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It is nearly impossible to determine the health of an EV battery that is in a car, let alone from a distance. Accurate battery health testing usually requires chemical and physical testing.
In fact, battery health is quite a hard concept to pin down. Intuitively, it means how well a battery can perform as compared to when it was new, but the exact way that is quantified depends on who you ask. In battery science literature, it is commonly referred to as “state of health,” or SoH.
One of the easier ways to talk about battery health is by comparing the original battery capacity, in kilowatt-hours (kWh), to the current battery capacity. The change between the original and the current capacity indicates some degree of capacity fade, or loss in total available lithium that the battery can store.
However, not all EV manufacturers report the actual battery capacity, which changes as the battery ages.
Luckily, starting in the next few years, both California and the EU will require auto companies to make battery health information available. The language from the EU regulation is,
“Article 14 requires that rechargeable industrial batteries and electric vehicle batteries shall contain a battery management system that stores the information and data needed to determine the state of health and expected lifetime of batteries in accordance with the parameters laid down in Annex VII. Access to the data on those parameters in the battery management system shall be provided to the legal or natural person who has legally purchased the battery or any third party acting on their behalf at any time for evaluating the residual value of the battery, facilitating the reuse, repurposing or remanufacturing of the battery and for making the battery available to independent aggregators operating virtual power plants in electricity grids.”
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Usable vs Actual Battery Capacity
