No, You Won’t Need To Replace Your EV Battery

IrishEVs was created to provide Irish drivers with clearer, unbiased information about electric vehicles in the face of the Climate Crisis, so that our readers can make more informed decisions about living more sustainably. And saving money too.

A key part of this is tackling the common misconceptions and myths about EVs. While we have seen many of these, such as range anxiety, fall by the wayside, there are some that still persist.

A prominent myth which still seems to be putting people off buying an electric car is the fear that they will need to buy a replacement battery for it, which they believe will be an exorbitant cost.

Today we will prove why this is just a harmful myth, and that it is not a valid reason not to switch to an EV.

ICE vs EV

Firstly it is important to note that internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles – those run on petrol or diesel, including hybrids – have thousands of moving parts, which makes them incredibly prone to wear and tear. This means that they become less efficient over time, and require more oil to be drilled from the Earth to keep them in working order and economical for drivers to use.

Electric cars, on the other hand, only have a handful of moving parts. This means they require a lot less maintenance, lowering average running costs by around 78% per year compared to an ICE, but crucially it also means that they are less prone to faults.

This isn’t just theoretical numbers, the popularity of EVs as taxis – owing to their lower running and maintenance costs – means that we have good data from EVs which are each covering over 300,000 miles (482,800km) each year.

Furthermore, a report by Cartell.ie in 2020 found that the average car in Ireland changes ownership every 3.39 years. So not only will an electric vehicle last longer than a combustion engine one, but it will significantly exceed the length of time that you are likely to be driving it before selling it on to someone else.

As such, it is incredibly unlikely that you – or anyone else – will need to pay to replace the battery of your EV. This is a well-debunked myth.

How Long Do EV Batteries Last?

So, now that we understand that EV batteries are likely to last much longer than internal combustion engines, what kind of impact on range can we expect over an EV’s lifetime?

According to a 2019 study by Geotab, the average EV battery lost around 2.3% capacity per year. This means that an EV purchased with 300km range today will only have lost around 34km in range in five years’ time.

The same report also points out that the typical person switching from an internal combustion engine vehicle to an EV would save more than $4,700 (€4,100) in fuel savings during the first seven years of ownership.

Furthermore, it is a common misconception that an EV battery will just conk out and die one day, but this could not be further from the truth. The degradation is incredibly slow and gradual – and not prone to sudden failures as ICEs are.

In fact, the majority of manufacturers give between 5-10 years warranty of their batteries, or up to around 100,000kms. Some, like Hyundai even offer an 8 year or 200,000km warranty of their Kona Electric’s battery – that is how confident manufacturers are that you won’t need to replace a battery.

Even if, in the very rarest of occasions, an EV battery would need to be replaced –and this is unlikely within the life expectancy of most cars on Irish roads today – the cost of batteries has fallen by 89% since 2010. Meaning that a replacement would cost less than buying a used car.

Even then, depending on the type of car you own, you may only need to replace a section of the battery, rather than the whole thing. With manufacturers under increasing pressure to improve the sustainability of their vehicles, it is likely that batteries will be even more modular in the near future.

Furthermore, this is also important for lowering our dependence on fossil fuels as a society.

As this is less power-intense compared to rapid charging an EV and driving long distanced, batteries can be used to store renewable energy for decades or more. We can already see them in action in places like the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam, which uses 63 second-hand EV battery packs (alongside 85 new ones) to store energy from 4,200 solar panels to use for major events.

And staying between 20-80% charge will help too, as batteries are designed to discharge energy – so fitting fully charged for extended periods can reduce the battery’s capacity as a whole. This is the same as your smartphone – limiting to 80% charge will make it last much longer.

However, these aren’t essential actions – and will only make an impact over the long-term.

Forgetting to limit your charge to 80%, or fast charging on occasions isn’t going to have any major impact, in just the same way that you may have driven for a while in an ICE needing an oil change and it hasn’t failed on you.

Don’t Fall For Myths

So there we have it, electric car batteries are likely to far exceed the life expectancy of whole internal combustion engine vehicles, they won’t suddenly break like combustion engines, and they can still be useful in our homes to store renewable energy once retired.

We hope this has been a useful guide to help you understand that the fear that you will have to buy an EV battery is just a myth – and not a reason not to switch to an EV, and lower your carbon footprint.

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