Market and product

Rising temperatures accelerate aging, but battery chemistry is boosting longevity

Electric vehicles are a key tool for decarbonizing transportation. Supported by falling battery costs and policy incentives, EVs grew from 3% to 18% of global new car sales between 2019 and 2023, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

But EV adoption is accelerating alongside worsening climate conditions—some already locked in by past emissions. Because battery performance depends strongly on temperature, the warming climate that EVs aim to mitigate may also undermine their operation. A new modeling study shows that’s exactly what’s likely to happen, and it predicts that newer, more advanced batteries will fare better than older ones (Nat. Clim. Change 2026, DOI: 10.1038/s41558-026-02579-z).

“Higher temperatures accelerate parasitic reactions inside the battery,” says Haochi Wu, an energy systems researcher who led the project at the University of Michigan. “These reactions consume active lithium and gradually degrade the battery. In hotter climates, these reaction rates increase.”

To study battery performance, Wu and colleagues combined battery degradation models with high-resolution climate projections for 300 cities worldwide. They found that earlier EV batteries (2010–18) could lose about 8% of their lifetimes on average under 2 °C of warming and lose as much as 30% in the hottest regions.

“Temperature differences between regions already play a major role in battery lifetime,” says Dirk Uwe Sauer, a professor of electrochemical energy at the Helmholtz Institute Münster who was not involved in the study. “An electric car designed for Central Europe may perform quite differently in a much warmer region like Bangkok.”

Wu and his colleagues also identified an encouraging trend: rapid improvements in battery chemistry mean newer EV batteries are becoming more resilient to heat.

“Equatorial and tropical regions—such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa—which were once experiencing large heat-related degradation for old technologies, see the most significant lifespan gains,” says study coauthor Michael Craig at the University of Michigan.

Sauer notes that modern batteries often last long enough that they are unlikely to fail because of mileage alone. Instead, calendar aging—driven largely by temperature—is becoming the dominant factor.

Wu says the advances do not stem from a single breakthrough. As production has scaled up, battery design and manufacturing have improved across many areas, from electrode materials and electrolyte additives to coatings and production processes.

“This is crucial as EV batteries need to last for 15–20 years,” says Hugh Geaney of the University of Limerick, a battery specialist who was not involved in the study. “It is very reassuring that these higher global temperatures will not significantly reduce battery lifetime.”

Geaney adds that there is still uncertainty in modeling battery lifetimes—particularly as new chemistries emerge—and real-world usage patterns vary. But as more real-world data become available, these models should improve.

Sauer also warns against overgeneralizing battery performance. “Aging behavior is highly specific to each battery product, so I’m cautious about making broad statements about lithium-ion batteries,” he says. “Even cells with the same chemistry on the label can behave quite differently. But the overall trend is clear: manufacturers have options to make batteries more resilient to higher temperatures.”

Rising global temperatures will continue to challenge EV batteries, and further improvements will be needed as technology evolves. Emerging systems, including solid-state and silicon-anode batteries, promise higher energy density and improved safety, but their durability under elevated temperatures remains a question.

“Future EV battery research should account for the longer lifetimes and higher temperatures expected in a warming climate,” Wu says.