Electric car myth busted! New electric car battery rating shows used EV battery life is better than expected

There is now less risk in buying a used electric car.

Auction house Pickles has launched a new EV battery health score for the used electric cars it sells.

Pickles now publish battery health scores for its EVs with detailed battery certificates with each tested EV sold.

This provides transparency to one of the biggest perceived risks when buying a used electric car.

The tests have busted the myth that EV batteries fall off cliff quickly and also provides a quantitative point of when it might be time to avoid a used electric car.

Pickles has tested more than 650 electric cars with the average battery health level of 96 per cent.

This means the battery can store 96 per cent of the energy it could when it rolled off the production line.

Pickles’ data showed the real tipping point was when an electric car travelled more than 120,000km, with the average battery score of 83 per cent of vehicles that had exceeded this level.

The data has no upper limit, which means some of those vehicles may have done substantially more than the 120,000km.

It also doesn’t take into account that EVs that have achieved those high kilometres are more likely to be early generation vehicles that weren’t as robust or hi-tech as newer machines.

EVs that had done 80,000 to 120,000km had an average score of more than 91 per cent.

Vehicles that had done between 40,000 and 80,000km averaged about 95 per cent and those that did between 20,000 and 40,000km were just shy of 96 per cent.

The data also broke down the used EVs in age, with electric cars more than four-years old averaging a battery score of about 94 per cent.

General Manager of Automotive Solutions at Pickles, Brendon Green, said these health scores were extremely important.

“Until now, buyers have been bidding in the dark.  This move replaces uncertainty with confidence – and positions Pickles as the national leader in EV transparency,” he said.

The data also showed the massive growth in used EV sales, with sales tripling last financial year compared to the one before it.

This is expected to continue as the sheer volume of new electric cars sold in Australia starts to trickle down in the next few years.

The most popular electric car brands sold in the past quarter through Pickles were Tesla, Hyundai and Volvo. The most sold all time were Tesla, Hyundai and Nissan.