Information needed about ev battery

matt_drummer

I agree, just use it

My post was really to demonstrate how much more use (abuse) the battery in a phev gets compared to a full ev.

I think it is clear that I am not a fan of phev's, the worst of both worlds for most owners.

I don't understand the logic in buying them, most seem to be used as an ev as much as possible with the engine there just for longer journeys to avoid stopping to charge. At the same time you get worse economy than a full ev and have to charge them nearly every day if you want to run like an ev.

Indout96

Not a dig at Electric cars as we had been looking at a Polestar when we thought our car had been written off but they decided to repair it. Our next car will probably be EV.

I keep seeing people and articles saying only charge to 80% and to not normally go below 20% (some on here saying 40%) but unless I am misunderstanding (and that could be the case) on a 240 mile range does that not mean you "normally" only have 60% of the battery so an actual real world range under ideal conditions of 144 miles and far lower in winter.

Also unless you buy from a main dealer is there anyway to ascertain the strength of the battery on a second hand car ? the one we looked at was 2 years old but assuming it was leased there is no way of knowing if the first owner had charged to 100% and down to 5% each time knowing they would not have the car when any battery problems show themselves. It was a major car supermarket we looked at and they said it was not possible to find out the battery degradation but that seems odd as you can check your phone battery simply

We are not interested in leasing and if purchased we would be looking to hold the car 10-12 years so the battery is a worry.

QrizB

Also unless you buy from a main dealer is there anyway to ascertain the strength of the battery on a second hand car ?

There are relatively cheap plug-in diagnostic tools that some independent dealers use to produce battery health reports. And I think BCA provide such reports with cars at auction.

You see these reports in the photos on AutoTrader if you browse enough EVs!

So yes, you might expect a car bought from many dealers to be accompanied by a battery health report.

Edit to add: one popular test suite is Aviloo:

https://aviloo.com/en/

Copart say they use Aviloo, for example.

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82114232#Comment_82114232

I keep seeing people and articles saying only charge to 80% and to not normally go below 20% (some on here saying 40%) but unless I am misunderstanding (and that could be the case) on a 240 mile range does that not mean you "normally" only have 60% of the battery so an actual real world range under ideal conditions of 144 miles and far lower in winter.

So sort of, so the advice is for day to day driving is to only charge to 80%, overall it reduced battery degradation which is not really a huge issue, far less than people imagined. If someone is going to drive a long distance and need the full battery then just charge up to 100% before leaving, the important thing is not to charge to 100% every day or leave it there for days at a time either. You can also go under 20%, you just need to be able to charge at the other end. The "far lower in winter" thing is a bit of a myth as well, yes in sustained sub-zero temperatures it can make a difference, but in the UK we rarely get weather cold enough to really make a difference. As an example in my Model Y LR AWD my 34 mile, mostly motorway and national speed limit commute uses 12% of the battery in the summer and 14% in the winter, or 16% on the odd day when the car has been sat in sub zero temperature for days (so the battery is fully cold) and the outside temperature is still below freezing, so in the UK, in a worse case scenario the increased energy usage is around 35%, but that is for a relatively short journey, once the car is up to temperature on a longer drive the drop in range in winter is far less, usually only 10-15% difference. It really only matters if one is trying to drive long distances, at the maximum range of the battery without charging.

Also unless you buy from a main dealer is there anyway to ascertain the strength of the battery on a second hand car ? the one we looked at was 2 years old but assuming it was leased there is no way of knowing if the first owner had charged to 100% and down to 5% each time knowing they would not have the car when any battery problems show themselves. It was a major car supermarket we looked at and they said it was not possible to find out the battery degradation but that seems odd as you can check your phone battery simply

You can find it out, it relates to age and milage, easy enough to get a good estimation online. My car is four years old, has done 43k miles and has 94% battery capacity remaining. However an EV will lose 5-8% of theoretical max in the first yea, then very slow loss after that. I have a friend with a 2014 Nissan Leaf and it still has 89-90% of it's original battery capacity left, that is the small 24kWh battery with daily use and has driven over 100k miles, an EV with a bigger battery and modern thermal management will see far less degradation over time.

We are not interested in leasing and if purchased we would be looking to hold the car 10-12 years so the battery is a worry.

The batteries are expected to outlive the rest of the car for most EVs, if you bought at 3 years old then by the time the car was 15 years old it should still have 85-90% of it's initial range left, it is not the issue many try and make it out to be.

born_again

End of the day, if you average 250 miles out of a charge & Nissan mention 1000 cycles thats 250,000 miles & even then the battery is not going to be dead.

Which at the current ave yearly miles (8K ish) would be 31 years.🙋

Why would anyone worry?

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82114321#Comment_82114321

They worry because an element of the media has been doing it's best to make them worry for a decade or more. The claim that "EV's have rubbish range and it halves in winter", "EV batteries will need to be replaced after 5/6/7 years", "EV's will leave you waiting by the roadside for hours waiting to charge on every journey" etc. If one engages with certain elements of the media then EV's are constantly made out to be short raged, degrade in a few years, often slow, prone to catching fire randomly etc.

chuffinnora

My experience of the PHEV has been good on the whole. I use it as a "full" EV for probably 75% of journeys. Thats round trips of 35ish miles or less. Yes the battery gets a used a lot and plenty of cycles. But there is a buffer on the upper/lower built in, so the 100% isn't that and the low end is most likely around 15%.

I don't worry about longevity of the car battery as I won't keep it for decades. Never had an ICE more than 5 years. I also think there needs to be a mindset change as PHEVs/EVs may not last as long like ICEs have historically. Recycling of cars needs to become much more efficient because EV battery technology, and indeed the whole car technology is moving forward at a faster rate.

Coming back to the choice of why a PHEV. Quite simply I don't want the hassle of finding and paying for public EV chargers. When the EV battery is out, happy with the ICE, even if it is pulling around a dead weight under the back seats. The economy is not that bad to worry about the higher consumption. For me its about convenience.

I'm charging the PHEV for around 50p a night (and thats max if fully drained). I'm on 3.9p overnight rates. That will be 7-9p once my fixed deal ends. Even then its only a £1 compared to £7 if using petrol.

In terms of driving experience, I much prefer the EV mode. Smoother, faster, quieter. I get why people prefer full EVs. A better drive than ICE. I'm just not ready yet to take that jump.

facade

Also unless you buy from a main dealer is there anyway to ascertain the strength of the battery on a second hand car ?

Most cars from dealers large or small are going to come with a "battery health" statement/certificate as it is such a big worry for prospective owners. If it doesn't, you can assume it is below 95%. I wouldn't buy an expensive EV as a private sale with no warranty anyway…..

the one we looked at was 2 years old but assuming it was leased there is no way of knowing if the
first owner had charged to 100% and down to 5% each time knowing they would not have the car when any battery problems show themselves.

Most 3 year old EVs on sale are ex PCP (most 3 year old cars of any type are, 2 year olds are ex lease, very few people buy an EV outright and trade in after 3 years as the initial depreciation is very high)

You can safely assume that an ex lease/PCP car is not going to have been treated as well as you'd treat a car that you had intended to keep for many years! (My Council have just restricted my driving by "resurfacing" some surrounding roads with Lockchip- I'm not driving on them until they have had the second sweep and the sealant applied. If my car was on PCP & going back I'd just drive on them listening to the sounds of the loose chippings hammering at the underside, as long as the damage doesn't show on the outside at collection time! Similarly I'd just charge an EV to 100% every time and leave it standing for days as it won't be my problem.)

You can further assume that an EV with highish miles is going to have been rapid charged a lot, simply because it has been used for long trips and the driver isn't going to wait hours to recharge before driving home. (Plus they likely aren't paying for the electricity out of their own pocket)

It was a major car supermarket we looked at and they said it was not possible to find out the battery degradation

🤣😂🤣 If some of the cars came with certificates that had low numbers it is better not to have any at all than highlight a few as suspicious…

Be careful with Car Supermarkets, some exist just to sell over priced finance with a grade 3 car attached to people with poor credit ratings.

If you can test drive it on your own you can easily read the state of health yourself with a cheap OBD dongle and a little research, but tbh, it isn't a major problem, it just means the ultimate range is reduced

Pretty much all EVs come with a battery warranty that guarantees the state of health won't drop below 70% over the expected 8 year lifetime of the car. (Don't expect a modern car to last 20 years before it becomes uneconomically viable to repair, those days are long gone)

matt_drummer

My Tesla logs the charging history so you can see exactly how much ac and dc charging it has had.

You can also see how it has been driven.

You can also easily check the battery health.

I think they will outlast ice cars by a long way, they can do hundreds of thousands of miles, theere is little to go wrong and they don't rust.

Just watch some videos on the internet, Teslas stand up to high mileages really well.

I understand that not everybody likes them but they are amazing cars.

In terms of cost, performance and running costs, I could argue that the Tesla Model 3 might be the `best' car ever made.

facade

I find it amazing that Tesla can actually produce cars that do Starship mileages with very little problem, except normal consumables like suspension bushes, yet virtually every other manufacturer struggles to make any that can get down the street without hugely expensive faults like charger failure, motors filling with coolant, aircon pumps failing etc. - if Tesla can do it in China, why can't everybody else?