The sales curve of electric cars is increasing rapidly. Especially the advantages given on the campaign side have increased the interest in electric cars. But people are very afraid. First, is the range sufficient? Second, what if this battery dies? There are very serious concerns about battery life. There are beliefs that this can cause very serious expenses. However, this may not be the case. In fact, new research shows that the battery life of electric cars can provide a longer total vehicle life than fossil fuel vehicles. A great article was published in Wired magazine. There is great data and research in that article. I would like to share them with you. The fact that electric vehicle batteries, which are believed to have a shorter life compared to internal combustion engines, have a much longer life than expected surprises even car manufacturers. As you know, electric vehicles lose a lot of value when they are used in the second hand. The main fear behind this is whether the battery will cause me trouble. But when we look at the data, maybe there is an opportunity here. There has been a lot of news about this in recent years, there are many posts on social media.

And of course, there are some studies, whose financing I do not know, that criticize electric cars and say that the life of the batteries is limited. However, the concrete evidence is not in this direction, on the contrary, the vast majority of electric car manufacturers offer 8-year warranties and say that at the end of 8 years, the battery quality of your vehicle will maintain itself at 70%. However, data collected from real vehicles shows that at the end of 8 years, the battery capacity of the vehicles is much more than 70%. In fact, this evidence says that these batteries can even last 20 years, and even for a fossil fuel vehicle, 20 years is quite ambitious. As you know, engine problems can also occur in these types of vehicles. Therefore, it is potentially possible for fully electric vehicles to be more durable than fossil fuel vehicles and even provide a longer service life. According to the news in Wired magazine, James Wallace, co-founder of Fortescue's battery intelligence division Elysia, says that there is a huge amount of consumer concern about the condition of the battery you buy in a second-hand vehicle. But this concern does not have an equivalent in real life.

According to Wallace, people base their assumptions about batteries on their experiences with existing technologies, namely mobile phones. As you know, battery life is always a problem in mobile phones and as the device ages, the battery life really shortens. Some brands even have big scandals about this. It was even revealed that special software was used to wear out the battery. Now, I won't mention the brand here, let's not get into trouble. But everyone who uses a mobile phone knows that the battery life of the phone seriously shortens after a certain point. Since what we see here and experience here is the assumption that we will experience a similar technology in cars, it occupies people's minds. However, research shows that electric vehicle batteries are much more durable than smartphones and there is serious data behind this. Therefore, we should never confuse the battery problem in mobile phones with the battery life in cars. We need to get rid of that misperception. If you ask why, the first reason is that even if the technology is exactly the same, you do not charge your electric vehicle as often as you charge your phone. These vehicles usually get by with one or two charges per week. As you know, the frequency of charging directly affects the battery life negatively. Cars are very advantageous compared to mobile phones in this respect, we charge our mobile phones every day. This has a positive effect on the battery of electric cars.

The consultancy firm P3 Australia and battery testing specialist Avilo analyzed approximately 7000 fleet electric vehicles. In other words, they analyzed 7000 vehicles used intensively in corporate fleets. The report they prepared shows that on average, the batteries of electric vehicles have 90% capacity after 100,000 km of driving. They reach 300,000 km and still have 87% of their original capacity, these are incredible numbers. Similarly, Geotab, a company that measures the efficiency of fleets, also has data. It also reveals that the depletion and end-of-life of batteries is much lower than initially thought. The two studies have different approaches. The P3 study looks at electric vehicles between 3 and 5 years old, and the basic idea there is to look at the mileage. Geotab, on the other hand, looks at the age of the vehicle. In this way, we look at both how long the battery has been used. And how many kilometers it has been used.

This is not the first time Geotab has done this research. The company's director Charlotte Argue says that we did a similar study in 2019. We recently updated that study. Our most recent study included 11 different models and brands. Our 2019 study included 23 different vehicles, and of course there were older generation vehicles as well. Argue says that with the method we use, we can estimate the total battery capacity of a vehicle at any given time throughout its life. However, estimate is an important word here. We will come back to this in a moment. When we collect data regularly, we can create graphs over time. This shows us how much the battery capacity has changed and we can understand the trend. In our most recent study, we examined more than 5,000 vehicles and a large number of journeys. The data that emerged as a result of the study is really interesting.

They revealed that on average, batteries lose only 1.8% of their capacity in a year. In the 2019 study, this figure was 2.3%. Of course, technologies have changed in the meantime. The new generation of electric cars has started to come into play. Both battery technologies and energy usage technologies have changed. As a result, efficiency has increased even more. In other words, when you buy a new electric car and use it for a year, only 1.8% of the battery is lost, in older cars this rate is slightly higher, 2.3%. Argue says the same thing anyway. In this latest study, there were not many early generation vehicles in the inventory, there were newer vehicles. This shows us that battery management systems are getting better and batteries are becoming longer lasting, he says. If this 1.8% annual growth rate had continued linearly, we don't know of course, because some say that the battery degradation rate may accelerate as the vehicle ages, but we don't know that yet. But what we see now is that if the 1.8% degradation rate continues, an electric vehicle would still retain 82% of its battery capacity after 10 years.

If the 1.8% depreciation continues linearly, you will still have a battery range of 64% after 20 years. There will only be that much reduction from the original range. In other words, the 300-400 km WLTP range vehicles that are widely used today will have a range of 192 miles, or roughly 300 kilometers, at the end of 20 years. This is quite an acceptable figure. Because remember, these vehicles are more enjoyable to use, easier, much lower in cost, and have lower maintenance costs. Energy costs are much lower in most countries. If you are lucky, if you charge them at home, the usage experience is also simpler. On top of all this, there is a battery that is quite durable for 20 years. Of course, these are estimates, because there are not many electric vehicles that have completed 20 years in the mainstream. In other words, there are some electric vehicles from 20 years ago, but there are not many of them. This process has accelerated in the last 5-10 years with the entry of Tesla and the Chinese. Therefore, these data can be viewed with some reservations, but the available data still show that wear is much lower than expected.

One of the vehicles included in the research in 2019 is the Nissan Leaf. They do not have the thermal systems used today, they do not have heat pumps. In other words, they are very old technology vehicles. Since the technology of today's vehicles is better, my guess is that this battery wear will continue to decrease. There is an interesting data here from BMW. As you know, BMW had an i3, it was a bit like this ugly electric. But it was one of the first fully electric vehicles to hit the market. When you look at these electric vehicles, BMW found that the battery capacity of BMW i3s from 10 years ago was still more than 80%. They were surprised by this. BMW is conducting its own studies on this issue and in the interview they gave to Wired, they confirmed that the i3 batteries have a much longer life than the company expected. In 2023, BMW purchased the oldest i3s it could find in the approved, used network of the company for testing and when you look at the 2013s equipped with 22.6 kWh batteries selected completely according to their age, BMW found that the battery capacity of these vehicles, which have been on the road for almost 10 years, is still at 83%.

There are similar results for Tesla. According to the results of Plugin America, reported by another research firm Nimble Fix, this is also a report that 2013 model Tesla Model S vehicles also show a similar capacity. In fact, there are vehicles in Tesla's UK press fleet that have traveled more than 250,000 miles with the same battery and still maintain 86% of their battery capacity. On the other hand, Argue and his team, who manage these studies, say that it is still useful to be cautious because these are estimates. The wear seems to be 1.8% per year. But as the life of the vehicle increases, the wear may suddenly accelerate. Of course, this is also a possibility. They say that they have not had the chance to test these possibilities yet. But when we look at 10-year-old Tesla Model S and BMW i3s, I am sure that the results will not change much. Because the batteries used in both Tesla Model S and BMW i3s are quite old technologies. I am sure that the new technologies that replace them will not have a shorter life. In other words, maybe we should not be afraid of buying a second-hand electric vehicle. The results at least show this.

It is possible to get a very reasonable range of up to 20 years in a vehicle that you get 0 kilometers, and most of us do not use our vehicles for 20 years anyway. So how much will the battery of these vehicles cost if it is changed? That will be the subject of another article. However, let's immediately destroy a misconception there. We do not throw these batteries away. These batteries are reused. There is also a lot of infrastructure development in this regard. I have been claiming for a long time that electric cars will definitely beat fossil vehicles. Because their energy usage efficiency is 4 times or 5 times higher than fossil fuels. Now, these wrong assumptions, stories, urban legends, and provocations of social media influencers about batteries will also gradually disappear, you will see in time. Because many people have started using electric cars and we are aware that a large part of what is being told is not true. Therefore, it is certain that electric cars will win the game.

Of course, there are important developments in the range side here. With the new technologies, especially those coming from China, the ranges are getting longer. They are moving towards vehicles with a range of 1100 km. Both the battery charging times are significantly accelerating and more charging stations are being installed. I think all of these will eliminate concerns about electric cars. On the other hand, if you have an electric car and want your battery to last a little longer, there are some things you need to do. Research shows that in very hot climates, car batteries have a slightly shorter lifespan. So if you live in a very hot place, you may not be able to achieve the battery lifespan I just mentioned. It is known that instead of 1.8%, annual wear there goes up to 4-5%. This is a problem if you charge your car very often. If you charge your car quickly with fast chargers, that is, DC chargers, these also negatively affect its lifespan and the data shows us this. While the battery wear life is 5% in vehicles used in hot climates, charged very frequently and DC chargers more frequently, in the best cases, that is, when AC chargers are used a lot and the vehicle is charged at reasonable intervals, wear can drop to 1% per year.

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