A new analysis of end-of-lease EVs by Belgian mobility organisation VAB confirms what international research has long indicated: battery reliability is far better than many early predictions, and the second-hand electric car market has matured much faster than most consumers realize.
With high battery health, falling purchase prices, and ownership costs that increasingly rival or even undercut combustion cars, the direction of travel is unmistakable. The quiet revolution is that the used EV — once feared — has become one of the most dependable bets in the car market.
Fear of degraded batteries fading
For years, the fear of degraded batteries and the assumption that used EVs carry prohibitive ownership costs have held buyers back. Yet VAB’s latest tests, carried out on four end-of-lease cars supplied by KBC Autolease, paint a very different picture.
Even after three to four years and mileage ranging from 18,000 to more than 80,000 kilometres, the cars’ batteries retain between 94 and 97 percent of their original capacity.
That result, strikingly consistent across the Audi e-tron, BMW i4, Peugeot e-2008, and Volvo XC40, supports what international fleet datasets have hinted at for years: modern EV batteries are ageing far more gracefully than popular perception suggests.
Aviloo battery test
This conclusion is not abstract. VAB technicians subjected every vehicle to an Aviloo Premium battery test, a procedure expected to become mandatory for second-hand EV sales and to be integrated into CarPass next year.
The State of Health (SoH) scores, all in the mid-90s, place these used EVs on par with the global averages observed by Recurrent, Geotab, and various university studies, where degradation typically ranges between 2 and 3 percent per year and often remains below 10 percent after 150,000 kilometres.
The Belgian case is, if anything, more reassuring: the country’s leasing fleet predominantly charges on AC at home or work, an environment known to preserve battery longevity.
If anything, the VAB dataset confirms a kind of calm, predictable ageing curve, one in which the battery fears of a decade ago look increasingly unfounded.
Prestine condition
What surprised testers even more was how little these used EVs felt ‘used’. We had the opportunity to drive the tested vehicles ourselves, and to be honest, they all were in near-showroom condition, like new.
Journalists and consumer jurors invited to drive them during the VAB Family Car of the Year event reported almost no squeaks, rattles, or ergonomic wear, a reminder that an EV’s simplified drivetrain means far fewer mechanical components to degrade.
Electric motors, unlike combustion engines, do not age in the same way through thermal cycles, friction, lubrication, or vibration. The combined effect is that a three- or four-year-old EV often feels newer than an equivalent diesel or petrol car with the same mileage.
Cost-per-kilometer and TCO
That impression of near-new quality is reflected in the numbers. VAB calculated official cost-per-kilometre figures for the cars, assuming 20,000 kilometres per year over eight years.
The results ranged from €0.31/km for the Peugeot e-2008 to €0.46/km for the Audi e-tron, with BMW and Volvo in between. These values include depreciation from the new list price plus electricity and running costs.
We had AI calculate a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) using the actual market sale prices KBC Autolease puts on these cars — €32,900 for the Audi, €39,900 for the BMW, €19,900 for the Peugeot, and €28,900 for the Volvo — the outcomes fell remarkably close to VAB’s own estimates.
For example, using today’s used prices and assuming eight more years of ownership, a modest 20 percent residual value and a realistic annual allowance of €1,500 for maintenance, tyres, and insurance, the e-tron returns a lifetime cost of about €0.42/km, the BMW i4 roughly €0.40/km and the Peugeot e-2008 a class-leading €0.30/km.
The Volvo XC40 slots in at €0.36/km. While the absolute numbers are slightly lower because depreciation begins at the used purchase price rather than the new one, the hierarchy — and the financial logic — mirrors VAB’s conclusions almost exactly.
On par with diesel or significantly cheaper
In practice, that means a used premium EV now costs broadly the same per kilometre as a similarly sized diesel. In contrast, a compact EV such as the Peugeot is significantly cheaper to own long-term than most internal combustion alternatives.
The only condition is that the driver covers enough annual mileage to dilute depreciation, a principle that applies equally to gasoline and diesel cars.
If we compare the used i4 with its 4 Series combustion version, driven another 20,000 a year for eight years, the difference becomes even more striking.
The 4 Series typically consumes around 5.2 l/100 km in official figures. Still, real-world fuel use is usually higher, and maintenance costs are notably higher due to the complexity of the engine, gearbox, and exhaust system.
When you combine fuel, servicing, and repairs, a realistic long-term TCO for a used 4 Series lands around €0.55–0.60 per kilometre for drivers covering about 20,000 km per year.
The used BMW i4, by contrast, comes out at roughly €0.40 per kilometre under the same assumptions, thanks to much lower energy costs and minimal mechanical wear.
Over an eight-year horizon at 20,000 km per year, that translates into a meaningful advantage for the EV: roughly €24,000 to €32,000 saved compared to the ICE version.
International studies
When it comes to the reliability of the used batteries, the alignment between VAB’s findings and international research is striking. Studies from North America and Scandinavia consistently show that EVs, even in harsh climates, suffer minimal degradation when they feature thermal management and are not exclusively fast-charged.
The failures that early adopters feared — catastrophic battery loss, sudden capacity collapse — have become rare exceptions. Instead, what emerges from fleet-wide analytics is a predictable downward slope in capacity, slow, incremental, and seldom alarming.
Many EV taxis, the most intensive use case available, pass 200,000 or even 300,000 kilometres with well over 80 percent of their original range intact.
Rapid technical evolution
If anything, the fears that once dominated public debate have flipped: today, the limiting factor is often not battery longevity but the rapid pace of model evolution, which pushes owners to upgrade for better efficiency or charging speed long before the battery becomes an actual problem.
This final point — technological evolution — is perhaps the most important backdrop to the VAB report. Battery chemistry has moved from early NMC blends to longer-lasting formulations and widely used (and cheaper) LFP batteries.
Thermal management systems have become more sophisticated, and software now actively protects the pack during both charging and storage; and carmakers are increasingly designing batteries to outlive the vehicle itself.
Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe: the contrast
The contrast with early mass-market EVs such as the first-generation Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe is telling. Those pioneering models were built before liquid cooling, battery-protective software, and modern cell chemistries became standard, and many relied solely on passive air cooling.
As a result, their batteries routinely operated at higher temperatures, degraded more quickly, and earned a reputation for premature range loss. This stigma still weighs on their resale value today.
The VAB findings highlight just how far the technology has come: the four end-of-lease EVs it tested, all equipped with sophisticated thermal management and more innovative charge-control systems, retained between 94 and 97 percent of their original capacity after several years and thousands of kilometres.
In other words, the weaknesses of early EVs are not a preview of modern ones, and the used-EV market is now benefiting from this leap in technology.
Preview of a broader shift
Solid-state technology, while not yet commercial, promises even slower degradation and higher safety margins from 2027 on at the earliest and more like beyond 2030 in mass production.
Meanwhile, efficiency improvements mean that future EVs will require smaller batteries to achieve the same range, reducing costs and environmental impact. All of this suggests that the long-term economics of EV ownership will continue to improve, not plateau.
Viewed in that light, VAB’s findings are less a surprising anomaly than a preview of a broader shift. The second-hand EV market, once held back by uncertainty, is becoming one of the most rational and accessible pathways into electric driving.
