Electrifying transportation can go a long way toward reducing carbon emissions, driving up global temperatures.
However, warmer temperatures also accelerate the degradation of EV batteries, which can be a make-or-break factor for people considering an EV purchase.
In a new study led by the University of Michigan, however, researchers have shown that EV batteries have improved significantly over the past several years. Now, their gains will more than offset their expected heat-related degradation on a warming planet.
“Thanks to technological improvements, consumers should have more confidence in their EV batteries, even in a warmer future,” stated Haochi Wu, lead author of the study.
Improvements noted in newer EV batteries
The team’s study combined EV simulations with models of battery degradation and climate change to compare the endurance of batteries manufactured between 2010 and 2018 with that of batteries manufactured between 2019 and 2023.
In a scenario where the planet warms by 2°C, old batteries would see their lifetimes drop by an average of 8% up to a maximum of 30%. For new batteries, the average lifetime drop is just 3%, and the maximum is only 10%.
Hottest cities set to see the biggest gains
The researchers examined EV battery lifetimes across 300 cities worldwide under a variety of warming scenarios and found that the improvements held up globally. The warmest cities, like those nearest the equator, actually stand to see the biggest gains.
The team’s framework coupled climate projections with experimentally calibrated models of battery degradation and simulations of EV driving behaviour to create high-fidelity battery profiles at granular temporal scales.
Geographical disparities emerged
In regions such as Europe and the United States, there is a wide range of battery technologies available. However, cities in India or sub-Saharan Africa, for example, have very different vehicle fleets.
In these regions, the impacts of warming will also be worse and felt more acutely, highlighting another dimension of how inequalities are exacerbated by climate change.
Roadmaps to resilience
The team’s related project was inspired by a similar question about how global warming would impact rooftop solar cell performance.
In particular, they examined where climate change would push solar panels into high-temperature risks and extreme high-temperature risks, which are technical thresholds defined by the International Electrochemical Commission, or IEC.
These high-temperature risks can accelerate the degradation of conventional solar panels, reducing their reliability and prompting earlier-than-expected replacement.
They found that, under the current IEC standards, those risks are underestimated for more than half of our existing and future rooftop photovoltaic installation capacity. Again, these risks will be most acute where warming will be greatest, often in low- and middle-income areas.
Although that, by itself, doesn’t solve the issue of inequity, it does mean that groups looking for answers can focus on how the technology is deployed rather than on whether it exists.
“More vulnerable regions are going to suffer a larger negative impact from climate change, but we’re finding technological improvements can mitigate that,” Wu concluded. “That is good news.”