Estimate your Tesla's battery capacity loss over time.
Estimated Degradation: —%
Understanding Tesla Battery Degradation
Electric vehicle batteries, including those in Teslas, degrade over time and with use. This means their total capacity to store energy gradually decreases. Battery degradation is a natural process influenced by various factors such as charging habits, climate, mileage, and the number of charge/discharge cycles. Understanding and estimating this degradation can help owners manage expectations regarding range and performance.
How Battery Degradation Works
Lithium-ion batteries, commonly used in EVs, experience degradation through several mechanisms:
Electrochemical Reactions: Over time, chemical reactions within the battery can lead to the formation of resistive layers, reducing efficiency.
Physical Stress: Repeated charging and discharging cause expansion and contraction of battery materials, leading to mechanical stress.
Calendar Aging: Even when not in use, batteries degrade slowly over time due to intrinsic chemical processes.
Thermal Stress: Extreme temperatures, both hot and cold, can accelerate battery degradation.
Factors Influencing Degradation
Charging Habits: Frequently charging to 100% or discharging to very low levels, especially when combined with high temperatures, can increase degradation.
Speed of Charging: While DC fast charging (Supercharging) is convenient, frequent use can lead to higher battery temperatures and potentially faster degradation compared to slower AC charging.
Climate: Consistently operating the vehicle in very hot or very cold environments puts additional stress on the battery.
Mileage and Age: Naturally, batteries degrade more with more miles driven and as they age.
Charging Cycles: Each full charge and discharge cycle contributes to wear.
The Calculation: Estimating Battery Degradation
This calculator provides an estimated percentage of battery capacity loss. The primary calculation is straightforward:
While mileage and charging cycles are important contributing factors to degradation, this simplified calculator focuses on the direct measurement of capacity loss. More complex models would incorporate these factors to predict future degradation, but this tool quantizes current observed degradation based on reported capacities.
Interpreting the Results
A small amount of degradation is normal. Tesla vehicles typically exhibit around 5-10% degradation after 100,000 miles. Significant degradation beyond this range might warrant further investigation or service. This calculator is an estimation tool and actual battery health should be assessed through professional diagnostics if concerns arise.
Disclaimer: This calculator is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional battery diagnostics. Actual battery performance may vary.
function calculateDegradation() {
var originalCapacity = parseFloat(document.getElementById("originalCapacity").value);
var currentCapacity = parseFloat(document.getElementById("currentCapacity").value);
var mileage = parseFloat(document.getElementById("mileage").value);
var chargingCycles = parseFloat(document.getElementById("chargingCycles").value);
var degradationPercentage = 0;
var resultText = "";
if (isNaN(originalCapacity) || isNaN(currentCapacity)) {
resultText = "Please enter valid numbers for original and current capacity.";
} else if (originalCapacity <= 0) {
resultText = "Original capacity must be greater than zero.";
} else if (currentCapacity originalCapacity) {
resultText = "Current capacity cannot be greater than original capacity.";
} else {
degradationPercentage = ((originalCapacity – currentCapacity) / originalCapacity) * 100;
resultText = "Estimated Degradation: " + degradationPercentage.toFixed(2) + "%";
}
document.getElementById("result").innerHTML = resultText;
}