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I googled this but didn't learn much. I'm thinking since it doesn't have to crank the engine to start it it should last longer. I hope to buy a used Bolt soon and if I get a 2017 or 18 the battery will be 6 years old.
All the electrics have a 12 volt battery. I think their life varies by car. I know for a while some Tesla's were going thru 12 volts pretty fast, but I think that might have been fixed. I don't own a Tesla.
I owned 2 Leafs. First one for 80K and 7 years. I think I replaced battery once. But I live in Florida, so no harsh winter. Second Leaf was 32K and 3 years and was still on first battery.
I own 2 Bolts now. 2020 and 2021. Both around 20K miles. No battery issues. I do hear people on the forums talking about weird problems that show up when the 12 volt dies. And the first year for Bolt was 2017. So if I had a 2017 and it was on the original battery, I'd be monitoring it's status carefully. And might replace it pro-actively.
I would change it every 5 years; same as a gasoline car. If you live further south than I do, I would change it more often. It is heat, not cold, that kills batteries. If your battery is AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt), it should last longer.
In the Bolts, I'd change the 12V battery out as part of the purchase process on those years as they are 4-5 years old. But I've heard of 12V batteries being bad in brand new ones (but mostly in the '22s that sat on lots for a while waiting on new traction batteries from the recall).
One thing is that, as was mentioned, all the electronics in the cars run off the 12V battery, and if they get a bit low or weird, all sorts of weird things can happen. It's recommended to carry a 10mm wrench with you so that if you get a message about "conditions not right for shifting" or anything like that, or a lot of lights on the dash lit up, you simply take off the negative cable from that 12V battery for a minute so everything resets, then connect it back up and all will be well. If it does that, you might look into a new battery (luckily on the new ones that's under warranty, too, though I think if it happens to mine, I'd look to the aftermarket. Luckily my 2020 never had anything like that happen, and so far my '23 hasn't had it either).
Judging just how long your battery is "good", somewhat depends on how much juice your car needs to reliably start, each and every time.
I have a pretty good, strong battery. But I also have an engine (5.2L, V8) that is quite piggish on current when starting. So, most of the time it does great......I keep the whole system well maintained.
But when the starting-system faces some challenges, my battery better be nice and zapped-up, or the starter may spin the engine very slowly, even having to goose it with a charge to get it started.
Car would turn 'on', but wouldn't move. No power steering, MIL light, and wonky HVAC lights. Weak 12v AGM batteries in EVs can cause some really odd symptoms, and people have spent a lot of money fixing things that weren't even broken.
It really varies from model to model based on how the 12V system was designed and how it's used. Hybrids, BEVs, and PHEVs typically do not have belt-driven alternators and instead use a DC-DC converter that uses the high voltage traction battery to recharge the 12V battery when the contactors are open.
There's a theory that Tesla's 12V battery system is used for a lot of items such as coolant pumps, Sentry mode, internet connectivity, etc causing a heavy drain of the 12V battery when the car is not used for days on end. There's another theory that Tesla's 12V battery system has a tendency to overcharge the battery causing it premature fail; then there's a theory that Tesla's 12V batteries are crapshoot and some are just failure-prone.
I can tell you that the 12V battery on our old 2007 Lexus Rx400h would die like clockwork every 24 months, our 2013 Tesla Model S 85 (no Sentry and no AP) has had 2 12V batteries over 122K miles although the 12V warning message has been on for over 8 months, and our 2013 Fiat 500e is still on the original 12V battery with 82K miles on it.
It's best to join a Bolt-specific car forum and see what the other users have experienced and recommend.
Weak 12v AGM batteries in EVs can cause some really odd symptoms, and people have spent a lot of money fixing things that weren't even broken.
Yup, most issues in modern cars, especially when warning lights start randomly coming up al over, tend to be the 12V battery going bad and not something in other systems. In EVs this is even more true as everything runs off electricity, and the computer controls are all run off the 12V, so you can get things where it won't shift out of park (Conditions not correct for drive) to random warning lights, to warnings about the main traction battery not being available.
Judging just how long your battery is "good", somewhat depends on how much juice your car needs to reliably start, each and every time.
I have a pretty good, strong battery. But I also have an engine (5.2L, V8) that is quite piggish on current when starting. So, most of the time it does great......I keep the whole system well maintained.
But when the starting-system faces some challenges, my battery better be nice and zapped-up, or the starter may spin the engine very slowly, even having to goose it with a charge to get it started.
What does this have to do with the question about the 12v battery in an ELECTRIC car?
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