Battery Life in Used BEVs, PHEVs Emerging Value Measurement

DALLAS – Auto industry service providers such as Experian Automotive are updating their products aimed at battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, based on a growing body of data and experience with the fast-rising number of new – and, importantly, used – BEVs and PHEVs in operation.

The idea is to help dealers, customers and other stakeholders put an accurate value on used BEVs and PHEVs.

Because high-voltage batteries account for so much of the total value of an electric vehicle, that largely boils down to the state of the battery, says Scott Case, CEO and co-founder of Seattle-based Recurrent Motors.

“People are not valuing used BEVs by the odometer, but by what the range is,” he says in an interview at the 2023 NADA Show here.

Recurrent produces Recurrent Battery Reports, similar to familiar used-car condition reports, but oriented toward measuring useful remaining battery life, expressed as a percentage of the vehicle’s range when new.

Meanwhile, Experian Automotive produces what it calls AutoCheck vehicle history reports on used vehicles, with data such as accident history, number of owners and so on.

Timed to coincide with the NADA exhibition, the two companies announce a partnership to make both reports conveniently available together to provide a more rounded assessment of used BEVs and PHEVs.

Dealers, in particular, may want to use both reports to evaluate trade-ins, says Kirsten Von Busch, director of product marketing for Experian Automotive, based in Costa Mesa, CA.

She says battery life alone doesn’t tell the full story: “A battery-electric vehicle is still a vehicle.”