Does fast charging affect battery longevity?

Whether you own an electric car or not, have you ever wondered whether fast charging could damage the batteries in the long term? Recurrent Auto published a study on the subject by studying fast charging on more than 12,500 vehicles in the United States.

You have probably noticed, the investments in the electric car market are considerable these last years. But this technology does not remain about it less stammering. We don’t have yet not enough hindsight to answer all the questions surrounding this new market.

Recurrent Auto wanted to know if fast charging has a negative impact on battery life. To do this, he studied fast charging on more than 12,500 Tesla in the United States.

No significant difference

Recurrent Auto compared two types of electric cars. The one that uses fast charging more than 90 % time and the one who uses it less than 10 % time. Rest assured, if you are a regular user of fast charging stations, they only havea very slight impact on battery life.

Impact of fast and slow charging on the Tesla Model 3

Photo credit: Recurrent Auto Impact of fast charging and slow charging on a Tesla Model 3

Impact of fast and slow charging on the Tesla Model Y

Photo credit: Recurrent Auto Impact of fast charging and slow charging on a Tesla Model Y

In these graphs, you can observe two curves. The curve in blue represents the fast chargingas for the green one, it represents the slow charging. We clearly observe that over the life of the battery, the latter degraded necessarily. This is not great news since it is specific to batteries. You are facing the same problems with your smartphone.

Whether an electric car recharges with fast or slow charging, we observe that there is no almost no difference at the level of degradation. A result that would be obtained thanks to the thermal management system that these vehicles carry.

As a reminder, car manufacturers have developed these famous thermal management systems which aim to keep the battery and all the components within the ranges of optimal temperatures. A battery that would be too cold or conversely too hot would wear out prematurely.

Be careful though

We have just seen it, the thermal management system protected already the battery of your electric vehicle. However, other parameters could cause damage to your vehicle when it charges using a fast terminal.

As far as possible, you should avoid charging your car at a fast terminal when the battery of the latter is too low or too high. It is in these moments that the resistance of the battery is the most intense.

in case of high heat or of negative temperature, it is important to precondition your battery. In cases of high heat, the preconditioning is done thanks to the thermal management system which will then cool the battery so that when recharging, the latter does not not overheat.

What about other models?

The Reccurrent Auto study only referenced models of the brand Tesla. We should now see if the results obtained in this study can be applied to the whole market.