A telematics company measured 22,700 real vehicles
Geotab fits tracking devices to commercial vehicles that record how they are driven and charged, a practice called telematics. The company measured how much charge 22,700 electric vehicles could still hold, across 21 different vehicle models, and compared that capacity to each vehicle when it was new. Over a year of typical use, the batteries lost 2.3% of their original capacity on average, a figure the industry calls state of health, the percentage of original capacity a battery still holds. Run forward at that same rate, Geotab projects an average battery would hold 81.6% of its original capacity after 8 years. Geotab states plainly that 81.6% is a projection, not a measurement, because none of the vehicles in the study have actually reached 8 years old.
How the car is charged changes the number
The 2.3% average hides a real spread. Vehicles charged mostly on direct current fast chargers, the high power chargers found at highway stops that refill a battery in minutes rather than hours, lost 3.0% of capacity a year. Vehicles charged mostly at low power lost 1.5% a year. Hot climates added another 0.4% a year of loss compared with mild climates, and vehicles driven the most, what Geotab calls highest utilization, lost a further 0.8% a year on top of the fleet average.
Rates measured by Geotab across its telematics fleet, grouped by predominant charging method.
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| Low power charging | 1.5 |
| Fleet average | 2.3 |
| Fast charging above 100 kilowatts | 3.0 |
Using the lowest charging power that still meets operational needs can make a measurable difference to long term battery health without limiting vehicle availability.
Charlotte Argue, senior manager for sustainable mobility at Geotab. Source 1.
The rate has not moved in a straight line
Geotab has taken this same fleet reading 3 times. In 2020 the average annual degradation rate was 2.3%. By 2023 it had fallen to 1.8%. In the newest reading it is back to 2.3%. Charlotte Argue, senior manager for sustainable mobility at Geotab, ties the rise back to 2.3% to more vehicles being charged faster and used more intensively since the 2023 reading.
All 3 points are the same measurement, Geotab average annual degradation rate across its telematics fleet, read at 3 different times.
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| 2020 reading | 2.3 |
| 2023 reading | 1.8 |
| 2025 reading | 2.3 |
EV battery health remains strong, even as vehicles are charged faster and deployed more intensively.
Charlotte Argue, senior manager for sustainable mobility at Geotab. Source 1.
Outright battery failure stays rare, and it is falling
Recurrent, a separate company that tracks its own community of electric vehicle owners, measures a different thing, how much driving range a car still shows on its dashboard rather than the battery capacity itself. Recurrent states plainly that automakers can release reserved battery capacity over time, so a stable range reading on the dashboard does not always mean the battery beneath it is aging slowly. Data from Recurrent on outright battery replacement gives a cleaner signal. First generation electric vehicles, sold before 2016, needed a battery replacement at 8.5%. Second generation vehicles, including the early Chevrolet Bolt EV and the early Tesla Model 3, replaced batteries at 2%. Vehicles built from model year 2022 onward replaced batteries at just 0.3%. The United States Environmental Protection Agency separately states that battery replacement is rare across the market, citing Recurrent data of its own.
Measured share of vehicles in the Recurrent community with a reported or confirmed battery replacement outside a major recall, by vehicle generation. Across the whole Recurrent dataset, including cars more than 10 years old, the overall replacement rate is under 4%.
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| First generation, before 2016 | 8.5 |
| Second generation, early Bolt and Model 3 | 2 |
| Model year 2022 onward | 0.3 |
Where this technology started
Early Nissan Leaf owners in hot climates saw 27.5% of their capacity disappear within 1 to 2 years, according to Battery University, a battery science reference published by Cadex Electronics. That loss is a cumulative total measured over 1 to 2 years, not a yearly rate like the 2.3% figure, so the 2 numbers are not placed on the same chart, but the gap between them shows how far real world battery performance has come since electric vehicles were new.