How to check SoH

[TomekGnomek]

Hi, is there a way to simply check SoH of the battery?

I asked the dealer and was informed this is complicated, requires leaving the car for 2 days for full discharge/charge procedure.

TBH I'm amazed how with all this EV adoption push there are no laws in EU/USA requiring car manufacturers to make this data easily available. This is crucial to the second market both for sellers and buyers.

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[ColdCase]

https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/obd-to-track-battery-soh.17069/

 

[vanjwilson]

I've used Recurrent's service to track battery health on 3 EVs over the last few years. It's too early to say how my Macan's battery will degrade, because I've had it less than 4 months, but the other 2 showed less than 10% degradation over the first 3 years, mostly in the first year, and then slowly leveled out.

(For context, I put 97,000 miles, mostly in road trips, on a Model Y in less than 4 years.)

 

[seabird]

This is crucial to the second market both for sellers and buyers.

Access to more information is always good and I'm all for it, but battery SoH is not "crucial". The data is really clear that it's not an area of concern. Batteries are outlasting the economic life of the cars themselves.

It'd be a helpful reassurance, but irrelevant to condition or value in 99.9% of transactions. It would also inevitably instigate a nightmare of people having meltdowns over 1% differences in potential range.

 

[TomekGnomek]

This is simply not true:
1) battery health is the first thing people ask for when buying a used EV, in particular people buying their first EV
2) the data is clear on the opposite - this could be an area of concern, look at degradation levels of different EVs tested by Bjorn, some are very significant and can depend on use cases (like constant DC charging in hot climate)



3) Taycan alone has many stories about battery issues and abnormal degradation, so Porsche does not have a good track record

I hope this is not the case as you say but hiding this data (or at least not making is simply available like Apple does with iPhone) does not inspire confidence

 

[CJ-4S]

Unfortunately it's not easy to accurately calculate SOH - even for Tesla who (despite many valid criticisms in other areas) have some of the best battery management going around.

Tesla also has a full discharge/recharge procedure if you want accurate battery health (similar to Porsche's method listed above). Without doing that, you will find the SOH fluctuates a fair bit (which isn't actually the SOH fluctuating, it's just the calculation based on the available data at the time). I had a Tesla for 5 years and constantly monitored battery/range, so I have seen this first hand.

Exposing this number to the general public would probably result in a number of complaints/service calls for something which is likely not a problem.

Edit: Despite the above, I would still like to see it

 

[SergeyIndy]

Simple on the Taycan. OBD/CarScanner. EDIT per @tmrqs : and now available on Macan EV. Data of interest is SoH and Cell graphs with Temp, SoC, and Voltage. Also, you can calculate your actual Battery energy in kWh so you know exactly how much usable battery capacity you have after everything has been taken out. Bad cells come forward after rebalance procedure.

 

[tmrqs]

Simple on the Taycan. OBD/CarScanner. Hope Macan EV supported soon. Data of interest is SoH and Cell graphs with Temp, SoC, and Voltage. Also, you can calculate your actual Battery energy in kWh so you know exactly how much usable battery capacity you have after everything has been taken out. Bad cells come forward after rebalance procedure.

It’s been supported for months.

 

[Petzi]

Hi, is there a way to simply check SoH of the battery?

I asked the dealer and was informed this is complicated, requires leaving the car for 2 days for full discharge/charge procedure.

TBH I'm amazed how with all this EV adoption push there are no laws in EU/USA requiring car manufacturers to make this data easily available. This is crucial to the second market both for sellers and buyers.

but porsche gives a 7(!) year transferable warranty on the battery. what is the problem?

 

[seabird]

1) battery health is the first thing people ask for when buying a used EV, in particular people buying their first EV

According to whom?

2) the data is clear on the opposite

It very much is not. This has been studied by chemical engineers and statisticians, not random bloggers, at volumes of tens of thousands of cars.

https://www.evconnect.com/blog/how-long-does-an-electric-car-battery-last
https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/

Any modern, water-cooled EV without a battery fault should have at least 80% of its factory capacity at the end of the 8-year+ warranty period.

3) Taycan alone has many stories about battery issues and abnormal degradation, so Porsche does not have a good track record

Based on?

 

[TomekGnomek]

According to whom?

Try to sell a used EV and you'll find out
Talked about this with a CPO sales guy.

Based on?

Well, literally the 3rd post in the above linked thread is a guy claiming 15% drop in a short timeframe.
On Taycan Forum there is a thread "High Rates of SoH degradation in Taycan" based on data from 50+ cars:
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/high-rates-of-soh-degradation-in-taycan.16373/

Look it up, lab tests do not reflect manufacturing issues (previous LG batteries had lots of problems) and specific use cases. The warranty states that possible degradation can lower the capacity to 80% and 70% which is a lot. And now let's see - the usable battery range for longer drives is 15-80%, let's say after 3-4 years it drops almost 20% and in winter time another 40% and... this car becomes a toy for occasional city driving. There is a reason why EVs deprecate a lot.

Also there one other issue - battery health depends on good software to manage this. And we all know Porsche is not good at it to put it mildly. My car has so many software issues I'm not confident it can manage battery health properly.

 

[seabird]

Try to sell a used EV and you'll find out

Sooooo...."trust me bro"
I'd be shocked if used EV buyers even knew what SoH is to ask about in the first place, let alone knew how to interpret the answer. EV enthusiasts don't even get it right most of the time.

On Taycan Forum there is a thread "High Rates of SoH degradation in Taycan" based on data from 50+ cars:
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/high-rates-of-soh-degradation-in-taycan.16373/

That thread discussion proves the point, concluding that there is no degradation issue or range loss, and that the SoH values don't have any significant meaning in the first place.

Look it up, lab tests do not reflect manufacturing issues (previous LG batteries had lots of problems) and specific use cases.

Look what up? These are not lab tests. These are test of vehicles on the road, across multiple manufacturers, models, and driving conditions.

The evidence is very, very clear that this isn't an actual concern. Here's a few more:
https://www.motortrend.com/features/ev-battery-lifespan-degradation-replacement-cost-study
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2...teries-may-last-up-to-40-longer-than-expected
https://insideevs.com/news/748501/ev-degradation-study-rsev/

Lots of handwaving around "problems" is not data. A certain number of batteries will go bad just like anything else mass produced. That's what warranties are for. Cars that have problems with their battery packs have not had an issue being discovered without anyone polling SoH

 

[Petzi]

i don't understand why people suddenly see problems with ev that didn't interest them at all with ice.
after 7 years and 150k kilometers, did my ice macan turbo still have the same performance, just as many hp, as when it was new? certainly not!
did it even once manage the 600km indicated after every fill-up? never.
but with the ev, these topics suddenly become interesting for some. but the battery can be repaired. there is a 7(!) year warranty for the battery.
and yes, there is no 5-minute method to determine the condition of a battery.
these are the facts. if you do not like them buy a chinese car for half the money and battery life span will be the least of your problems..

 

[sor]

Actually there kind of is a 5 minute way to see battery health, though not perfect. Prospective owners are going to look at the range guess-o-meter, which on most EVs internally considers SoH or usable capacity. This may not be spot on depending on how deeply it has been discharged recently, but I think that’s the metric buyers would use.

There is so much FUD and many anecdotes that go unquestioned, issues that aren’t issues at all, temporary range loss based on driving habit seen as battery failure, etc. I don’t doubt some people have an issue or failure here and there, it’s just hard to sift through when things get repeated and amplified.

 

[TomekGnomek]

Sooooo...."trust me bro"

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.

That thread discussion proves the point, concluding that there is no degradation issue or range loss

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.

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