UK electric car sales and service specialists RSEV have finally answered the question of whether mileage has any real-world effect on a modern electric vehicle’s efficiency by testing a Tesla Model 3 Long Range with 225,000 miles on the odometer concurrently on the same day, the same roads, and the same conditions, as an identical car with just 18,000 miles on it. If you’re in the market for an EV, miles on the car can make a huge difference in the purchase price, so you might be interested to find out that the efficiency of the electric motors and miles of cabling doesn’t degrade even a little bit. In this test RSEV drove the two vehicles 200 miles to test how the cars would handle range and efficiency, and as it turns out they delivered nearly identical numbers, despite one being on slightly less efficient all-season tires.
After two hundred miles of city, highway, and traffic driving, the two cars were within a single percentage point of each other when the trip ended. Both vehicles used 65% of the available battery for the trip, with the low-mileage car returning 4.55 miles per kilowatt-hour, and the high-mileage car turning in a respectable 4.51 mi/kWh. That minuscule difference could be explained away with one driver having a slightly heavier foot, getting stuck behind a car that the other didn’t, or the tire discrepancy, it’s impossible to say, but I’m willing to chalk the difference up to simple noise in the data.
Don’t worry, just drive
Knowing that the efficiency between the two is identical alleviates a lot of my concerns about purchasing a high-mileage electric car. Sure, there are still plenty of wear components that need to be replaced at high mileage, like suspension bushings and wheel bearings and whatnot, but knowing that the motors are still churning just as they were when the car was new lends some credibility to the longevity of EVs.
I hear you asking, “What about the battery pack?” The answer to that is slightly more complicated, but not much. As it turns out, this 225,000-mile Model 3 still retains 89% of its original battery capacity, which provides plenty of driving range for the average commuter. According to RSEV, both of these cars are 100% original, including their original motors and battery packs. I’ve definitely had a bunch of gas cars that didn’t survive to see 225,000 miles without a major component failure. I’m impressed.
