Penrith regularly records the highest summer temperatures in the Sydney basin — often several degrees above the coast, and on the worst days a great deal more. For an electric or hybrid car battery, that is the most important local fact there is.
Heat is the primary driver of capacity loss in a lithium battery. Not distance, not age. A pack that spends its summers in Penrith is working harder to stay within its temperature window than the same pack in Katoomba an hour up the highway.
What that means in practice
A car parked on an uncovered driveway here has had a materially harder life than one in a garage or a basement. Most Penrith housing is freestanding with driveway or carport parking, which is the exposed end of the spectrum.
Passively-cooled packs suffer most. The Nissan LEAF has no liquid thermal management and simply has to wait for heat to leave. In Penrith that shows up in the numbers more than almost anywhere else in Sydney.
Charging to 100% and leaving the car sitting in the sun is the worst combination, and it is a common habit on nickel-chemistry cars where it is exactly the wrong thing to do.
None of this makes a Penrith car a bad buy. It makes it a car where the individual history matters more than the model average — and that is an advantage if you are the one measuring and the other bidders are not.
Where we come to
Penrith, Kingswood, Werrington, St Marys, Cambridge Park, Emu Plains, Glenmore Park, Jordan Springs, Cranebrook, Claremont Meadows and the surrounding areas. We also cover the Blue Mountains from Glenbrook up to Katoomba, so a car being sold at the bottom of the mountains is straightforward either way.
Booking
Online booking is open for all Penrith postcodes. $249, no travel surcharge. Phone 02 7252 1390 if that suits you better.
Western Sydney · Blue Mountains · St Marys · Book a test — $249