EV Batteries Last Longer Than Fleets Expect

Geotab study of 22,700 EVs confirms strong battery longevity when fleets prioritize smart charging over fast DC charging

13 Mar 2026

Electric vehicles are often judged by the health of their batteries. Replace the battery too soon and the economics of electrification look shaky. Yet new evidence suggests such fears may be overstated.

In January Geotab, a telematics provider, published one of the largest real-world studies of EV battery health yet assembled. Drawing on data from more than 22,700 vehicles across 21 models, the firm finds that batteries degrade far more slowly than many fleet managers once assumed.

The average annual decline in capacity was 2.3%. At that pace an EV battery would retain roughly 81.6% of its original capacity after eight years. Projected forward, many packs could remain usable for 13 years or longer, beyond the replacement schedules built into many European fleet-finance models.

Durability, however, is not entirely left to chemistry. The research points to a factor operators can control directly: how vehicles are charged.

Vehicles that regularly relied on high-power direct-current fast chargers above 100kW showed degradation rates of up to 3% per year. That is roughly double the 1.5% annual decline recorded for vehicles charged mainly through slower alternating-current systems or lower-power charging. For fleets with vehicles parked overnight at depots, simply favouring slower charging may meaningfully extend battery life.

Other influences appear modest. Hot climates accelerate degradation slightly, raising annual capacity loss by about 0.4 percentage points. Heavy daily use, by contrast, does not appear to damage batteries significantly once charging behaviour is accounted for. That will reassure operators running vehicles on intensive commercial routes.

The findings arrive at an important moment for Europe’s fleet sector. Companies are investing heavily in charging infrastructure that will shape vehicle performance for years. At the same time, new EU rules will require clearer reporting of battery state-of-health data.

As these standards spread, benchmarks like Geotab’s are likely to feed into procurement decisions, residual-value forecasts and contract structures. Fleet operators may discover that the secret to preserving expensive batteries is less about driving less, and more about charging more patiently.