All types of electrified vehicles, both pure electric and hybrid, offer a multitude of measures that are used to slow down the battery degradation process. However, the process is inevitable. While the electric car and its range have been shown to have considerably lower costs of ownership compared to their ICE counterparts, battery longevity remains an ambiguous topic.
The electric car also loses autonomy
It is clear that mobility is moving towards electrification. However, the degradation of the batteries and, by extension, their loss of autonomy, is one of the great concerns of users who are thinking of buying an electric car and one of the main reasons why some have not yet decided to buy it. take the step
Essentially, it is inevitable that the battery of our electric car, or any rechargeable lithium-ion battery, loses the autonomy capacity that it had before. However, the rate at which it will degrade is the unknown variable.
Everything from your charging habits to cell chemistry will affect the long-term energy storage of your electric vehicle battery. Although there are many factors at play, there are some main elements that help further degrade electric vehicle batteries, as we will learn in the following lines.
There are different factors that degrade the battery
As we know, and as with any device that runs on batteries, such as our own mobile phones, they lose battery power when not in use. This is something that also affects electric cars and brings battery manufacturers (and their types) upside down.
But the duration of the battery of an electric vehicle must be longer in practice, and its degradation slower than some defend, when practically all brands offer at least a guarantee for the electrical system of their cars, battery included, of eight years . In fact, the most common warranty for the battery, which is by far the most expensive element of an electric, is eight years or 100,000 miles , whichever comes first.
A degradation that occurs in all vehicles due to charge and discharge cycles, but which may be faster in one than in others depending on various factors.
Refrigeration, key
A delicate aspect when we talk about these batteries and the autonomy of this electric car is that of temperature, since the battery must also be able to handle the temperature fluctuations that occur during charging and discharging.
The battery pack must be designed to prevent its cells from getting too hot or too cold during these processes. In those, what we know is that above 45-50°C, the electronic components of the battery deteriorate more quickly and a drop in recharging performance is observed. Many electric vehicles have battery cooling systems, so heat can affect them differently.
Fast charging
Fast charging itself does not necessarily cause accelerated battery degradation, but increased thermal load can damage the internal components of the battery cell. Damage to these internal battery components leads to fewer lithium ions being able to transfer from cathode to anode.
Thus, this fast charge ends up degrading the battery at a higher speed, with the consequent loss of autonomy. It is logical since, by raising the voltage and amperage during the recharging process, the internal components of the battery suffer greater stress
Mileage
Like any other rechargeable lithium-ion battery, the more charge cycles, the more wear and tear on the cell. In fact, Resla itself reported it, in which its Model S will see a degradation of around 5% after exceeding 40,000 kilometers.
According to the company, another 5% will be lost after about 320,000 kilometers. Of course, these numbers have been calculated using standard deviation, so there are likely to be outliers with bad cells that don’t show up on company charts.
Cold
It has always been known that the electric car is not prepared for the cold, and this winter we are checking it well. And it is that, in this sense, it is much more likely that we have experienced how our level of autonomy ends up suffering.
The reason why batteries work worse when it is very cold is that chemical reactions slow down the lower the temperature, and conversely: they speed up the more we increase the temperature. Thus, temperatures below zero can reduce its range by up to 32%