Could you still have the same EV in 20 years?

Daftar Isi

I just got my '05 Holden VZ One Tonner Commodore serviced.

After rackin' up 225,000km over 20 years, this bloke's seen some major changes in the world, fair dinkum - it's even outlasted the Holden brand itself.

Fair dinkum, it's still good as gold. "Just keep an eye on the oil changes and you'll be right as rain," me mechanic told me.

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It's got two seats, a vinyl dash, a saggy egress liner, a bullbar and a 2.5 metre steel tray that's shifted everything from soil to scrap metal to countless mates and family members' furnishings.

The VZ has paid itself off in heaps of ways more than one and its standing shows what the Holden brand is about and the 3.6-litre Alloytec engine that gets it goin' (providing you keep it up to scratch with regular maintenance).

As its third owner, I think back to what the first owner might have thought if I spun them a yarn back in June 2005, when they bought it from Epsom Holden in Bendigo, that 20 years down the track it would still be clocking up the kilometres, now amidst all the new electric cars.

And who knows, potentially one day (if I keep up with regular oil changes) self-driving cars.

You see, that's the magic of cars with combustion engines, particularly the older ones, that makes 'em so special.

An invention like the electric car isn't like what the smartphone was to the mobile phone or Netflix was to the video. You can't just dump old cars like mine to the scrap bin.

No, a good combustion-engine car is built to withstand the test of time. It might require regular check-ins and upkeep, but take care of it, and it'll outlast you.

And that gets me wonderin', can EVs, which are still in their relative infancy in the main market, provide the same level of longevity?

Honestly, we don't know, and the fact is we won't likely know for a while.

In Australia, the age of a typical car is 10.4 years on average, says the 2021 Car census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, much older than most electric cars have been available for sale.

which has only been available to buy here since 2022.

The sale of several small electric cars, the Smart Fortwo electric drive, the Citroen C-Zero and the Mitsubishi i:MiEV, all arrived in Australia between 2012 and 2014.

A small volume of second-hand listings of those cars on Autotrader, Gumtree Cars, CarsGuide and competitor's websites show the vast majority of those models with less than 100,000kms on the clock, which, fair dinkum, is probably just 'cause most of 'em are city cars.

The Model S, on the other hand, has a couple of notables exceeding 200,000 km, blokes, despite most of 'em sitting pretty comfortably under that mark.

According to Telematics company GEOTAB's recent findings, lithium-ion batteries decline by about 1.8 per cent annually under average conditions, which means most of those cars have likely used up about 18 to 21.6 per cent of their battery capacity.

However, that depreciation figure's been come out to be a rough estimate only, assuming they're being charged at a rate of between 20 to 80 per cent, and ignoring DC fast-charging and limiting exposure to extreme heat, which ain't always realistic here in Australia.

For the sake of argument, let's assume all these conditions are met. On a mid-range Tesla Model S with an 85kWh battery, you'd likely have around 412km of original range remaining, less than what you'd get from a 70-litre tank in a V6.

However, in theory, you'd be limited to using just 80 per cent of that amount, which means the real range would be around 329km – hardly earth-shattering, but not exactly fantastic either.

Cheers, EVs have made a fair bit of progress since their early days and range is gradually improving. So are warranties, which is a direct outcome of a brand's growing confidence in their products.

Tesla currently has a four-year/80,000 kilometre Basic Car Warranty, covering all aspects except the battery and powertrain.

Those are covered by a seven-year / 160,000km battery warranty, or 192,000km on its Long Range and Performance variants, plus a 70 per cent battery retention guarantee over that timeframe.

Fair dinkum, you've got to admit, the Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty on this one is pretty impressive, especially when you compare it to what I got on my VZ, which was a pretty lame three years or 100,000 kays.

Keep in mind as well that Tesla is at the lower end of the warranty spectrum.

The deal that applies to its petrol cars is the same one it offers.

That should give people with electric vehicles a sense of certainty that their car won't suddenly use up heaps of energy or need a new battery after a short time.

But whether they prove as reliable as my trusty ute, only time will tell.