Good News for Electric Car Owners: Modern EV Mileage Remains Stable After 5 Years

BMW iX3 Neue Klasse. (Photo: BMW)

JAKARTA - Concerns about electric vehicle (EV) batteries that quickly "soak" or lose mileage drastically as the vehicle ages seem to have been broken. A recent report revealed that the majority of modern electric vehicles are able to maintain their mileage capacity very well, even after five years of use.

Launching InsideEVs, Monday, April 27, is data from EV analytics firm Recurrent, which processes data from more than one billion real-world miles of travel, and the result is that the range endurance of today's battery-powered electric cars is impressive.

Based on the report, the average electric car currently still maintains 97 percent of its original mileage after three years of ownership. This figure only dropped slightly to 95 percent after five years on the road.

As a simple illustration:

New Car: 300 miles (482 km) traveled. After 3 Years: Still able to travel 291 miles (468 km). After 5 Years: Still able to travel 285 miles (458 km).

This mileage stability is not only the result of improved battery hardware technology, but also thanks to the ingenuity of automotive manufacturers in using software.

Car manufacturers now include a "buffer" or reserve capacity in the battery. Technically, manufacturers limit user access to the total battery capacity while the car is new. As time goes on and natural degradation of the battery cells occurs, the software system will slowly open the "reserve" to minimize the perception of a decrease in mileage in the eyes of consumers.

The problem of range anxiety has long been the biggest obstacle for prospective EV buyers. Although there are now many electric cars that offer a range of over 300 miles (even some premium models reach 500 miles), the question of long-term durability is always a stumbling block.

This latest data is expected to provide more confidence for consumers. Strong mileage retention is not only beneficial to the first owner, but also:

Maintaining the Resale Value: Used electric cars are no longer considered a high-risk asset. Reducing the Risk of the Used Market: Prospective buyers of used electric cars now have data proving that battery performance will not plunge. Equality with Gasoline Vehicles: Provide confidence that the quality of EVs is not inferior to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE) in the long run.

With ever-improving battery technology and increasingly smart software management, fears of batteries going bad quickly are slowly becoming a myth of the past.