Battery degradation and behaviour for electric vehicles: Review and numerical analyses of several models

•We describe electric vehicle batteries, their status and expected developments.•We outline battery lifetime degradation and instantaneous behaviour characteristics.•We provide tractable battery degradation and behaviour models.•We analyze the instantaneous charging and discharging behaviour of batteries.•We develop several insights of interest to scientists and managers. The use of electric vehicles for goods distribution opens up a wide range of research problems. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) operate on batteries that have a limited life, as well as specific charging and discharging patterns which need to be considered in the context of their use for goods distribution. While many transportation problems associated with the integration of freight electric vehicles in distribution management problems have been investigated, there is room for further research on specifically how to model battery degradation and behaviour in such problems. The aim of this paper is to provide tractable models for transportation scientists that will allow predicting the lifetime degradation and instantaneous charging and discharging behaviour of BEV batteries.