In the future, electric car batteries will only last for 5 years? If you want to continue using them, you can only replace the battery

Foreign media reported that Asad Farid of Germany's Berenberg Bank said at a battery exhibition last week that the service life of many electric vehicle batteries is lower than consumers expect, especially after high-nickel batteries and battery fast charging technology have gradually become the development trend in the industry, this trend has become more obvious.

The expert said that the average service life of the new generation of electric vehicle batteries is usually only five years, and the battery degradation rate will continue to rise. Future batteries will experience a certain degree of "capacity decay". Due to the 20% faster decay rate, their average service life is only 5-6 years.

The nickel content of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide battery cells will increase, which has become a major trend in the future. The increase in nickel content will cause the number of charge and discharge times (service life) of NMC batteries and NCA batteries to be reduced to 2,000 and 1,000 times respectively. Lithium iron phosphate batteries can usually achieve more than 3,000 charge and discharge cycles.

As the demand for increasing the range of electric vehicles has become stronger in recent years, the industry has gradually turned to nickel-rich battery chemistry. However, increasing energy density (range) comes at the expense of service life.

Fast charging technology for electric vehicles will also shorten the life of batteries. Many places have installed 50 kW, 150 kW and even 350 kW DC fast charging stations, which can shorten the charging time to 20 minutes, but the heat during the charging process will cause the battery anode and cathode to decompose. When the charging speed is increased by three times, the degradation rate of the battery will also increase accordingly.

The use of air cooling equipment will lead to faster battery degradation. Nowadays, many car companies use passive air cooling systems instead of liquid cooling systems, but this type of system will cause internal heating of the battery, and the degradation rate caused by air cooling is twice that of dynamic liquid cooling batteries.

The industry has also recognized the battery heating and degradation issues associated with fast charging technology, and has tried to adopt thermal management solutions to alleviate the battery heating issues brought by fast charging technology. Audi has equipped its new e-tron model with a battery thermal management solution to support 150-kW fast charging technology, and Porsche plans to launch 350-kW fast charging technology for the Taycan.

Most consumers expect to replace their car batteries after 8 years. Obviously, it is much more cost-effective to replace batteries than to replace cars. In the future, many electric car owners may have to replace batteries every 4-5 years, which will cost a lot of money. However, if the battery is not replaced, electric cars will lose 70% of the vehicle's resale value within five years.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.