Used-EV shoppers may have less reason to fear a dying battery than the loudest critics have suggested. Data from more than 500,000 independent checks indicates that most electric cars still retain roughly 90% of their original usable capacity after 150,000 kilometers, or about 93,000 miles. That finding comes from Aviloo’s large-scale battery health study, which analyzed 20 popular models using vehicles tested between 2022 and 2026.
The results offer a useful counterweight to the familiar smartphone analogy, in which batteries steadily lose enough capacity to become inconvenient after only a few years. At the 50,000-kilometer mark, the 20 models recorded median State of Health figures between 91% and 97%. At 100,000 kilometers, those medians ranged from 88% to 95%; at 150,000 kilometers, 16 of the 20 models remained above 90%. The broader findings on EV battery durability suggest that ordinary mileage alone is not quickly turning modern electric cars into short-range commuters.
Aviloo’s figures come from its FLASH test, a roughly three-minute diagnostic performed through a car’s OBD port. The process examines signals including pack voltage, individual cell-voltage differences, temperature variation, energy counts, mileage and charging cycles before comparing them with a database of similar used vehicles. That approach is intended to provide an independent estimate rather than simply repeating the State of Health number calculated by a vehicle’s own battery-management system.
Some of the strongest results came from familiar mainstream EVs. The Mercedes-Benz EQA recorded the highest median result in the 150,000-kilometer comparison at about 94%. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 reached roughly 93%, while the Tesla Model Y landed near 90%. Independent coverage of the study likewise found the Model Y holding 90.3% of its original usable capacity at that distance, illustrating that a respectable result does not necessarily mean every individual vehicle will perform identically. InsideEVs’ coverage highlights how tightly most of the tested models clustered around the 90% mark.
The weaker result belonged to the 40-kWh Nissan Leaf ZE1, whose median State of Health fell from about 91% at 50,000 kilometers to 86% at 150,000 kilometers. That difference matters more in a smaller-pack car: losing the same percentage of capacity removes fewer total kilowatt-hours from a large battery, but can take a noticeably bigger bite out of a compact EV’s already limited range. Aviloo also found that individual vehicles can vary substantially, with the spread between examples growing as mileage increases.
There are important limits to what the numbers prove. The dataset combines different battery sizes under some model names, and median results cannot predict the condition of a specific used car. Climate, charging habits, repeated high-power fast charging and the vehicle’s age all influence degradation; Aviloo’s global sample includes cars from North and South America, Europe, Australia and Asia, but it does not turn averages into a substitute for an inspection. The study is expected to be updated twice a year, which should make future editions more useful for buyers, dealers and insurers trying to put a defensible value on a used EV.
