How to check SoH

[Petzi]

Again - I don't mean to be snarky, I asked two CPO sales reps from Porsche and BMW about the market for used EVs and they both told me primary concern for buyers is battery health. They explain it was an issue with first EVs like Leaf but it's been fixed since and with brands like that it's not an issue. Still - customers ask for this and want to see some data. Both claim the market for used EVs is hard, lots of concerns and lack of interest. Perhaps it's different on other markets so make of it what you will.



Well, my conclusion from this thread it's hard to measure but when people report loosing 15-20% capacity after 3y and 30-60k kms I would argue it's a potential issue.

Perhaps it's just my take on this based on my use case - I frequently travel between a couple of major cities doing 30-40k km a year. EV is working for me because I can make just two stops to charge - one way each. BUT this is very close to using total battery capacity. Should it drop 20% I would have to make extra stops which TBH would complicate things beyond what's comfortable. After using an EV for some time I noticed these small charging stops are never "just for 5 mins" and they increase total driving time way more compared to ICE.

still do not understand your point. you have a new macan 4 with 7 year warranty on the battery. but you talk about taycans and bmws and what will be in 4 years. its like spinning to devalue your car. yes in 4 years you will get 50% of the purchase price. porsche offers exact this leasing option. (even 55%) so what is the problem?

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[vanjwilson]

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Well, literally the 3rd post in the above linked thread is a guy claiming 15% drop in a short timeframe.

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Since you cited my post, I'd like to clarify and correct your statement. (I assume you were mis-remembering the number I wrote.)

I said I had "less than 10% degradation". For the Tesla, most of that that actually occurred in the first year of driving, and I owned the car for almost 4 years.

I also put over 97,000 miles on it, the majority of which was highway driving.

I actually used a hobbyist site to track the Tesla superchargers I visited, and by the time I traded in the Tesla, I had charged at 678 unique fast charger locations. (I had fast-charged some small percentage more than that, because I did not track the occasional repeat visit, or the handful of times I used a CCS charger).

I understand your concern about battery degradation, and agree a savvy buyer should check that. However, I wouldn't have balked at buying a 4-year old, 100,000 mile EV with 10% degradation. From everything I've read, that seems about average.

One more related point:
I respect Bjorn's thorough testing, but when I look closely at the degradation percentages, I see that the cars with the highest degradation tend to be older, early-model EVs. Nissan Leafs had high degradation because their batteries were air-cooled to keep the cost down. VW eGolf's were also air-cooled; I owned one, and it wasn't the battery that killed it, but me letting my teenager drive it. (She got in a frame-bending fender bender that caused it to be written off.) Some of the others were legacy car makers first generation of EVs, like the Mercedes.

 

[Petzi]

@TomekGnomek : it makes no sense for me to participate in this thread. no matter what others write you just ignore it. and repeat your statements again. the topic of it got lost completely . so i am leaving..

 

[TomekGnomek]

Since you cited my post, I'd like to clarify and correct your statement. (I assume you were mis-remembering the number I wrote.)

I was not citing your post, but the thread that was linked above and in particular, Daniel saying about his Taycan - "85.6% 33000 km 3 years here (...) Porsche confirmed measurement":
https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/obd-to-track-battery-soh.17069/

He is not the only one with such figures which seem quite high to me and after reading posts like this I was just asking how to check this on Macan.

Have no idea how this simple question turned into the debate of why do I need this info, because there are studies and warranty and it shouldn't matter

 

[Petzi]

I was not citing your post, but the thread that was linked above and in particular, Daniel saying about his Taycan - "85.6% 33000 km 3 years here (...) Porsche confirmed measurement":
https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/obd-to-track-battery-soh.17069/

He is not the only one with such figures which seem quite high to me and after reading posts like this I was just asking how to check this on Macan.

Have no idea how this simple question turned into the debate of why do I need this info, because there are studies and warranty and it shouldn't matter

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/battery/usabc_manual_rev2.pdf

 

[seabird]

Again - I don't mean to be snarky, I asked two CPO sales reps from Porsche and BMW about the market for used EVs and they both told me primary concern for buyers is battery health. They explain it was an issue with first EVs like Leaf but it's been fixed since and with brands like that it's not an issue. Still - customers ask for this and want to see some data.

Right, but battery SoH is not standardized or meaningful, and is not a metric people who are afraid of EV longevity even know about. The data that is available is exactly what's researched about degradation, which is highly consistent across manufacturers, use cases, and battery configurations--batteries have an initial adjustment period in their first year and then degrade very little for the next decade.

The piece people are asking about is what is the maximum range of the car when used, which SoH does not adequately answer.

Well, my conclusion from this thread it's hard to measure but when people report loosing 15-20% capacity after 3y and 30-60k kms I would argue it's a potential issue.

Which is proving exactly why sharing SoH is not helpful. 15-20% capacity loss is over a full standard deviation above normal and even for a car that does experience that, does not equate to a 15-20% range loss.

Should it drop 20% I would have to make extra stops which TBH would complicate things beyond what's comfortable. After using an EV for some time I noticed these small charging stops are never "just for 5 mins" and they increase total driving time way more compared to ICE.

I agree, but there are so many more factors that go into this than permanent battery capacity and cell management. Temperature, driving style, elevation changes, weather conditions, tire pressure, load, traffic patterns, battery reserve, and so many other details affect this.

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