e-Hybrid Battery condition

[GJH_987]

Hi, I'm considering a 2015/16 Cayenne eHybrid. But with Porsche only providing a 7year warranty on the batteries I wondered if there was a way of confirming what the condition of the batteries are. Bit like on your phone where you can see Battery Health. My phone currently says Maximum Capacity is 89% so it's lost 11% in a 2years. I'd like to know the condition of the Batteries in the car before I purchase one.


Also can anyone comment on the charger / charging station situation? Do you need a specific type? I'd be charging from home mainly as I work from home and do short journeys.

 

[dickie130184@aol.com]

Hi ghj,
I have a 2015 hybrid aswell. I'm pretty sure that a Porsche service center can assess the battery, probably not much help I know.
Although I imagine anyone who has a piwis and knows about the hybrid could do the same.
As for chargers you need a type 2, 7kw charger. The 7KW on board charger was an optional extra so look for one that has it. The standard is a 3.5kw so half the charge speed. I fitted a project ev charger, looks good and is very cheap.

Rich

 

[Octane]

I wondered if there was a way of confirming what the condition of the batteries are.

This a great question. The battery *must* know this, even just a count of the number of charge/discharge cycles would be a good indicator (this is a similar idea to looking at the Wear Level Count on an SSD via SMART if you know tech). I asked Porsche if this was possible, but got a no / don't know answer. I suggest if someone with a Hybrid can find some stats on the battery via regular OBD (not piwis) then that would be very useful for a purchaser or owner to know!

I looked at getting a Hybrid, but IMO the battery replacement cost is not being factored into the 2nd hand price and it seems to be £10k. Without the above info you could just assume it lasts something like 10y / 100k and factor in an additional pro-rata cost of say £1k per year of age.

 

[charanpal71]

This a great question. The battery *must* know this, even just a count of the number of charge/discharge cycles would be a good indicator (this is a similar idea to looking at the Wear Level Count on an SSD via SMART if you know tech). I asked Porsche if this was possible, but got a no / don't know answer. I suggest if someone with a Hybrid can find some stats on the battery via regular OBD (not piwis) then that would be very useful for a purchaser or owner to know!

I looked at getting a Hybrid, but IMO the battery replacement cost is not being factored into the 2nd hand price and it seems to be £10k. Without the above info you could just assume it lasts something like 10y / 100k and factor in an additional pro-rata cost of say £1k per year of age.

Would be keen to know the outcome of this discussion

 

[aura.same]

That’s a really solid question. The battery should at least track basic data like the number of charge and discharge cycles, which would already be a meaningful indicator of health—similar to checking an SSD’s Wear Level Count through SMART for those familiar with tech. I actually asked Porsche whether this kind of information was accessible, but the response was essentially no or unclear.

If a Hybrid owner could retrieve useful battery statistics through standard OBD tools (not PIWIS), it would be extremely valuable for both buyers and current owners. This kind of transparency would make a big difference when assessing real-world battery condition.

I considered buying a Hybrid myself, but in my view the cost of battery replacement—around £10k—doesn’t seem to be properly reflected in second-hand prices. Without reliable health data, the safest assumption might be a lifespan of roughly 10 years or 100k miles, then factoring in a pro-rata cost of around £1k per year of age when evaluating the car’s true value.

 

[charanpal71]

Short story: My experience of this resulted in me staying away from hybrids and sticking with internal combustion engines.

In November 2025 I was considering a 2017 Cayenne Hybrid with 45k miles from Leeds OPC. The 2 year Porsche warranty would cover the car for faults including the HV battery, but not wear and tear, which is entirely reasonable. The issue for me was identifying the battery degradation and that the OPC could not provide any detail on the condition of the battery. They also would not tell me the full EV range until I saw the vehicle, which was a full day trip for me. It turned out to be 11 miles and I was aware of another club member whose range was >18 miles on a vehicle with ~30,000 miles.

The points raised in this thread are entirely reasonable and as explained to me Porsche approved used fully electric vehicles come with a battery health check certificate. I was informed by Leeds that hybrids do not come with a battery health check and that it was not possible to give me any information on number of charging cycles or percentage of maximum battery capacity. The only information they provided me was whether it has passed or failed the 111 OPC check.

Without this information it is impossible to tell whether a vehicle has spent its life driven in EV only mode or in hybrid mode to supplement the engine. 50,000 miles in EV only in a heavy SUV will obviously impact the battery considerably more.

The only more basic measure you can use is the current range on a fully charged battery vs. the range of a fully charged battery when new. This obviously requires the other variables such as temperature to be constant, or at the very least not at the extremes.

I was also informed by a PCGB member Glyn Lloyd / Chris Lloyd that a new battery from Porsche is £26k and I have to say he is the most wonderful and helpful person!

The salesman suggested that I consider GAP insurance if the battery were to make the car unusable. And to top things off, they refused to return the deposit to me and so I was successful in contacting the credit card company.

Going back several years now, at the launch of the Taycan, battery degradation and battery faults were the primary concern. The response at the time was that the individual faulty cells can be identified and replaced cost effectively. That does not seem to be the case and there seem to be very few people who can help outside of the OPC network.

These batteries log substantial information. I suspect it is a matter of that information being available to be found. In my experience, I was surprised that the salesman and service manager was unable to provide any of this information.