Electric car battery change

The received idea that an electric car battery is deteriorating quickly and strongly and well erroneous. Finally, note that most of the studies and graphics that we mentioned report Nickel-Mangannesse-Cobalt (NMC) and Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminum (NCA) batteries which are most present on the market at present, and that This therefore does not reflect the state of Lithium-Fer-Phosphate batteries (LFP), which have no cobalt in their composition.

What is the life of an electric car battery ?

A recent study details the true from the false on the batteries of electric cars, and in particular their lifespan. Let’s take stock of what is the key element of these trendy vehicles, which can represent up to 70 % of the price of the car.

An electric car can be seen as a battery on wheels, which of course shows the importance of this major organ that is the battery. Composed of hundreds of cells, Keeping it in good health is essential to maintain the autonomy and performance of your trendy vehicle.

Over time, it is possible to see your battery deteriorate, and that is one of the fears of many reluctant to the electricity. We will therefore examine together the true of the false and the received ideas over the life of an electric car battery, based on a recent study taking stock of more than 15,000 different electric vehicles.

A replaced battery is a very rare event

Among the received ideas that have persisted over time, we find that which consists in saying that the battery of an electric car would be disposable, and that it would last a little time. In reality, The events leading to the replacement of a trendy vehicle battery are very rare, And moreover, when it appears, it is most of the time taken as guaranteed by the manufacturer.

On the study conducted by recurrentauto and grouping More than 15,000 vehicles put into circulation between 2011 and 2023, around 1.5 % of the batteries were replaced. When these figures are distinguished according to the years that cars have released, it appears that The overwhelming majority of problems happened on old vehicles (before 2015).

In particular, it is the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf before 2015 which seem the most concerned by the battery problems going as far as the package of the pack (between 3.5 and 8.5 % of vehicles), showing that consequent progress has been made in the last decade.

In particular, on the most recent models such as the Tesla Model Y and Model 3, which are now present in number on the roads, a battery replacement is an exception. But if the battery is not good to throw for several decades according to the manufacturers, the degradation of the cells is indeed a reality, with the key a maximum falling autonomy for the owners of electric vehicles.

Battery degradation: a very real phenomenon

This is a subject that frequently returns to forums of electric vehicle enthusiasts, and which can make the worst fear of newcomers, but Battery degradation is inevitable, This is why it is important to understand the main principles.

First of all, There is a so -called calendar degradation, which is explained by chemical reasons, and for which there is, so to speak, nothing to do. Over time, the cells that make up the battery pack in your electric car will deteriorate, and they will no longer retain as much energy as when they were new. That is why, Even without ever rolling, an electric car that is 5 years old will have a little less battery capacity remaining than the same model that has just come out of factory.

This battery degradation has a consequence for the driver: Maximum falling autonomy. The appearance of a battery calendar degradation curve is similar regardless of the use of the car (fast charges or not, high mileage, etc.), namely that Degradation is more marked during the first months, before it decreases over time until reaching around 80 % of the initial capacity.

Above, you can see this phenomenon on a panel of Tesla Model 3 having up to 160,000 kilometers. The curve decreases strongly over the first 30,000 kilometers, before being flat out so that degradation is less and less significant.

This illustrates the second form of degradation, which is linked to the number of battery cycles. A battery cycle corresponds to a full load of the battery pack of the electric car considered.

Thus for a Tesla Model 3 Performance for example, with an approximately 80 kWh battery, a battery cycle will be recorded every 80 kWh recharged (about 450 km traveled). It can be in one load or in several charges, and if you recharge 10 kWh per day your vehicle, you will add a cycle to the battery every eight days.

According to the different battery chemicals used, manufacturers indicate a number of cycles between 300 and more than 1,000 before the residual capacity drops under 80 % of the capacity of origin. In practice, it must be imagined that after 200,000 kilometers by electric car, it still remains at least 80 % of the battery capacity when it was new.

Demonstration by example

Personally, I separated from my Tesla Model 3 after almost four years and 135,000 kilometers, and the degradation of the battery pack was approximately 13 %. In practice therefore, this amounts to saying that if I managed to travel 400 kilometers on a journey on the first day, after four years, on the same journey I could only travel 350 kilometers maximum.

It is not negligible, but Unfortunately there is nothing to do to counter this phenomenon. On my Tesla Model Y Propulsion which has less than six months and 11,000 kilometers, I know that it will be more or less the same thing over time, regardless of the use of the car.

After how long or kilometers, I will lose independent ?

Tesla has also published a detailed report on the autonomy and degradation of batteries, where they recall that their batteries are very often still more than 80 % of capacity remaining on vehicles of 320,000 kilometers or more. This clearly indicates that an electric car battery lasts in the end longer than the car itself, since the vehicles set to the USA have an average of 300,000 kilometers.

Tesla is the only manufacturer who publishes data publicly with so many details, which is why we can hardly talk about other manufacturers with this precision. However, the chemical principles of aging cells apply to the entire industry.

In addition, the battery giants that are LG Chem, Panasonic or Catl and Byd provide battery packs in Tesla, but also to many other manufacturers. Thus, the data should not vary significantly on other vehicles, and the general trend is therefore comparable to what Tesla publishes.

A battery is guaranteed

In the unlikely case of a battery concern involving its replacement, it is true that This can quickly count in several tens of thousands of euros (between 10,000 and 30,000 euros). However, this cost is most often zero for the owner of the electric car, since The batteries guarantees cover the different cases that can be encountered sufficiently well.

At Tesla for example, the batteries are guaranteed eight years or between 160,000 and 240,000 kilometers depending on the model, with a retention of at least 70 % of the remaining nominal capacity. In practice, if degradation greater than 30 % is noted during the warranty period, Tesla must replace your battery pack at its expense.

The American manufacturer is far from being the only one to offer guarantees in this way, since Hyundai does the same with an eight -year or 200,000 kilometers guarantee on its ioniq 5 and ioniq 6, or Renault with an eight -year warranty or 160,000 kilometers on his Zoé.

The reason for the similarities in terms of the guarantees of the different manufacturers is simple: in practice, these are battery packs from the same manufacturers that are CATL (which announces a record longevity for its future battery without lithium), LG Chem or Panasonic. Some manufacturers stand out like Lexus which covers its battery over 10 years or 1,000,000 kilometers.

The received idea that an electric car battery is deteriorating quickly and strongly and well erroneous. Finally, note that most of the studies and graphics that we mentioned report Nickel-Mangannesse-Cobalt (NMC) and Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminum (NCA) batteries which are most present on the market at present, and that This therefore does not reflect the state of Lithium-Fer-Phosphate batteries (LFP), which have no cobalt in their composition.

However, everything suggests that the lifespan and the time of LFP batteries is even better, which reinforces the idea of ​​the longevity of electric vehicles.

Should you change your electric car battery ?

As we have just seen, there is no need to change the battery of your electric car during the living. Unless the battery becomes defective because of an electrical problem, but it’s rare. In this case, the manufacturer’s warranty can play. If the car is out of warranty, two options are available to you: change the full battery, compared to tens of thousands of euros or replace the defective cell (s).

And precisely, garages are starting to open around the world to offer this kind of service. The cost of the operation depends on the number of cells to change, but starts at less than 1,000 euros depending on the models of electric cars.

How to keep your electric car battery in good ?

If the calendar degradation of the battery is inevitable, there are still some recommendations to apply to keep the most important element of your healthy electric car over time.

These recommendations do not necessarily apply to all cars, as the batteries can differ by their compositions. We can in particular talk about the load limit not to be exceeded for daily use, which is sometimes 80 %, sometimes at 90 %, and other times even 100 %as is the case for Tesla Model 3 or Model Y Propulsion.

Principles applicable to all electric cars still exist, such as limiting fast charges as much as possible (which put the batteries to the test because of the heat induced in cells), or not storing the vehicle with a very low battery for a long time.

In normal use, however, you can imagine that your trendy car battery will still have at least 80 % of its remaining capacity after 15 years, which is completely honorable. What’s more, when the battery is no longer efficient enough to be used in a car, there are ingenious ways to give it a second life.

These include static energy storage (a kind of generator) which does not need the maximum performance of a battery that is found in an electric car with breathtaking acceleration. And if the battery is ultimately unusable, its recycling is already a reality. And if that was that, a clean vehicle ?

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No more recharging your electric car, you can soon replace the battery in 5 min

NIO, the automaker also specializing in battery recharging, has just deployed its first power swap station in Germany. This revolutionary technology allows you to drop the empty battery of your vehicle to replace it with a new one in just five minutes. An outing in France is also planned.

In addition to their autonomy, the recharge time for electric car batteries is a central issue for all converted motorists. If many still choose to carry out the operation at home on their own electrical network, others opt for one of the 50,000 recharging stations available in France. Also, researchers have been working on the task for several to obtain new records, with certain technologies even allowing recharge in just 9 seconds.

But these innovations are not yet available at the moment, forcing drivers to settle for existing solutions. This is where Nio comes into play. The Chinese company has indeed made a shattering entry into Europe via Norway with its revolutionary recharge technology. In this case, here we should rather speak of a replacement. Indeed, the concept is simple: place your car in the station, leave your battery empty, set off again.

Nio deploys its power swap station in Europe

Called Power Swap Station, this system has two big advantages. The first is that of time, since it takes only 5 minutes at the station to fully replace a battery. The second is that the driver does not even need to get out of his car, since the operation is done automatically. We then understand the success met by Nio in Norway, which allows him today to extend to Germany.

Indeed, our neighbors across the Rhine have seen their very first nio exchange station land. This can accommodate up to 13 vehicles simultaneously, with a capacity of 312 exchanges per day. With more than 10 million “recharge” now made, the firm no longer hides its ambitions. In Europe, the next countries to receive the Power Swap Stations will be the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.

And France in all of this ? The country done is indeed in the viewfinder of Nio, but no deployment date has yet been communicated. Meanwhile, the company is preparing other projects. Another version of its power swap station to start, faster and efficient, but also the marketing of cars ET5, ET7 or ES7. Finally, it is rumored that new charging stations (real, this time) with a power of 500 kW are in development.

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