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The EVs with batteries that degrade least
A study by a Swedish EV retailer has revealed which cars had the best battery health after 16,000km.
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Drive
A study by a Swedish EV retailer has revealed which cars had the best battery health after 16,000km.
Published
4 min read
Text size
Published
Text size
Are you worried about early battery degradation in electric vehicles?
You’re not alone, with consumers worldwide regularly citing the prohibitively expensive battery replacement costs over time as a major reason not to go electric.
But a report recently published by Swedish EV retailer Carla has found that of nearly 10,000 used EVs it tested with more than 16,000km on the odometer, all major brands remained at about 90 per cent battery health or higher.
One of the biggest real-world experiments using independent diagnostic equipment by Austrian battery testing company AVILOO, the analysis covered a broad spectrum of used vehicles in Sweden between 2022 and 2026, with a total of 9954 test cases.
Perhaps unexpectedly given the very different battery chemistries and technologies employed by each manufacturer, the outcomes are all extremely close to one another, further boosting confidence in EVs.
The makes and models that came out on top may come as a further surprise for some people, as they represent EVs from the more affordable end of the market.
These findings are in line with Australian auction group, Pickles, which also released data recently showing that EVs with 80,000km-120,000km averaged a battery health score of around 91 per cent.
Industry observers may recall earlier studies of much older EVs, such as the original Nissan Leaf from 2012, performing poorly in battery degradation surveys. These early EVs were fitted with antiquated batteries using air-cooled, rather than the water-cooled, technologies that often accelerated cell decay.
In the Carla study, the healthiest batteries came from the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG), representing Hyundai, Kia and luxury marque Genesis.
Kia came out on top, with 96.8 per cent of battery capacity after 16,000km, followed closely by Hyundai with 95.4 per cent. As HMG shares its EV technologies across all three brands, the differences are likely due to individual vehicle variables, rather than one make being stronger than the other.
Very close behind was Germany, with Mercedes-Benz and BMW EVs in the Carla analysis recording 95 and 94.5 per cent battery degradation respectively.
Just below that is another mainstream carmaker, Ford, with 94.3 per cent, pipping home-market favourites (though Chinese owned and controlled) Volvo at 94.2 per cent and Polestar at 93.7 per cent in the Swedish study.
After that, it is back to Germany with the Volkswagen Group occupying positions eight to 11. Audi scored a 92.9 per cent rating, Skoda 92.6 per cent, VW 92.4 per cent and Porsche 90.9 per cent.
Another shock for observers is that the world’s largest manufacturer of EVs over that four-year period, Tesla, just scraped into the top 12; its models held, on average, 90.2 per cent of their original battery charge past the 16,000 mark.
Of the nearly 10,000 EVs sampled, overall battery health after 16,000km averaged 92.35 per cent.
Other insights from the Carla study show that battery degradation is remarkably consistent across the makes and models scrutinised. The average battery health in EVs from new to about 8000km was 94.4 per cent; that dropped to 92.4 per cent when the car had done up to 16,000km.
It is worth keeping in mind that Sweden’s sub-freezing cold winter does put different pressures on its EVs compared to Australia’s hotter climate.
The study also only included models that were in sufficiently large numbers on the Swedish market 2022-2026, which largely pre-dates the rapid expansion of Chinese brands such as BYD.
Plus, some of the specific models, specifically Tesla, sometimes use different battery chemistries in Europe, so a like-for-like comparison is not always straightforward or accurate for Australia.
That all said, some individual models outperformed their stablemates within the same brand.
Kia e-Niro EV (64kWh battery): 97.25%
Hyundai Kona (64kWh): 97.18%
Kia EV6 (77.4kWh): 95.95%
Volvo XC40 Recharge (69kWh CATL battery): 94.7%
Polestar 2 (78kWh CATL battery): 94.35%
BMW i3 (42.2kWh): 93.77%
Polestar 2 (78kWh LG battery): 93.53%
Tesla Model 3 (60.5kWh CATL battery): 93.34%
Audi e-tron 50 (71kWh): 93.02%
Audi e-tron 55 (95kWh): 92.93%
