Batteries dead after 5 years
Discussion
The upshot is that batteries and battery management systems are not born equal and I’m sure manufacturers are getting better at it.
Having met a good few Leaf owners at chargers, it seems they lose battery capacity fairly dramatically as they age. It could be that older Leaf’s also have a poorer design that causes this to happen.
On most EV’s you can tell the battery capacity without OBD. Ambient temp has an impact so need to compare like with like.
Having met a good few Leaf owners at chargers, it seems they lose battery capacity fairly dramatically as they age. It could be that older Leaf’s also have a poorer design that causes this to happen.
On most EV’s you can tell the battery capacity without OBD. Ambient temp has an impact so need to compare like with like.
The leaf is at 26k miles and still showing 12 bars of battery. I’ll let you know in a couple of years.
Merc at 60k miles and appears to have most of the horses left.
Elise at 50k and the engine sounds like a rattley bag of spammers. But I think a k series sounded like that new.
Merc at 60k miles and appears to have most of the horses left.
Elise at 50k and the engine sounds like a rattley bag of spammers. But I think a k series sounded like that new.
REALIST123 said:
Maybe never actually did happen. Almost impossible to do unless you mistakenly change into a lower gear when accelerating. In any case it’s hardly a weakness to be attributed to the vehicle.
Quite common on the 7th gen Celicas with the 2ZZ-GE and 6 speed box. Particually in the states as some of them were driven by youngsters with little experience of a manual box. gangzoom said:
Jaguar are telling owners charging to 100% everyday is fine for pack life, which is utter BS, but does Jaguar really care? Once the warrant period is over they are looking for any excuse for customers to trade in.
Don't confuse what the OEM tells the customer is 100% SOC with true state of charge.BMS strategies are not trivial things, but key parameters aside from pack life and safety are to ensure consistent performance for the customer. A common (e.g. Tesla) strategy is to not utilise all the available energy within the pack when new, but dynamically alter this as the pack ages. So your "85kWh" rated pack may actually start off at 95kWh available energy, but you never touch 10kWh of it. Then as it ages and becomes an 88kWh pack through degradation you start leaving only 3kWh in reserve. Net effect is the customer is happy that they still have 85kWh and a healthy battery, but the story in the electro-chemistry is different. (Numbers are made up to illustrate the point.)
Clearly with cells still being expensive and heavy, the OEMs are all working very hard to characterise pack aging and ensure that they're not carrying around too much additional capacity as their anti-aging insurance policy. One of the big challenges with this at the moment, is that accelerated durability/aging tests on batteries don't have lots of real-life market data to correlate their approach against. e.g. Nissan's own tests suggested that doing lots of mileage and rapid charging would be hugely detrimental to the packs (hence rapid charging warranty limitations on early cars), but in practice this seemed to be unfounded. On the other hand, it seems that their predictions for thermal impact on aging weren't conservative enough if the hot market data on Gen1 cars is anything to go by - or maybe they knew this all along and took a calculated risk.
RizzoTheRat said:
Someone posted a link to a tesla owners group database on battery data some time back. Interestingly cars that had mainly used tesla rapid charger network seemed to show less battery degradation than average2[/footnote]
Tesla is now actively limiting how much peak energy can be delivered at SC sites, especially for 90kWh packs. Equally as faster rapid chargers are rolled out, 175KW+, we really have no idea how delivering that much energy into a pack over a sustained period affects degradation. Infact ALL Tesla battery packs now have a built in rapid charger 'counter', once you rapid charge the car over that limit the battery pack will throttle the rate of at which it can accept power to reduce the affect of degradation.amstrange1 said:
One of the big challenges with this at the moment, is that accelerated durability/aging tests on batteries don't have lots of real-life market data to correlate their approach against.
Really interesting to see how the 'newer' EVs been sold last 12 months manage degradation. As its pretty clear lab degradation tests really don't reflect real life much. All the Tesla data shows the original 85kWh packs were/are solid. Tesla than changed chemistry to reduce cost of production/increase cell density and the 90kWh packs were/are not great. Tesla than changed chemistry again to the current 75/100kWh packs which seem OK - but proper high millage data isn't out. As for Model 3, who knows, and again Tesla is hinting at changing cell chemistry to lower production costs....
We also know the 'newer' 3.0 battery pack upgrade Tesla developed for the original roadster has worse degradation of all. So clearly with battery chemistry newer tech doesn't = better tech, which makes sense, as the primary driver now for battery development is lowering costs with cheaper materials/manufacturing, rather than increasing battery density. I think if you have a original Tesla 85 pack your sitting pretty, there is no guarantee the Model 3 pack will have any where near the same longevity, I doubt it will be 'Batteries dead after 5 years' headline the OP is suggesting, but it may not be as good as what current historical data suggest.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/3-0-batter...
https://insideevs.com/tesla-improving-design-of-ba...
Edited by gangzoom on Wednesday 14th November 11:28
The thing is that there is so much hearsay about this stuff and I haven't really seen definitive data one way or another. The manufacturers are not really doing much to alleviate any fear around battery degradation either. They probably think it's best not to talk about it so customers will assume batteries live forever...
I got the impression that the spare capacity left over is there for a technical reason. As in, it's bad for the batteries to be fully discharged and with spare capacity it's easier to shift "stuff" around as part of the battery management. And maybe it's partially marketing to make me think the battery is a ok.
I got the impression that the spare capacity left over is there for a technical reason. As in, it's bad for the batteries to be fully discharged and with spare capacity it's easier to shift "stuff" around as part of the battery management. And maybe it's partially marketing to make me think the battery is a ok.
Max_Torque said:
Also, the original points are rubbish. Go look round a current scrap yard/breakers. You'll see this:
wall to wall cars that look almost perfect (no rust) but are effectively worthless because the mechanical bits have worn out, and because of that, even a small, relatively easy and cheap to fixed fault leads to the car getting scrapped. A modern ICE has a design life of 10 years and 150Kmiles typically, beyond that, you are on borrowed time. To say "engines almost never fail" is not only un-true is completely contrary to all the evidence. In the vast majority of cases, an ICE with 200k on the clock is, literally, worthless, because it's knackered. Sure it might run and drive, but what comes out the tailpipe and well it drives will be very very seriously degraded compared to a similar car on say 60kmiles.
And that complete engine rebuild for £3k. It's only that cheap because a network of aftermarket specalists has grown up to support that need (BTW if engines "never fail" why is their a network of aftermarket specalists who repair them???) As EVs become more common, guess what, a lot of those specalists that currently rebuild engines (generally very, very badly) are going to start repairing batteries (which are a lot simpler to work on btw, with pretty much zero moving parts and zero tightly tolleranced mechanical parts)
For some reason, people latch onto the fact that batteries wear out as you use them, but seem completely blind to the fact that an ICE also wears out EVERY TIME YOU USE IT..........
You are correct, Every car in that picture has a blown engine....wall to wall cars that look almost perfect (no rust) but are effectively worthless because the mechanical bits have worn out, and because of that, even a small, relatively easy and cheap to fixed fault leads to the car getting scrapped. A modern ICE has a design life of 10 years and 150Kmiles typically, beyond that, you are on borrowed time. To say "engines almost never fail" is not only un-true is completely contrary to all the evidence. In the vast majority of cases, an ICE with 200k on the clock is, literally, worthless, because it's knackered. Sure it might run and drive, but what comes out the tailpipe and well it drives will be very very seriously degraded compared to a similar car on say 60kmiles.
And that complete engine rebuild for £3k. It's only that cheap because a network of aftermarket specalists has grown up to support that need (BTW if engines "never fail" why is their a network of aftermarket specalists who repair them???) As EVs become more common, guess what, a lot of those specalists that currently rebuild engines (generally very, very badly) are going to start repairing batteries (which are a lot simpler to work on btw, with pretty much zero moving parts and zero tightly tolleranced mechanical parts)
For some reason, people latch onto the fact that batteries wear out as you use them, but seem completely blind to the fact that an ICE also wears out EVERY TIME YOU USE IT..........
Don't be silly. Cars get scrapped for hundreds of reasons, The engine blowing is rarely the big one. It is a consequence of 2nd hand cars being too cheap, a complete suspension refresh on a 10 year old car could cost £1000 and when that represents a 3rd of the value and it also needs tyres, a full service, MOT and is lacking a lot of new toys and safety features, A lot of people choose to just scrap them.
These same parts wear out on an electric car too. A 10 year old leaf with a replacement battery but with knackered suspension, brakes and drive unit would be on that pile too. It's battery would make it into another car but you can also move the ICE out of a good scrapper and put is into a good car with a knackered engine to keep it going.
Watch Rich Rebuilds series on the Tesla and you will have a very good impression of what Tesla think of people trying to rebuild the batteries. Also, tell me that is easier than say, replacing a cylinder head. He severely damaged his battery because he couldn't exactly, perfectly line up the battery pack with the car.
Disclaimer - I love the idea of electric cars and would have one as a daily in a heartbeat (I would still have an ICE fun car for weekends), I am just not aboard the "EV's are perfect, LI-IONS are perfect and they can do no wrong" hypetrain that is doing more harm than good.
DMZ said:
The thing is that there is so much hearsay about this stuff and I haven't really seen definitive data one way or another.
There is real life data from Tesla owners. Its a pretty good Google Doc document thats updated regularly, you can even do a regression plot on it but the R value is pretty rubbish.http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/3597...
gangzoom said:
Tesla is now actively limiting how much peak energy can be delivered at SC sites, especially for 90kWh packs. Equally as faster rapid chargers are rolled out, 175KW+, we really have no idea how delivering that much energy into a pack over a sustained period affects degradation. Infact ALL Tesla battery packs now have a built in rapid charger 'counter', once you rapid charge the car over that limit the battery pack will throttle the rate of at which it can accept power to reduce the affect of degradation.
Where did you get this from? My first 90D did 30k in a year with plenty of supercharging and my current P90DL is on 22k miles and was pulling 110kw earlier this week. Tesla do stuff and then reverse it quickly when they’re called out for it. Tesla fixed the degradation issue by the 3rd iteration of that battery and released more power too. Edited by Heres Johnny on Wednesday 14th November 19:30
Coolbanana said:
It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the change that is coming. 
Car ownership is changing too. You are expecting the purchase and ownership of new cars that can be run for decades and the purchase of older cars to continue to be a normality but actually owning cars will be the preserve of the very few in years to come. Leasing cars will become the norm with cars older than 3-5 years getting recycled.
The Future is not just about changing from ICE to EV and other alternative propulsion methods but also about car ownership itself and how we commute and travel. Autonomous vehicles you do not own, only call upon, vehicles you lease for set periods from days, weeks, months to a couple of years...long term use will die. Old cars on the roads will become a thing of the past.
Travel by car will be a monthly expense similar to a mobile phone contract. You won't actually own a car. Simply pay for the use of one.
I may very well be outing myself as a dinosaur here (at the terribly advanced age of 35), but this sounds horrendous to me. It strikes me as a road towards lack of choice, lack of freedom and a definite move towards banality and lack of excitement in transport. Car ownership is changing too. You are expecting the purchase and ownership of new cars that can be run for decades and the purchase of older cars to continue to be a normality but actually owning cars will be the preserve of the very few in years to come. Leasing cars will become the norm with cars older than 3-5 years getting recycled.
The Future is not just about changing from ICE to EV and other alternative propulsion methods but also about car ownership itself and how we commute and travel. Autonomous vehicles you do not own, only call upon, vehicles you lease for set periods from days, weeks, months to a couple of years...long term use will die. Old cars on the roads will become a thing of the past.
Travel by car will be a monthly expense similar to a mobile phone contract. You won't actually own a car. Simply pay for the use of one.
A horde of autonomous, grey, blob shaped transport 'units' that we simply 'use'. I'm convinced that once self driving tech is well established, the move towards humans not being allowed to operate cars themselves will be very close (a generation or less) behind. If this doesn't concern you, I would suggest that you are perhaps on the wrong website.
Neither am I convinced of the environmental credentials of a national fleet of cars that only last 3 to 5 years before being defunct and in need of 'recycling'. Have you any idea of the amount of energy consumed and CO2 emitted in the production of a car and massive lithium ion cell battery?
I am by no means against electric cars. The prospect of an equivalent 50+ mpg with massive power and torque is VERY tantalizing! But... without huge revolutions ininfrastructure and battery technology, they are not the panacea that many anticipate.
Max_Torque said:
A modern ICE has a design life of 10 years and 150Kmiles typically, beyond that, you are on borrowed time. To say "engines almost never fail" is not only un-true is completely contrary to all the evidence. In the vast majority of cases, an ICE with 200k on the clock is, literally, worthless, because it's knackered. Sure it might run and drive, but what comes out the tailpipe and well it drives will be very very seriously degraded compared to a similar car on say 60kmiles.
Utter rubbish! Cars (normal cars) are built so well these days - 150k is nothing on a modern machine, I really think you would be surprised with the amount of cars on the roads that are way above that mileage and age all running fine and being maintained prefusly.It's common knowledge a diesel engine isn't run in properly till at least 90/100k.
Their cheap because the market dictates they be cheap, or no one would ever buy new.
Edited by DailyHack on Wednesday 14th November 19:52
Not being able to drive your own car yourself is a very very long way off if at all.
Perhaps in cities by 2040's or something
Its also going to be easy to make an EV last a million kilometers (for commercial,ride share use etc) . Solid state batteries will be in production in 5-10 years and solve most of the issues with current battery tech on that front.
This will all replace the boring ICE cars we have on the roads today 85% of cars are dull bland utility boxes already.
And Ev doesnt have to mean boring there are plenty of fun EVs.
Perhaps in cities by 2040's or something
Its also going to be easy to make an EV last a million kilometers (for commercial,ride share use etc) . Solid state batteries will be in production in 5-10 years and solve most of the issues with current battery tech on that front.
This will all replace the boring ICE cars we have on the roads today 85% of cars are dull bland utility boxes already.
And Ev doesnt have to mean boring there are plenty of fun EVs.
Witchfinder said:
Battery manufacturing will increase in the next couple of years, to the point where supply will outstrip demand. This will massively reduce the price of batteries.
The next couple of years? I do hope you’re right, but..........I remember people on here predicting we’d all be in EVs bring driven around by autonomous cars in just a few year time. Just a few years ago.
RobDickinson said:
This will all replace the boring ICE cars we have on the roads today 85% of cars are dull bland utility boxes already.
I don't think this is entirely true though - admittedly cars are getting more homogenous, but a manual runabout can still be a fun thing to use as it requires a bit of skill to learn the car and get the best from it. It's electric equivalent will invariably be rather bland and characterless. Does an i3 drive much differently from a leaf?I was just discussing buying an electric car with my wife, and her concern is if the unpredictable happens. You can't simply pop into a petrol station and carry on - you have to stop and carefully plan if a journey is possible and factor in a potential detour and a lengthy stop.... I still think range anxiety will keep the majority shy of using electric cars.
RobDickinson said:
And Ev doesnt have to mean boring there are plenty of fun EVs.
Ummm, which are those...?Edited by NDNDNDND on Wednesday 14th November 20:12
Edited by NDNDNDND on Wednesday 14th November 20:13
DMZ said:
I got the impression that the spare capacity left over is there for a technical reason. As in, it's bad for the batteries to be fully discharged and with spare capacity it's easier to shift "stuff" around as part of the battery management. And maybe it's partially marketing to make me think the battery is a ok.
You're right, there are lots of reasons, managing performance/range over lifetime as I mentioned is just one of the considerations. You're right in that fully charging and fully discharging most chemistries can accelerate aging too, so that is also a consideration. As is leaving headroom for cell balancing activities, regen braking etc. The strategy I described is quite logical too, if the OEM knows they can get to the end of the warranty period without having pushed the min/max limits and accelerated aging too much, it then allows them to push things harder to deliver consistent performance on an aged pack post-warranty - even if it means that a 10 year old battery then ages more rapidly as a result!DailyHack said:
Max_Torque said:
A modern ICE has a design life of 10 years and 150Kmiles typically, beyond that, you are on borrowed time. To say "engines almost never fail" is not only un-true is completely contrary to all the evidence. In the vast majority of cases, an ICE with 200k on the clock is, literally, worthless, because it's knackered. Sure it might run and drive, but what comes out the tailpipe and well it drives will be very very seriously degraded compared to a similar car on say 60kmiles.
Utter rubbish! Cars (normal cars) are built so well these days - 150k is nothing on a modern machineThat means designing things so that most of the cars are still working just fine if "normally" cared for and "normally" driven for those 150k miles. The definition of "normal" is a fairly low bar, therefore with good maintenance and sympathetic use a car will easily exceed that in reality. Of course there will be a few outliers that fail under warranty, or only make it to 100k because they've been abused and unloved, but by and large a significant majority will still be going long after 150k. It wasn't that long ago that OEMs would be asking suppliers for 10 year/100k design life, but 150k is typical these days. With people focusing on autonomy and mobility-as-a-service applications requests for design lives of several hundred thousand miles are not uncommon for certain applications.
NDNDNDND said:
Ummm, which are those...?
EV wests m3...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6H4ihxoRA
Or their track car..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8bV8SKeQOo
Or offroader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJVtGmEUOpQ
Or the EV etype
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrHdbWdW5TE
Or evie
https://www.mercury.co.nz/Evie
Or 911 conversion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJLdzRJdKrs
Fun commercial/ass produced evs are more limited for now because they are concentrating on the more average cars but even then they all still have good instant torque etc
otherwise Honda have a couple of fun things coming
Heres Johnny said:
Where did you get this from? My first 90D did 30k in a year with plenty of supercharging and my current P90DL is on 22k miles and was pulling 110kw earlier this week.
Its been common knowldge for at least 12 months, all current 75/100 packs have an internal DC charger counter. Once you hit the limit than Supercharging speeds are limited, DC charging includes using CHADAMO adaptor on Ecotricity chargers.As far as I know even master Tesla hacker WK over at TMC hasn't been able to bypass the counter once ifs triggered.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/09/tesla-limitin...
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