big recalls like Chevy Bolt).
• Degradation is not linear. We're including battery degradation curves that illustrate how well these batteries hold up over time. There's some drop in the beginning then it levels out for a long period.
• Most replacements occur under warranty. For example, a new Rivian has battery coverage for 175,000 miles or 10 years. The federal minimum warranty is 8 years or 100,000 miles.

https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last

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[macchiaz-o]

I wonder how big Recurrent's sample size is for Mach-E vehicles?

Recurrent is/was partnering with Smartcar, which was putting a drain on people's 12V batteries and Ford's cloud services. As a result, Ford locked many customers out of their FordPass / ford.com accounts. I would have thought this would seriously curtail Recurrent's "study" of Ford's BEV fleet.

 

[ebeponyan]

I say this on every Recurrent thread, but I'm not about to trust any conclusions drawn from GOM data.

 

[JRSNoVa]

I say this on every Recurrent thread, but I'm not about to trust any conclusions drawn from GOM data.

Fair enough point, although I don't think it really applies here because range here is only used as a proxy for battery capacity. It doesn't matter if the GOM is off by 10% or more as long as it is off by the same proportion over time. Tracking by mileage also helps smooth out some variations due to weather because the cars were likely bought at different times throughout the year.

 

[hybrid2bev]

Using the GOM as a proxy for battery life or capacity is not the best way. It’s garbage in garbage out. We’ve all seen the impact of the OTA that changed the GOM estimates. For all we know Ford could be releasing some of the battery buffer to offset the natural loss of capacity over time.

Look at the trend from 25k to about 40k miles. It swings up! No battery gains capacity as it ages.

 

[mkhuffman]

Using the GOM as a proxy for battery life or capacity is not the best way. It’s garbage in garbage out. We’ve all seen the impact of the OTA that changed the GOM estimates. For all we know Ford could be releasing some of the battery buffer to offset the natural loss of capacity over time.

Look at the trend from 25k to about 40k miles. It swings up! No battery gains capacity as it ages.

In one of the OTAs the GOM estimating process changed, giving more optimistic results. I saw mine go up by 20-30 miles at 100% SoCD. Nothing changed in the battery health, only the way the GOM works.

The GOM is a horrible way to perform a test like this.

My battery SoH has declined to 92% and I am at around 27K miles. And as you said, it won't go up as I put more miles on the car.

 

[SWO]

Maybe I'm off-base but I have seen multiple Recurrent "studies" and, like this one, they're all based on GOM estimates. It was a Recurrent "study" that proclaimed Teslas have almost zero range loss in cold....of course the reality is that Tesla's GOM doesn't take temperature into account.

IE, garbage in, garbage out.

Now, the data on battery replacements is interesting, though it's basically saying the cars that have been out there the longest have had the most battery replacements which is a no-brainer.

 

[RickMachE]

Maybe I'm off-base but I have seen multiple Recurrent "studies" and, like this one, they're all based on GOM estimates. It was a Recurrent "study" that proclaimed Teslas have almost zero range loss in cold....of course the reality is that Tesla's GOM doesn't take temperature into account.

IE, garbage in, garbage out.

Now, the data on battery replacements is interesting, though it's basically saying the cars that have been out there the longest have had the most battery replacements which is a no-brainer.

Agree with garbage out.

There is no valid data on battery replacement, since their data is tainted by massive recalls. Their entire sample is 15,000. 1.5% recalled, or ~225. Bolt and Kona majority of that.

Clickbait.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I wonder how big Recurrent's sample size is for Mach-E vehicles?

Recurrent is/was partnering with Smartcar, which was putting a drain on people's 12V batteries and Ford's cloud services. As a result, Ford locked many customers out of their FordPass / ford.com accounts. I would have thought this would seriously curtail Recurrent's "study" of Ford's BEV fleet.

Agree, I have a feeling they lost access to the vast majority of Mach-Es as a result of the lockouts. Plus coupled with the huge variation in GOM readings across the different software updates, it's totally unreliable data IMO.

 

[azerik]

It'll go up if they unlock more KW from that battery and muck about with the GOM

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