A battery warranty has three terms and the headline only tells you one. Eight years sounds identical across the industry — and it mostly is, because it is close to a legal minimum in several markets. What varies, and what decides whether you ever get a pack replaced, is the capacity floor.
Ranked from the 20 cars in our database that have a sourced figure for this. A car with no published figure is left out rather than ranked as a zero. Figures are US units; every model page carries the metric equivalent and the source.Figures are metric; every model page carries the imperial equivalent and the source.
The capacity floor is the term that matters
Almost every warranty here promises to replace or repair the pack if it falls below a stated percentage of its original capacity within the term. That percentage is usually 70 percent. It is a much lower bar than owners expect.
Consider what 70 percent means. A car with 450 km of real range when new would have to fall to 315 km before the warranty engages. Published fleet data suggests a typical pack loses in the region of 2 to 2.7 percent a year — which over eight years lands somewhere around 78 to 84 percent, comfortably above the floor. In other words, the warranty is designed not to pay out on normal ageing, and normal ageing is what most people are actually worried about.
That is not a criticism of any manufacturer. It is what the term is for: it covers a defective pack, not gradual capacity loss. Read it as protection against something going wrong, not as a guarantee of range.
Distance limits differ by market
The same warranty is commonly written as eight years or 100,000 miles in the United States and eight years or 160,000 kilometres in Europe — which is about 99,400 miles, so they are close to equivalent. Where we have a market-specific figure, the car’s own page names the market in the source credit.
Some entries in our database have blank warranty fields. That means the terms vary by market or depend on servicing conditions in a way we could not source cleanly — not that the car has no warranty. We would rather leave it empty than publish the most generous published figure as if it applied everywhere.
Frequently asked questions
Does the battery warranty transfer to a second owner?
Usually yes, for the remainder of the term, and that is a significant part of what supports used electric car values. Confirm it in the specific warranty document rather than assuming — the terms are not identical across manufacturers.
What does a replacement cost outside warranty?
Our car pages carry an estimate, clearly labelled as one, with the calculation published on the methodology page. Pack prices have fallen a long way and continue to; an estimate made today for a claim in 2032 is a projection, not a quote.
How would I prove my pack is below the floor?
Through the manufacturer’s own diagnostic, at a franchised workshop. The figure your dashboard or a third-party app reports is not what the claim is assessed on.