This Tesla Model S Taxi Has 430,000 Miles. Here's How Its Battery Holds Up

It's still on its first battery and hasn't had its electric motors replaced either.

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13:43

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Jul 17, 2024 at 12:00pm ET

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Teslas are used as taxi cabs in many parts of the world, where they are driven hard and often don’t see adequate maintenance. This Model S from the UK has covered over 430,000 miles and it doesn’t appear to have had its motors serviced yet it’s still running on its original battery pack with plenty of life left.

The car hasn’t been especially well looked after, the proof being the oil seepage around the motors and the worn suspension components, among other parts that would need to be replaced. This is typical of Tesla taxis, whose owners only do the bare minimum when it comes to maintenance and don’t usually take care of these cars very well.

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Teslas are remarkably durable mechanically

While some interior pieces may show a lot of wear in high-mileage Teslas, the mechanical side of things holds really well, even with often spotty maintenance.

You should avoid an ex-taxi if you’re looking for a used EV since it’s likely to have more problems than one that saw less use. You can see this particular car has had a hard life, if only by the huge number of chips on the front bumper, so the fact that it still works well and has usable range is all the more impressive.

AutoTrader bought it as an experiment to evaluate how well a high-mileage Tesla has held up after years of being used as a taxi. Ferrying passengers around and doing a lot of miles every day not only accelerates the wear on many of the parts, but cabbies don't like to wait around for their car to charge, so they usually prefer to juice up from the fastest charger they can find.

Even with the potential accelerated degradation that frequent fast charging can cause, this Model S doesn’t need a new battery. Because it’s an older Tesla, they weren’t able to get the car to perform its own battery health test, and they used the Tessie app, which said the car still had 76.9% of its original 90-kilowatt-hour capacity, which it calculated was about 64.9 kWh.

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The app estimated that on a full charge, the car could still deliver a range of 216 miles, which is still acceptable given the original EPA rating for a Model S 90D was 290 miles. This Tesla is still good for another few years of driving with its original battery pack, as it provides plenty of usable range for its age.

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It’s worth noting that using apps like Tessie to test battery degradation isn’t as accurate as allowing the car to do its own test, which can take an entire day and requires the vehicle to be plugged in. When the car does it on its own, it will fully drain and then charge its battery to 100%, thus giving you a better picture of exactly how much capacity it has left.