Testing EV battery health is essential for the secondhand market: Startups are racing to test and certify battery health and performance for used EVs to help buyers determine their worth in the secondhand market, Reuters reports. The value of used EV batteries — which constitute 40% of an EV’s price tag — depends mainly on its driving range and ability to hold a charge.

Why does this matter? The lack of independent tests for EVs' range has hurt the market and being able to measure the battery's health will help buyers in the second market value their purchases better, the newswire adds. Used EV prices fell drastically last month y-o-y in the US and the UK, according to reports by EV startup Recurrent and Autotrader. Autotrader cited "consumer concerns around battery life in used EVs."

The pressure is on to develop testing methods: UK startup Altelium has developed an EV battery health test and certificate which it's aiming to launch this year to over 7k US car dealers and 5k British dealers. "If the second-hand car market doesn't work properly, the new car market doesn't work properly and the electric transition won't happen," Altelium business development manager Alex Jones told Reuters. Volkswagen-backed Australian startup Aviloo also developed a battery test for dealers and individuals and found that EV battery health can vary up to 30% after 100k km. Consumers looking for used EVs with 90% of the brand-new range can end up with ones at just 70% due to previous bad charging habits that should knock thousands off its value, Aviloo CEO Marcus Berger told the newswire.