Q: How much does it cost to replace the battery pack on an EV?
A: After months of requesting information from car manufacturers and receiving little useful insight, we finally have a cost estimate – this time from the VW Group, which has the largest number of electric vehicles (EVs) on Irish roads.
According to Robert Guy, the director of group aftersales, the cost of a full battery replacement is estimated at €20,000. However, he is quick to clarify that since the e-Golf was introduced in 2014, VW has replaced just four battery packs in their entirety. Importantly, these replacements were necessitated by crashes, and the costs were covered by the insurance companies involved.
To put that in perspective, VW Group managing director Pierre Boutin estimates there are 21,000 fully-electric vehicles on Irish roads, which were sold between 2018 and 2024 that are from the group’s brands of Audi, VW, Skoda, Cupra and VW commercials. For just four full battery replacements to occur across such a large fleet shows full battery failure is not a significant issue for the company.
Instead, what may be more likely is that there will be a replacement of modules within the battery packs. Each module contains six to 12 individual battery cells. The typical EV battery on a VW ID model has 18 to 20 modules, and the cost of each module is about €1,500, according to Guy.
The number of modules and the cost, of course, will vary between car firms. However, VW Group’s transparency provides a useful benchmark, cutting through the speculation often caused by car firms’ reluctance to provide figures.
Alan Bateson, brand director of VW passenger cars, highlights another key point: battery packs are retaining their performance much better than many anticipated. He says that on average after three years, their service departments are seeing battery packs retaining 92-93 per cent of their charge capacity. As an example he references a VW ID model that has completed more than 200,000km with 70 per cent of charging done on fast DC chargers, which they found still had 91 per cent battery efficiency.
Based on VW Group figures, it would seem that full battery replacements are a rare occurrence compared to engine replacements on internal combustion engine cars.
While it’s clear that replacing a battery is expensive, potential VW EV buyers can make more informed decisions with these facts in hand, rather than relying on speculation. Other brands would do well to follow VW Group’s lead in providing similar transparency.
