Find the EV You Want and Copy the VIN. (EV VERIFIED, CA BAR Lic. 316974, is dealer approved. You don’t have to be present for the test.)
Schedule an EV VERIFIED EV Battery State of Health, SoH, Test. Include the VIN and sales contact name and mobile phone number.
Pay for the EV Battery Health Test and Review Results with a licensed EV VERIFIED Technician.
Understanding EV Battery Health and SoH Tests
What is SoH?
If you’re in the market to buy or sell a used EV you need to understand the EV battery State of Health, SoH. It’s the percentage of remaining capacity of the EV battery, the most critical and expensive component in an EV. Typically these numbers range between the high 70’s and high 90s on the EVs we test. But there’s a problem with the number. Buyers and sellers don’t realize that the number is the amount of capacity left in the battery not the amount of capacity left in the battery necessary to power the vehicle. SoH numbers, because they measure remaining total battery capacity rather than remaining battery capacity to power the EV, make people think the actual condition of an EV battery is better than it actually is. Case in point; an 80% SoH is not a great SoH for a used EV. It’s ok and it may even be normal, But it’s not great and it’s closer to end of life than it is brand new.
Why is 90% not 90%?
The EV OEMs, the manufacturers, consider 70% SoH as end of life, EOL, for the EV battery. That’s when OEM warranties expire for these batteries. The reason OEMs pick 70% SoH is because the batteries degrade quickly when they reach 70. It doesn’t mean that the EV won’t work or might be dangerous. It means that when you charge up the battery, the energy will dissipate faster and faster until the EV doesn’t go very far and eventually stops functioning properly. Similar to a smartphone. So while a 70% SoH is plenty of remaining battery life it’s virtually 0 as an EV battery according to EV OEM warranties.
So what’s a good SoH number for a used EV?
Some battery manufacturers claim degradation averages 2% loss per year under normal conditions. So if the owner is doing everything right in terms of charging and discharging and overall EV battery management, after four years that EV SoH should be 92. That’s a normal number that is considered a GOOD SoH. So a two-year-old EV with a 96% SoH is considered EXCELLENT SoH.
How much is an EV battery SoH test?
EV battery SoH tests cost between $100 and $1,200. And an EV battery SoH can be conducted in multiple ways:
- A device that plugs into a diagnostic port, CAN bus, or ethernet cable, and reads data in a few minutes or a few days
- An OTA, over-the-air, diagnostic that measures data from the BMS, Battery Management System in a few minutes.
- A full battery pack charge and discharge using a combination of hardware and software diagnostic tools over a 24 hour span.
What’s the best method for testing an EV battery SoH?
All three of the above methods may work but it’s how they work that matters. Many of the low-end EV battery SoH diagnostic tools pull surface-level data from the BMS, battery management system, which is an estimation of battery health based on an estimation of projected range versus previous battery management behavior. Suffice to say, it’s a guess. Commercial-grade tools measure battery SoH by testing the voltages of the battery cells within the pack. For some OEMs this may be done over-the-air, OTA, without physical device, but a comprehensive high-voltage, EV battery diagnostic test may require charging the battery to 100% and then discharging the battery to 0% and then measuring battery cell health. And that test while the most accurate unnecessarily degrades the battery.
Which EV battery diagnostic tool is best?
At EV VERIFIED, we researched which tool worked best to quickly pull the data without damaging the battery and causing degradation. We settled on the best tool in the business in Europe that’s already been used on over one million EVs, been certified by CARA, (the Car Re-marketing Association of Europe), as being accurate data, measures SoH, vehicle benchmarking vs. other identical models, and battery cell group voltages, and generates a report emailed to the customer that buyers and sellers can trust, all within ten minutes. EV VERIFIED uses the AVILOO test for most EV battery SoH tests. EV Battery SoH is critical to understanding the true value of the EV. This is why a buyer spending a few hundred dollars to check the SoH on an EV that costs $24,000 or more, is a solid investment. Or why an owner should spend a few hundred dollars to know if their EV battery SoH is high enough to keep the EV or time move on.
EV batteries don’t last forever even though the EV may run for many years after it reaches 70, it will lose efficiency and eventually not be cost effective to own. Get an SoH. Know the battery, Know the EV.