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How long do electric car batteries last?
Batteries all degrade over time, but data is showing persistent fears about battery ageing in electric vehicles is misplaced.
by Toby Hagon
Published
15 min read
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Drive
11 min readDrive
Batteries all degrade over time, but data is showing persistent fears about battery ageing in electric vehicles is misplaced.
by Toby Hagon
Published
15 min read
Text size
by Toby Hagon
Published
Text size
The longevity of electric vehicle (EV) batteries is one perceived barrier making some people hesitant about buying an EV. So how many years can you realistically expect to get out of an EV battery?
At a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, swapping over a worn-out EV battery pack for a new one is an outlay few want to contemplate.
But is it realistic to expect to eventually replace the battery in an EV? And how will your electric car’s battery wear over time?
Electric cars use similar lithium-ion technology to that found in batteries employed by all manner of devices, from mobile phones and laptops to power tools and smartwatches.
But the battery packs in EVs are much bigger, weighing hundreds of kilograms and sometimes more than half a tonne. They are also, by far, the most expensive single component of an electric vehicle.
But fortunately, battery packs are made to last. Just as the engine in a car is designed to last for the life of the vehicle, so too is a battery pack.
Whereas your average consumer device may be expected to last a few years, a car is expected to keep motoring for at least a decade. In WA, the average age of a motor vehicle edged past 12 years in 2025, according to the annual Road Vehicles Australia.
Makers of EV battery packs have that longevity front of mind, optimising the chemistry, materials, manufacturing techniques and control systems, including sophisticated processes to keep the temperature steady and to monitor cell voltage.
Just as replacing an engine on a 15 to 20-year-old car is unlikely to be financially viable, it’s also unlikely to be feasible to replace an EV battery pack unless there are major advances in tech in the future.
One option could be the reconditioning of batteries, something now available (and affordable) for some hybrid vehicles.
Such industries don’t exist in Australia yet, with old or damaged EV batteries instead sometimes used in EV conversions of classic cars or for static energy storage.
However, if the battery has simply lost a large chunk of its ability to hold a charge, having a short driving range could still be appealing to some buyers – at the right price.
Batteries degrade over time – it’s a fact of EV life. Battery degradation doesn't usually mean the battery stops working. Instead, it gradually reduces the vehicle's driving range. The most obvious sign is a decline in its ability to hold a charge.
Most manufacturers guarantee at least 70 per cent of the original capacity after the warranty period; typically about eight years and 160,000km, although some manufacturers are offering 10-year battery warranties.
A handful go further still: Chery, Jaecoo and GWM cover their high-voltage batteries for eight years with no kilometre limit, each with a 70 per cent capacity threshold.
But manufacturers also maintain that the threshold is a worst-case scenario and most batteries will have much more capacity than that once the warranty has expired.
More convincing is the research from US company Recurrent, which actively monitors battery health in tens of thousands of EVs in the United States. It has reported that lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries used in many modern EVs are more resilient.
“They tend to be more resistant to heat degradation. It’s inherent in the chemistry - it’s much more stable,” says Recurrent’s Liz Najman.
The warranty covering an EV, including its battery, will vary between manufacturer and model, so familiarise yourself with the documents for your vehicle.
Managix co-founder Kevin Dyer, the Australian distributor for leading EV battery testing company Moba, says that calculating degradation is not as simple as looking at how many kilometres an EV has done, or how old it is.
“There is considerable variation between vehicles, even where they are the same age and have travelled similar distances,” he explains.
“In general, we see modern EV batteries proving to be more resilient than many consumers expect. The rate of degradation tends to be more noticeable earlier in a battery’s life and then stabilises, with many batteries retaining a high level of usable capacity well into their normal service life.”
The biggest independent study of how EV batteries are ageing landed in September 2026, drawing on more than 500,000 tests on 20 popular models between 2022 and 2026 by Austrian company Aviloo.
The research’s headline finding is reassuring. The median Tesla Model Y with a 78.8kWh battery still had 94.5 per cent of its capacity at 50,000km and 90.3 per cent at 150,000km. The Volkswagen ID.4 went from 95.3 to 90.6 per cent across the same distance, while a Hyundai Ioniq 5 with a 72.6kWh pack fell from 97.2 to 92.8 per cent.
Smaller batteries fare worse, largely because they need more charging cycles to cover the same distance, which causes more degradation.
Possibly the more useful insight for anyone shopping for a used EV is how much individual cars of the same model can differ: up to 13.5 per centage points between the best and worst examples.
A separate study this year from leasing company Arval drew on 24,000 State of Health certificates, including from Moba, to confirm that EV battery degradation is slow.
Its analysis of the data, from battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) from 30 brands across 11 European countries, found that after 160,000km or six years, average battery health remained above 90 per cent.
In a sign that advancing technology is leading to gains in battery health, it also found that new generation EVs had a battery state of health 2-3 points higher than older models.
Other testing of high-mileage EVs backs up the argument that some retain high levels of battery health after years of use. Australian auction group, Pickles, released data in 2026 from battery testing of second-hand EVs, indicating those with 80,000km-120,000km on the clock averaged a battery health score of around 91 per cent.
With so many factors at play, Dyer says the only way to get a comprehensive picture of an EV battery’s state of health is to test it.
“What is particularly important from our perspective is that age and kilometres alone are not sufficient to determine battery health. Two vehicles with similar mileage can have materially different State of Health,” he says.
“That is why an actual battery health assessment is much more valuable than relying on age, odometer readings or assumptions about how an EV has been used.”
The battery of an EV typically suffers some energy loss early, levels out for most of its life, then degrades quickly as it reaches old age and/or high mileage.
Najman refers to it as an S curve but also confirms that in overall terms, degradation is minor: “under 2 per cent per year over the lifetime, and that’s at a pretty aggressive degradation (rate)”.
In other words, if you bought an EV with 500km of range, on average you could expect it to have more than 450km of range after a decade of driving.
Recurrent data also suggests battery technology is improving, leading to less degradation in newer models.
“We have seen higher degradation and higher replacements in older vehicles,” says Najman.
Batteries in EVs lasting longer than in other consumer items comes down to the computer control that is part of the advanced on-board battery management system, or BMS, that can manage the voltage and temperature of each cell.
In many instances the battery temperature is adjusted when the car is parked. When charging, the car will engage charge equalisation to keep each cell in check, potentially feeding more electricity to individual cells to ensure they’re at the same levels and none are overcharged or mistreated.
The goal is to reduce stress on components and ensure temperatures are optimal: key with lithium-ion batteries.
Kate Cavanagh is the transport electrification team leader at CSIRO Energy and says the BMS is a crucial component of the charging equation.
“It has a recommended operating temperature range, with upper and lower threshold limits of where it likes the temperature to be,” she explains. “If the battery exceeds this higher temperature (while charging), the BMS will shut down the battery and not accept further charge.”
A cold battery will supply electrons slower, reducing its ability to power the car. But a hot battery can result in damage to the chemistry in the battery pack. That’s one reason thermal management is such a focus with EVs. And by hot, we’re not talking about a 40-degree day.
In the same way your phone or laptop gets warm when you charge it, a battery pack will heat up when charging.
The faster you charge it – and the more current you run through its electrical components – the more heat can build up.
Pump in hundreds of kilowatts of electricity and the temperature can quickly ramp up. The car monitors this and can actively cool the battery using a variety of methods depending on the system, including fans cooling a radiator filled with liquid, refrigerant cooling, glycol circuits, chillers and heat pumps.
Porsche is one brand working on direct oil cooling of battery cells, rather than water-based cooling through nearby pipes: something that can keep the battery at a constant 45 degrees.
Showcased in the GT4 e-Performance prototype, it’s aimed at maximising performance and extending the life of the battery.
The man in charge of the race car project, Björn Förster, says temperature management is a crucial part of the vehicle development, something that will ultimately flow through to Porsche road cars.
“The engineers are getting nervous when the system temperature is getting to 60 degrees,” he explains, suggesting those lower temperatures not only assist in maximising the life of the battery but also in its everyday performance.
Recurrent says that where a car is parked can have an impact on battery degradation.
“If you’re in a hot climate and the car is stored on top of black top (bitumen) in the sun all day every day, heat really does age batteries,” says Najman.
She says parking a car in a garage can keep temperatures down and reduce long-term battery degradation.
Consistent fast charging can take its toll on battery health too, explains the CSIRO’s Kate Cavanagh.
“Fast charging, even though it’s quicker, has a higher current going into the battery, which heats it up,” she says. “The hotter the battery, the faster it’ll degrade the chemistry.”
Najman adds that in moving electrons “there are micro fractures and stress in the battery material”.
“When everything is moved more forcefully, you often get slightly more stress and slightly larger cracks. With higher current, or more heat, it can be a faster reaction.”
That’s why car makers recommend slower charging for most applications, something Cavanagh reinforces will work fine for most EV drivers.
Telematics company Geotab updated its long-running battery analysis in January 2026, which indicated EVs that leaned heavily on DC fast charging above 100kW degraded at up to 3 per cent a year, roughly double the 1.5 per cent of cars that mostly used AC or lower-power charging.
But Australian data suggests the gap may be narrower, at least on modern cars. Pickles tested a sample of more than 800 used EVs, comparing those that had used DC fast charging less than 10 per cent of the time to those where it was used almost all the time. The difference in battery health was only 2 per cent.
Drivers are also warned against taking their EV battery down to zero because of potential damage.
Tesla warns that fully discharging a battery “may result in damage to vehicle components” (it has a low power mode that turns off some features at lower states of charge) and other manufacturers have also built in warnings and measures to reduce the chances of a completely flat battery, including temporarily reducing the top speed or the effectiveness of the air conditioning.
Geotab’s data suggests occasional trips to zero or 100 per cent charge aren’t the problem, though. It found no meaningful penalty for regularly using a wide chunk of the battery – degradation only picked up when cars spent more than 80 per cent of the time sitting at very high or very low states of charge.
In other words, it’s how the car is left parked that counts, not the occasional charge to 100 per cent before a long drive.
A common mistake is leaving an EV in long-term airport parking with a low charge remaining before heading away on holiday. Because EV batteries continue to lose a small amount of charge over time, drivers can return to find the battery flat.
Dyer agrees that very frequent DC fast charging, exposure to extremes of temperature, frequent deep discharge and consistently operating at very high or very low states of charge can all put added stress on a battery, as can high loads and sustained high-speed driving,
“However, it is important not to over-simplify this,” he says. “Modern EVs have sophisticated battery management and thermal management systems specifically designed to protect the battery. As a result, we cannot accurately determine the health of an individual battery simply by looking at how the vehicle has been driven or charged.”
EV owners can refer to their manual for advice on the best care practices for their car.
EV batteries are designed to be charged and discharged thousands of times.
Each time you do that, it places minor wear and tear on the cells inside the battery pack. And while there are many factors at play, battery life is, to some extent, related to how many charging and discharging cycles a battery undergoes.
In a basic consumer item, a battery may last a few hundred cycles, possibly longer. While it’ll still function beyond that, it will likely hold less energy than it did originally.
In an EV, if it were able to last a few thousand cycles – as most are – then the battery could theoretically cover something like 1.5 million kilometres.
By that stage, the rest of the car is likely to have fallen apart around it.
Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are expected to endure thousands of cycles, with some estimates closer to 10,000.
And battery technology is improving; some newer models have bigger buffers at the very top and bottom states of charge, which can have an impact on degradation and temperature control systems continue to advance.
“Some of the newer models seem to have a lot of the initial degradation already factored out by the time they’re placed in cars,” says Najman.
Some basic maths shows the battery is unlikely to be the issue when we’re talking about an EV’s lifespan.
But even if you don’t drive (and therefore charge) your EV much, there will still be degradation of the battery.
“Batteries age regardless of whether or not they’re used – that that clock is ticking,” says Najman.
Establishing what condition a battery is in used to mean asking the dealership for a health check.
Even then, different brands could have different tests, so comparing makes and models wasn’t always apples-versus-apples.
In most cars, the figure is inside the vehicle’s computer (the Nissan Leaf is the rare exception, with a battery health gauge in the instrument cluster), but not generally accessible by the owner or driver.
But it is now much easier to get information on batteries, with a healthy independent testing industry in Australia.
WA is reasonably well covered, with tests available through various dealers and the RAC.
The wholesale end moved first. Manheim began offering battery health certificates to sellers consigning used EVs to its auction lanes in late 2025, while rival Pickles now tests every EV that passes through, with most vendors choosing to publish the certificate on the listing.
RAC’s EV battery health check, which uses Moba technology and is available at its ten auto services centres or via a mobile technician the Perth metro area, costs $175 for members and $200 for non-members, and produces a certificate covering state of health, usable capacity and estimated remaining range.
Dealers are also increasingly using testing results as a selling tool, with some now displaying the certificate with the car on their lot.
Battery longevity has long been one of the big concerns people had with EVs.
The data says it shouldn't be. And if you want real peace of mind, there are now ways to get it.
“Ultimately, we believe battery health should become a normal part of a comprehensive used-EV inspection, just as checking the mechanical condition, service history and roadworthiness of a vehicle is today,” says Dyer.
“The more transparent we can make battery condition, the greater the confidence consumers will have in the second-hand EV market.”
Last updated October 2026. First published March 2024.
