EV lifespan is equivalent to petrol cars, proves UK study

  • A new peer-reviewed article published in the monthly scientific journal, Nature Energy, has proven that electric cars can last just as long, if not longer, than their petrol and diesel-fuelled counterparts.
  • The study, which can be read in full here, was carried out specifically in the United Kingdom, with the use of MOT data which is publically provided for every passenger car in the UK.
  • The data one again confirms previous papers and data that bust the myth that EVs have a short working lifespan.

Electric car research continues to bust myths

The data showed that the median lifespan of an electric car stood at 18.4 years – about comparable to a petrol car, which had a median lifespan of 18.7 years. However, EVs came back with a higher median lifetime mileage, at 124,207 miles – compared to 116,050 miles for petrol. The median lifespan for diesel cars, meanwhile, stood at 16.8 years. With widespread EV sales still being relatively new in the UK in terms of the life of an EV, future reliability surveys between specific electric car brands will be one to watch. The research also highlights the rapid improvement in EV technology since the 2010s, with ‘the latest BEVs expected to outlast the average ICEVs within the same cohort’. The paper also remarked that ‘if the trends estimated in this study persist, the TCO and environmental advantages of upcoming BEV models could far exceed previous estimations’.

While this new research should encourage EV buying confidence in the UK specifically, the long lifespan of modern EVs has already been proven by many previous pieces of research. For example, a study by German testing firm DEKRA last month ran tests on a set of high mileage Jaguar I-PACE EVs, which all returned state of health ratings above 95% despite all having odometers that were north of 112,000 miles. Also recently, Volvo showed that its EX30 EV had a carbon footprint 60% lower than a petrol-powered XC40 equivalent after 124,000 miles of usage.

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