Concerns about battery life are common among motorists when the subject of electric vehicle ownership is raised. In the context of Malaysian vehicle owners, eight years is an often-cited duration before the drive battery for the electric – or hybrid – vehicle is thought to be in need of replacing.
This is due to the traction battery warranty for hybrid and electric cars commonly being offered at around 8 years across many different manufacturers, hence the perception that after 8 years the battery will die.
Now, the Malaysian Electric Vehicle Owners Club (MyEVOC) has compiled data from owners of Renault Zoe EVs registered in 2014, denoting a period of operation that is in line with said duration of eight years, consisting of odometer and battery state-of-health (SOH) readings.
According to Shahrol Halmi of MyEVOC, the data was compiled by club member Zuhril Azhar as well as other owners of the Renault Zoe in Malaysia for the aforementioned collection of battery state-of-health information from percentage values drawn from each vehicle’s own battery management system.
Among the vehicles which were listed to be of the same registration year, odometer readings ranged from 3,509 km with a battery SOH of 97%, up to 67,681 km with a battery SOH of 92%. The numbering of the vehicles here are in ascending order of mileage.
Of these vehicles, a notable outlier is car #8 which records a battery state-of-health reading of 77%, whereas all other readings are upwards of 84%. Car #8 represents the upper end of mileage accrued among these cars at 55,576 km, though on that note, car #7 that has accrued 47,983 km on its odometer is shown to have a battery SOH reading of 98%.
According to Shahrol, the relatively low battery SOH reading of 77% for car #8 could be due to its battery management system software that has yet to be updated. There was another case where a Zoe showed a battery SOH of around 70% before a software update, but this number increased to over 90% after an update.
What do you think, dear readers? Do these findings by MyEVOC put your minds at ease regarding the longevity of EV batteries? If you have been on the fence on EV ownership due to factors such as this, might this help you make the jump? Let us know in the comments section.
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Well there is no software etc. which can prolong the battery degradation and lifespan which is what we learn from Apple’s iPhone trickling performance scandal.
Nothing beats physics which is why every battery consumer products is trying to get their hands on Solid State Battery.
Doesn’t prove anything with such low mileage even with the most used one is far lower than a typical daily driven car. What it does tell me is that these owners do not trust their EV enough to use them frequently except the weekend trips to pasar and golf course. That is a huge misfire from Renault Malaysia.
Use car#8 as good example.
Take out 2 years of MCO period.
Assuming no sudden-degrade of battery.
In 6years OR 10K/year OR 800km/month.
Hopefully by year-12 still got 70% health
Better than our phone-battery ???
Missing the actual range data
Apple Ipad iPhone lithium battery cannot tahan so long also
of course la the Battery SOH still high, when the car average mileage per year is very low compared to a normal ICE car in Malaysia.
If you add up all the odometer reading/mileage in the list then divide by the number of cars(10) then divide by the number of years(8), you will get ~4,700 km per year. Those cars in the list are rarely used.
In the Zoe’s defense, it is designed to be a city car with limited range so I dont see many owners driving far.
However, i do agree with your statement, try finding a 2014 used ICE car (with ori mileage) for sale, most of them are way past 130,000km by now and that’s being very modest.
Exactly. Try use it like our smartphone. Heavily use and charge it everyday. Guarantee battery depleting like crazy by year-4… Time for new phone? CAR? Battery?
not even match typical car that travel to works,
despite having 210km NEDC which ppl say it is sufficient for daily work.
could it be?
expensive electric bill?
boring 1 speed gearbox for 0-100 13.5s?
most ev even tesla use 1 speed gearbox la
Sure the reading is taken this year not 2015? lol
so typical, when got nothing to argue, accuse of lying. gaslighter.
Who would only drive <40000kms in 8 years?
That means on average, each year <5000kms? Or each day <14km?
if RM100k trade in lost in 8 years, for 40,000km
this is RM100,000/ 40,000km = RM2.50/km
better take Grab lah.
starting from RM1.10/km.
that means it’s just spare car only. the owner probably has several other cars that he used / prefer using it daily, rather than his zoe.
A BIG question!! Is our Power Infrastructure capable of handling the surge in power demand? I read somewhere that One EV Car during chare uses a equivalent of 25 home aircond power running simultaneously. The State of Californian in USA has impose some limit on the Homeowner charging their EV at home due to this.
No surprise with the low mileage. All these Zoe belong to Comos kot with their crappy business model.
yes, when more EV in use, more demand on power, govem will hike the electric price, pocket will be full in more faster way without doing anything.
yeah and TNB monopolize our home power current too. think again
Going through the data.
average of 8 years, even if minus 2 years of MCO COVID, none of these cars have even reached 100k km. The Highest is 67k km and with average of 35k km. Clearly these are cars bought by T20 and does not use them as their primary daily mode of transport. Daily use cars usually reach 100k km within 5 years of its life.
In short, these numbers means nothing to people that will need to use the car as their primary daily mode of transport.
the data is not sufficient to come out with any conclusion. If there is only 10 trial data for a vaccine, would you able to conclude anything out of it?
In my opinion, this article and this exercise is just another exercise/content that need to fit in somewhere.
From what I understand from the talk at Paul Tan EVX expo, the Engineer at Tenaga SwitchGear said you can preserve the lifespan of the battery with AC Home charger because it charges the battery steadily at 22kW rather than the rapid fast charger normally found at Petrol Station, that can charge up to 70kW, the faster it charges, the hotter the battery gets, and I suppose if done repeatedly it will degrade the battery faster. any EV users care to share this experience?
makes sense. this zoe model doesnt even support fast charger. only AC charging
For a much wider survey, I think people could also take a look at CANZE’s page. https://canze.fisch.lu/battery-health-status/
Confirmed i will be buying a phev as my next car. The one after that, probably around 2028 will be fully electric.
Car #1 only drive 3509km within 8 years…