TEST EV Building Confidence in Pre-Loved EV Purchases – CleanTechnica

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As more and more battery electric vehicles (BEVs) reach their second (and even third) owners, buyers need and desire to have certified confidence in the most expensive and important part of the vehicle — the battery. The battery in an EV can cost up to one third of the price of the new vehicle. How can a buyer of a used vehicle be sure that their investment is worth the price? Enter TEST EV.

Started by experienced electric vehicle entrepreneur Nathan Gore-Brown in January this year, “TEST EV Pty Ltd is Australia and New Zealand’s Aviloo reseller building a network of partners delivering Aviloo Battery health testing. Built on 30 years of automotive industry experience and 10 years focused on electric vehicles TEST EV knows the confidence that consumers are looking for in used EVs and the technical support our partners need. We have partnered with AVILOO after a global search for the best EV battery health testing system. AVILOO’s plug & play, accurate, independent and wide coverage Plug-in EV tester is exactly what the Australian and New Zealand markets need.”

TEST EV’s founder Nathan Gore-Brown said of the relationship with AVILOO, “It’s an honour to use our local strengths to represent and provide the AVLIOO FLASH TEST system to build confidence in EV ownership. Our network of partners grows weekly and AVILOO has become the standard for independent EV battery health testing.”

Nathan recently attended our Coffee Cake and EVs morning at Bracken Ridge Tavern in his newly purchased Farizon SuperVan (an article on this will be coming soon). He showed the AVILOO Flash Testing tool to the group and called for a volunteer. Needless to say, I offered my six-year-old Tesla Model 3 Standard Range as a guinea pig. The FLASH Test determines the State of Health (SoH) of the drive battery in just three minutes via Plug & Play. Nathan plugged it is, we had a play, and this is the certificate that was generated:

What a boon to those dealerships selling used BEVs! What a confidence booster for the general public who are a little nervous about dipping a toe in the water. One issue I queried on my certificate was that it listed the range as 345 km WLTP, whereas when we charge the car to 100%, the range indicator says only 300 km. Our real-world experience tells us that the 300 km estimate is more accurate. (Yes, we have had 10% degradation over 170,000 kms of driving) Does TEST EV need to make some sort of statement in this regard? Is there a formula that converts WLTP range to real-world range?

Here is Nathan’s answer:

“WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure) is a standardised lab test that measures an EV’s range and energy consumption under controlled conditions designed to simulate real-world driving with 100% battery health. While more realistic than older tests (like NEDC), actual EV range typically falls 10-30% below WLTP figures due to factors like aerodynamics (it’s done in a lab, no wind), weather, driving style, and terrain.

“The certificate states the certified WLTP range for reference. It also offers typical range as an expectation of current real world with the current state of health, 262km based on typical consumption over the energy now available in the battery (40.4kWh). The report also has an “individual” rating with takes the recent consumption of the vehicle over the energy available. In this case your consumption must be at the higher end for the driving as that result is 243km. … something the dealer often shares with the customers during the sales process.”

Nathan tells me that he has set up TEST EV to advance the adoption of EVs, by delivering confidence to EV buyers and sellers and therefore retain value in the EV supply chain. He is developing a network of testing partners across Australia and New Zealand to deliver Aviloo testing. He is providing insight, training and support for his network of testing partners. His list of testing partners is impressive and is growing rapidly. The TEST EV public network can be found here.

Some of their customers leading the way in Australia and NZ include:

• Pickles Auctions — every EV sold is tested, leading market confidence in EVs at auction.
• Easyauto123 — the Eagers Automotive used car supermarket group marketing vehicles with the test. Eagers is the primary retail partner for BYD in Australia.
• Autosport Groups Prestige Auto Traders Sydney and Melbourne are testing high-end EVs
• Redbook Inspect — Carsales’ inspection team
• GVI Sales New Zealand — the biggest EV dealer in Auckland.

From the Aviloo website: AVILOO GmbH (based in Austria) is the “world market leader in battery diagnostics for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. It develops and markets precise, fast, and manufacturer-independent tests to determine the State of Health (SoH) and detect defects in the drive batteries of used electric vehicles. The test results are provided in the form of detailed certificates and (no defects given) labelled with AVILOO CERTIFIED. All analysis procedures and certificates are TÜV or CARA certified, ensuring absolute transparency and safety for used car buyers and sellers, as well as users (commercial and private). The currently fastest, most reliable, and comprehensive diagnostic solution on the global market is the AVILOO FLASH Test, which can be implemented cost-effectively and easily within three minutes on a stationary vehicle and summarized in the compact AVILOO PREVIEW. AVILOO currently achieves 95% coverage of all available brands.

“The FLASH Test goes far beyond the classic reading of the BMS SoH; the SoH is precisely and independently calculated using complex mathematical models. This enables benchmarking against comparable vehicles, the real achievable range of the tested vehicle, and a comparison to the WLTP value and the typical range of comparable vehicles from the AVILOO database. A heatmap analysis also detects defects down to the cell level, even allowing the exact identification of the defective cell. This combination and quality of features are unmatched by any other product on the market and are unique worldwide. All results are included in AVILOO’s independent battery certificate and are graphically presented in the AVILOO PREVIEW, making them easy to understand for both experts and non-experts.”

AVILOO aims to provide a win-win situation for buyer and seller alike. Certified testing leads to buyer confidence, which in turn leads to higher value. In Europe, this has been estimated as a difference between 550 to 1000 euros when an EV is sold with an independent battery certificate. The dealer is seen as trustworthy; the vehicle is seen as safe and reliable.

“We want to create clarity in the global market for used EV and plug-in hybrid vehicles, both for dealers and potential buyers. Therefore, we are very pleased to have found a strategically important partner in Test EV in Australia and New Zealand. We are confident that through this partnership, we have taken another step towards elevating battery diagnostics in Australia and New Zealand to a new level,” Said AVILOO CEO Marcus Berger.

I asked Nathan to supply a short bio, and below is what he told me about himself. He is certainly no stranger to the auto world, and in particular to battery electric vehicles.

He was initially an auto electrician and apprentice in the years 1996–2002. Then he was an engineer at Jaguar in the UK in 2002. He moved to sales and marketing at the Aston Martin factory in UK, where he stayed from 2005–2012. He returned to Australia and worked in Darwin for Hastings Deering Caterpillar from 2013 to 2015. He was the first store manager for the Tesla Fortitude Valley store in Brisbane in 2017. He has been consulting re: EVs since 2019 and now has his own consulting company ZEV Integrations. He started TEST EV in January 2025.

The EV world needs all the entrepreneurs it can get as we counter FUD and move towards a brighter future. No, you don’t have to replace the battery, just get it checked and drive on.