A Tesla Roadster will drive across the United Kingdom to show the importance of battery longevity.

 

This weekend, a Tesla Roadster will travel from Lands End to John O' Groates, a distance of 870 miles that covers the whole island of Great Britain. This drive has been done by EVs previously, but this time it's in a unique vehicle: the very first car to do it, a 2010 Tesla Roadster that's still running on its original battery to show EV battery life.

The drive also serves as a fundraiser for Zero Carbon World, a UK organisation dedicated to reducing carbon emissions and promoting the adoption of electric vehicles. Alexander Sims, a Formula E driver who has done a comparable drive in a Model 3, is the chairman of Zero Carbon World. If you'd want to contribute some cash, you may do so through Just Giving (for £30, your name will be on the car).

“I'd like an electric car, but what about road trips?” we've all heard. Regardless of the fact that electric cars are currently excellent for road trips, this is still one of the features that people are most concerned about losing if they switch to electric.

Another issue with EVs is battery life. Everyone has a made-up stories about their buddy's brother's uncle's daughter's Prius needing a new battery every three years, therefore they somehow believe every EV will require a new battery every three years (never mind that all EV and hybrid batteries have eight-plus-year warranties now).

So Zero Carbon World's drive this weekend addresses both of these issues by showing that electric vehicles can be used for road trips even with a very old battery. 

And this is one of the oldest batteries you'll discover. The Tesla Roadster was the first highway-legal long-range modern electric vehicle to hit the market, and the vehicle's battery is more than 11 years old. That's a lot longer than the original warranty and a lot longer than most people expected the battery to last when the car was first sold.

This particular battery is not just old, but it is also the same one that powered its Roadster on the first-ever EV trip across Britain in 2011. From beginning to end, that journey will take 36 hours. At the conclusion of their journey, Kevin Sharpe and David Peilow smile for the camera:

The drive showed Tesla's nascent destination charging network (before it was called that), in which the company partnered with hotels and tourist attractions to install 17kW AC chargers that could charge the Roadster from zero to full in roughly three hours. Several 7kW chargers installed by Zero Carbon World were also used for intermediate charging during the voyage. As a result, charging took up nearly half of the 36 hours.

Road journeys have become a lot easier in recent years. We have DC charging networks that are much faster (up to 250kW in the best circumstances), and we have additional charging stations so that vehicles may select where to stop or go to the next location if one is full. As a result, the drive's total travel duration has been reduced from 36 hours to around 15 and a half hours, with only one and a half hours spent charging.

However, given to increased charger availability, the Roadster's time this weekend will most likely be similar to the original estimate, if not somewhat faster. Roadsters cannot be supercharged because they lack the high-power DC connector needed to use today's rapid chargers. Almost all new electric cars have DC charging capabilities, which makes this drive much shorter.

The number of drivers has been increased from two to four. The project will be led by Dean Fielding, who bought the Roadster from Sharpe. Glyn Hudson of Open Energy Monitor will join him, as will David Peilow, who was on the original trip. Alexander Sims, the chairman of Zero Carbon World and a Formula E racer, will also take a drive in the car. The follow car will be a Tesla Model 3.

The battery in this Roadster has degraded over the course of its 61,000 miles and 11 years of life, but not to the source of the problem. Fielding recently drove his Roadster 184 miles on a single charge, with the car still showing that it had 21 miles left. The car was originally rated for 244 miles on the EPA combined cycle (testing methods have changed since then), and Fielding recently drove his Roadster 184 miles on a single charge, with the car still showing that it had 21 miles left. This capacity reduction of about 20% is in line with what other Roadsters of similar age and mileage have experienced.

For the Roadster, this degradation is better than expected. The car had a three-year warranty when it was first released, before the standard for battery warranties was raised to eight to ten years. There was concern that they wouldn't endure long. The expense of a replacement battery was also high — $40,000 for a car with a base MSRP of $109,000.

Along with lasting longer than expected, battery advances in technology suggest that even if an original Roadster battery needs to be replaced, you may get a replacement battery that is both better and cheaper. A few years ago, Tesla introduced the “Roadster 3.0” update, which allows owners to upgrade their $40,000 53kWh battery to a $29,000 80kWh battery. The Roadster used in this weekend's journey hasn't received the upgrade and is still running on its original 53kWh battery pack.

However Tesla and other automakers have not committed to making such updates available for other vehicles, this shows that there is a technological possibility for replacement batteries to become both cheaper and better over time, as batteries advance year after year. Due to advances in technology and volume, other EV battery replacements will be usually less expensive than the original Roadster's.

Even one of the oldest electric vehicles on the road hasn't needed to be replaced yet. And this weekend will show what an old Tesla Roadster, the proof of concept that launched the modern electric vehicle industry, can still do on its old legs.

Follow Zero Carbon World on Twitter for additional information about the drive. There will be no public gatherings along the road, but you will be able to electronically follow along.