EV batteries hold up just fine after five years, study says.Cadillac, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, and Nissan showed no loss of range in the study that took into account over a billion miles of driving.Carmakers can tune batteries remotely to release capacity and thus maintain range. Turns out your EV battery is probably pretty healthy. One of the many potshots taken at EVs when ownership first became more widespread 15 or so years ago was that the battery would die and it would cost more to replace than the car was worth. Turns out those web commenters were wrong. “The average EV retains 97% of its range after three years, and 95% after five years,” said Seattle-based tech company Recurrent, which has been tracking the batteries of more than 30,000 privately owned electric vehicles for the last six years. In that time, Recurrent has tracked the performance of those 30,000 electric vehicles over the course of more than a billion miles. EV owners sign up with Recurrent and allow access to their vehicle manufacturer’s connectivity account, which is how the company accesses battery performance data. In exchange, owners get regular reports on how their car is performing. “To put this range retention into perspective, an average EV with 300 miles of range (when new) should retain 291 miles of range after three years of driving, and 285 miles after five years,” Recurrent said. “Even the ‘worst performing’ in our data will still retain 283 miles after three years and 271 after five.”RivianThe study also shows that five EV makers have no apparent range loss after five years: Cadillac, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and Rivian. You can add Nissan to that group if you don’t count those first Leafs with the bad batteries in the 2011-2014 model years.“The EVs in this group present a very stable range over the first few years of ownership, with an expected range at three years being the same as the expected range when new,” the study said. There was something of a caveat.“Although the lithium-ion batteries will age, the automakers likely release reserve battery to present a consistent range experience for its drivers.” BMW and Jaguar showed lower than average range retention, but not by much and for an obvious reason.“The range retention for BMW and Jaguar is expected to drop faster than the overall EV population, likely due to the automaker allowing the range shown to drivers to change as the battery ages without any updates to algorithms or software. It seems that neither company releases reserved capacity as the batteries age, which means that there may be a large battery buffer to enhance battery life.”Volkswagen range retention is also slightly below average. Autoweek SOC EV Newsletter sign up