Quantifying the impact of battery degradation in electric vehicle driving through key performance indicators

As the Electric Vehicle market grows, understanding the implications of battery degradation on the driving experience is key to fostering trust among users and improving End of Life estimations. This study analyses various road types, charging behaviours and Electric Vehicle models to evaluate the impact of degradation on the performance. Key indicators related to the speed, acceleration, driving times and regenerative capabilities are obtained for different degradation levels to quantify the performance decay. Results show that the impact is highly dependent on the road type and nominal battery capacity. Vehicles with long and medium ranges show a robust performance for common driving conditions. Short-range vehicles perform adequately in urban and rural road conditions, but on highways, speed and acceleration reductions of up to 6.7 km/h and 3.96 (km/h)/s have been observed. The results of this study suggest that degradation should not be a concern for standard driving conditions and mid- and long-range vehicles currently dominate the market. In addition, the results are used to define a functional End of Life criterion based on performance loss, beyond the oversimplified 70–80% State-of-Health threshold, which does not consider individual requirements.
This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 963580.
Lluc Canals Casals is a Serra Hunter Fellow. This work is also supported by the Catalan Agency AGAUR under their research group support program grant to the ENMA research group No. 2021 SGR 00226. Lluc Canals Casals acknowledges the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, the University of Melbourne (particularly to Nando (Luis) Ochoa) and the Ministerio de Universidades, with the grant CAS22/00126 from the research stay mobility program for young researchers “José Castillejo, Modalidad B del Programa de estancias de movilidad de profesores e investigadores en centros extranjeros de enseñanza superior e investigación”, for allowing them to expand their research overseas. The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of the RYC2021-033477-I grant, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR.
Postprint (published version)