Consumer Reports initial test of Model S in winter chills

Inquiring minds want to know....

"People considering a plug-in vehicle have a legitimate concern about how long EV batteries will last before they need to be replaced. The answer depends on how you use (or abuse) your vehicle’s batteries. With proper management—and following the tips in this article—the batteries in a modern EV could last decades, allowing plenty of time for the technology to go mainstream and for economies of scale to bring down the price."

"EV drivers are often asked, “How far can you go on a charge?” But if you can help it, avoid trying to personally find out for yourself by driving all the way down to an empty battery to test your electric car’s full range."

Tip 6: If your EV has thermal management and the weather is extreme, plug in whenever you can.

This will, of course, charge your batteries, but more importantly, it will engage the thermal management system continuously without draining the batteries. Remember that lithium batteries like the same temperature ranges that you and I do. If you had to sit in the sun in a hot parking lot, would you want the AC turned on? Yes, you would and so would your vehicle’s batteries"

The Tesla Roadster has a “storage mode.” This makes it easy: plug in the car, set it to storage mode and the vehicle’s firmware takes care of the batteries.

"To maximize battery life, minimize use of DC quick charge.

I have saved the best for last. DC quick chargers can dump about 80 miles of range into the Nissan LEAF’s battery pack in 30 minutes. Fast charging is very useful if you need to drive more than the vehicle’s single-charge range in a single day. However, the batteries pay a price for this convenience.
Regular use of fast charging will cost you about 1 percent of capacity per year. For example, if you avoid fast charging, you may have 80 percent capacity after 10 years of normal use. However, if fast charging is your primary fueling method, then your capacity would be 70 percent after 10 years. While the cost to the battery’s lifespan may not be as much as you may think, fast charging still takes a toll that should be avoided when possible."

"With modern plug-in vehicles, you can simply plug them in anytime and drive it any way that you see fit and you should still have batteries that perform well in 10 years."

Eight Tips to Extend Battery Life of Your Electric Car | PluginCars.com

"...As the EERE predicts, this means cars like the Nissan Leaf based in Phoenix will reach 75 percent of original capacity some five to ten years sooner than cars in cities like Minneapolis, where summer averages hover in the low 70s.
The solution, as many analysts and industry insiders have said in the past, is to use active liquid cooling (like Model S) to keep battery packs operating within tightly-controlled temperature zones.
Take Ford, for example. With liquid cooling of its Focus Electric battery pack, the automaker should enjoy a very long lifespan for its battery packs.
Compared with a similar battery pack without liquid cooling in hot climates like Arizona, a liquid-cooled battery pack will retain 10 percent more of its original capacity after 10 years than a non-cooled pack. "

How Long Will Your Electric Car Battery Last? It Depends Where You Live

Because of all these variables, "if the manufacturer says 100 miles of range, it could be 60 miles or it could be 130 miles," Edmunds says. And if the manufacturer says 100 miles, you're going to want to allow a buffer, he adds.
Further, Edmunds notes, "You can't tempt fate with the low fuel light like you can in a gasoline car, because the only place to fill up may be your own garage. So if you're wrong, you're walking." And that's why there's so much talk about range anxiety.
Electric Car Battery Basics: Capacity, Charging and Range
Electric vehicle battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Battery service life should be considered when calculating the extended cost of ownership, as all batteries eventually wear out and must be replaced. The rate at which they expire depends on a number of factors."
"In real world use, some fleet Toyota RAV4 EVs, using NiMH batteries, have exceeded 100,000 miles (160,000 km) with little degradation in their daily range.[53] Quoting that report's concluding assessment:
"The five-vehicle test is demonstrating the long-term durability of Nickel Metal Hydride batteries and electric drive trains. Only slight performance degradation has been observed to-date on four out of five vehicles.... EVTC test data provide strong evidence that all five vehicles will exceed the 100,000-mile (160,000 km) mark. SCE’s positive experience points to the very strong likelihood of a 130,000 to 150,000-mile (240,000 km) Nickel Metal Hydride battery and drive-train operational life. EVs can therefore match or exceed the lifecycle miles of comparable internal combustion engine vehicles."

"Lithium ion batteries are perishable to some degree; they lose some of their maximum storage capacity per year even if they are not used"

Jay Leno's 1909 Baker Electric (see Baker Motor Vehicle) still operates on its original Edison cells. Battery replacement costs of BEVs may be partially or fully offset by the lack of regular maintenance such as oil and filter changes required for ICEVs, and by the greater reliability of BEVs due to their fewer moving parts. They also do away with many other parts that normally require servicing and maintenance in a regular car, such as on the gearbox, cooling system, and engine tuning. And by the time batteries do finally need definitive replacement, they can be replaced with later generation ones which may offer better performance characteristics, in the same way as you might replace old batteries from a digital camera with improved ones.

"The predicted market for automobile traction batteries is over $37 billion in 2020.[2]
On an energy basis, the price of electricity to run an EV is a small fraction of the cost of liquid fuel needed to produce an equivalent amount of energy (energy efficiency). The cost of replacing the batteries dominates the operating costs"

"Most other EVs are utilizing new variations on lithium-ion chemistry that sacrifice energy and power density to provide fire resistance, environmental friendliness, very rapid charges (as low as a few minutes), and very long lifespans. These variants (phosphates, titanates, spinels, etc.) have been shown to have a much longer lifetime, with A123 expecting theirlithium iron phosphate batteries to last for at least 10+ years and 7000+ charge cycles,[7] and LG Chem expecting theirlithium-manganesespinel batteries to last up to 40 years."

"Battery professor Poul Norby states that lithium batteries will need to double their energy density and bring down the price from $500 (2010) to $100 per kWh capacity in order to make an impact on petrol cars.[
"
"According to U.S. Energy Secretary Chu, costs for a 40 mile range battery will drop from a price in 2008 of $12K to $3,600 in 2015 and further to $1,500 by 2020.[62][63]Li-ion,Li-poly,Aluminium-air batteriesandzinc-air batterieshave demonstrated energy densities high enough to deliver range and recharge times comparable to conventional vehicles.
Battery-operated vehicles (like the Nissan Leaf) are projected to have annual sales in 2020 of 100,000 units in the U.S. and 1.3 million worldwide — 1.8 percent of the 71 million cars expected to be sold in 2020. Another 3.9 million plug-ins and hybrids will be sold worldwide, bringing the total electric and hybrid market to about 7 percent of all cars sold in 2020.[64]"

"Vice President Biden announced in Detroit over $1 billion in grants to companies and universities based in Michigan. Reflecting the state's leadership in clean energy manufacturing, Michigan companies and institutions are receiving the largest share of grant funding of any state. Two companies, A123 and Johnson Controls, will receive a total of approximately $550 million to establish a manufacturing base in the state for advanced batteries, and two others,Compact Power and Dow Kokam,[69] will receive a total of over $300 million for manufacturing battery cells and materials. Large automakers based in Michigan, including GM, Chrysler, and Ford, will receive a total of more than $400 million to manufacture batteries and electric drive components. And three educational institutions in Michigan — the University of Michigan, Wayne State University in Detroit, and Michigan Technological University in Houghton, in the Upper Peninsula — will receive a total of more than $10 million for education and workforce training programs to train researchers, technicians, and service providers, and to conduct consumer research to accelerate the transition towards advanced vehicles and batteries"

That's a little bit for starters. Lot more out there.

 

I never liked the idea of running my fuel tank really low, making the fuel pump suffer to get the last bit of gas in the tank. If I had a BEV, I'd be looking at how to take care of the battery. I think this article may be important; here's 3 copies so one can't miss.

Eight Tips to Extend Battery Life of Your Electric Car | PluginCars.com
Eight Tips to Extend Battery Life of Your Electric Car | PluginCars.com
Eight Tips to Extend Battery Life of Your Electric Car | PluginCars.com

 

There is no way to show definitive numbers for battery degradation. There are many variables that can affect that.
Range loss when unplugged seems silly. Tesla has a thermal management system, so I think it is much wiser to keep the car plugged in to help power the system instead of using battery charge to do so. Hopefully a Model S owner can tell us what the OM says

see this about extending battery life -

Eight Tips to Extend Battery Life of Your Electric Car | PluginCars.com

btw, I think you (spinnaker87) ought to start contributing more information instead of demanding it from others.

 

I think one of the more interesting questions for Model S would be projected resale value in 5 or 10 years. Maybe the industry doesn't project that, but over time, KBB and others will put out numbers.

 

I think instead of focusing on 'how much will the battery degrade', better to look at 'how to maximize lifespan of the battery'.

Rav4EV drivers have told me they've been using original packs for a loooooong time, because there are no new packs for it.