Photo: Tesla
Owning an electric vehicle in today’s world is still a risky proposition, mainly because of the widespread lack of charging stations. Summed-up in the so-called range-anxiety, this fear is doubled by the fact that, at one point, the battery on the electric car might succumb to its continuous use.
There are currently two electric carmakers that lead the way in the industry: Nissan and Tesla. And enough time has passed since the market introduction of their EVs to allow owners to get a better idea on what the life expectancy of the batteries is and other useful details.
There is no official information available on this aspect, but European owners of Tesla cars in Belgium and the Netherlands have already begun pooling data and reaching some surprising conclusions.
According to Engadget, citing the results of a survey conducted by Tesla Motors Club, the batteries on the two existing Tesla models (S and X) perform much better than anticipated.
There are currently over 1,040 (and the count increases daily) entries in the Google Doc document where owners share their data.
The average mileage for the participants in the survey is 385 km on a single charge (240 miles), after an average of 54,000 km (33,500 miles) of operation. That’s a drop of under five percent compared to the battery perfomance when new.
Of all the people posting information on the platform, only a little over 250 needed a battery replacement for their Tesla. There is usually one reason behind the need to replace them: the batteries didn’t charge.
Owners have requested a battery change when the odometer on their cars showed on average under 30,000 km (18,600 miles), with only one owner saying the battery needed replacing after 77,000 km (47,800 miles).
Another surprising finding is that no one really charges the batteries to 100 percent. The most common response is that full-capacity charging takes place twice a month, but there are some who have never done so.
At the opposite end, almost none of European Tesla owners report dropping under 8 km range on their batteries (5 miles).
There is no official information available on this aspect, but European owners of Tesla cars in Belgium and the Netherlands have already begun pooling data and reaching some surprising conclusions.
According to Engadget, citing the results of a survey conducted by Tesla Motors Club, the batteries on the two existing Tesla models (S and X) perform much better than anticipated.
There are currently over 1,040 (and the count increases daily) entries in the Google Doc document where owners share their data.
The average mileage for the participants in the survey is 385 km on a single charge (240 miles), after an average of 54,000 km (33,500 miles) of operation. That’s a drop of under five percent compared to the battery perfomance when new.
Of all the people posting information on the platform, only a little over 250 needed a battery replacement for their Tesla. There is usually one reason behind the need to replace them: the batteries didn’t charge.
Owners have requested a battery change when the odometer on their cars showed on average under 30,000 km (18,600 miles), with only one owner saying the battery needed replacing after 77,000 km (47,800 miles).
Another surprising finding is that no one really charges the batteries to 100 percent. The most common response is that full-capacity charging takes place twice a month, but there are some who have never done so.
At the opposite end, almost none of European Tesla owners report dropping under 8 km range on their batteries (5 miles).
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