3 Common Mistakes That May Harm Your EV Battery - Engineering Explained

[dtbaker61]

This is counterintuitive to my Laziness!!!

no worries.

when the display says 0% or 100%, there is still a buffer.....
and a warranty.

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[dbsb3233]

He's mostly right on the cell chemistry and considerations for Lion... but underplayed the difference coming with LFP, and solid state. but, for those of us with Lion in the tank, the mfg BMS is conservative enough top and bottom that you can charge however you like, and it will last for the warranty.....

or it won't, and you get a new battery.

and hang the old one on the wall in your garage to run your home

Many people care about the second 100,000 miles too though, especially since one of the selling points of EVs is supposed to be longevity. Although I know lots of people move on from their car before then.

But it's also about how much range we're ok with doing without. Warranty only kicks in if we lose more that 30%. If good practices only lose 10% by then instead of 30% (or even 20%), I'd find it worthwhile. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

 

[mkhuffman]

Many people care about the second 100,000 miles too though, especially since one of the selling points of EVs is supposed to be longevity. Although I know lots of people move on from their car before then.

But it's also about how much range we're ok with doing without. Warranty only kicks in if we lose more that 30%. If good practices only lose 10% by then instead of 30% (or even 20%), I'd find it worthwhile. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

The SoH of my battery is 92.5%. I have no desire to see it go lower, and I changed my charging behavior because of that. I still charge to 100% but only right before I leave on a trip that requires it.

 

[dixiekidd88]

I just updated an old post I had made about the SOH for our 21. We rolled 100k today and almost a full 3 years with it (next month).

We have been charging at home 5 days a week from 25-35% to 90-100% because we need the range. It is driven in Unbridled mode, no one pedal at all.

SOH has been steady at 88% since 80k miles, and at one point bumped up to 90%. We are very pleased with these numbers and look forward to the next 100k miles!!!

 

[dbsb3233]

I just updated an old post I had made about the SOH for our 21. We rolled 100k today and almost a full 3 years with it (next month).

We have been charging at home 5 days a week from 25-35% to 90-100% because we need the range. It is driven in Unbridled mode, no one pedal at all.

SOH has been steady at 88% since 80k miles, and at one point bumped up to 90%. We are very pleased with these numbers and look forward to the next 100k miles!!!

Wow, that's impressive! We're just about to crack 50,000 in our First Edition that turns 3 years next month too. But we do have 7000 miles of road trips planned by May. 80% of our miles are road trips.

Last I checked my SOH it was 94.5, but it does move around some.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

20 months in service and 9,500 miles of mostly DCFC. SoH is 95%.

 

[Phrozen]

I think Jason is a charlatan.

LMAO. Of course you do. He uses science and complicated words.

As for our Mach-E, in the winter, it gets plugged in every day. In the summer, I keep it between 50%-90% unless we're going on a trip.

 

[KevinS]

Thanks for the video!

Ford says 90% so that’s what I have been doing. Maybe I’ll kick it down to 80% except for road trips.

 

[mkhuffman]

LMAO. Of course you do. He uses science and complicated words.

Did you watch his wheel size video? Sure he uses science and complicated words, but if you understand the science and complicated words, you figure out he didn't do a thorough analysis and left out some very important factors that impact range.

I don't know if he did same thing in this video because after the wheel video I have written him off. Maybe he did a good analysis this time. I doubt it.

And, by the way, I was insulting Jason, not you. Not sure why you had to get so defensive and insult me.

 

[Teslaeata]

The science sounds interesting assuming it’s correct and I have no way or intention of verifying it so take it on face value and don’t worry about battery degradation anyway.

Certainly won’t lose sleep.

77,000 miles in 908 days charging from virtually 0 to 100% on probably 400 times with some c20% to c80% DCFC charges in between is my life.

The car fits in with that or it goes, or battery modules get changed.

I doubt the “battery” in its entirety would ever need doing but if it does then so what, pay up, look happy and go another 150,000 miles plus.

That looks like the very minimum I’m likely to get out of Stangy’s “battery” and am likely to go to over 200,000 miles, watch this space as I’m not tiring of this amazing car yet.

HV battery SoH is around 95% which don’t conform to the results of the scientific testing.

So, what do I believe? Only what I experience in what is only my real-world situation.

Then I stand back and take one looks at Stangy, drink in its beauty, shrug my shoulders and forget all the worries about HV or even LV battery life?

 

[Vgkfan]

Many people care about the second 100,000 miles too though, especially since one of the selling points of EVs is supposed to be longevity. Although I know lots of people move on from their car before then.

But it's also about how much range we're ok with doing without. Warranty only kicks in if we lose more that 30%. If good practices only lose 10% by then instead of 30% (or even 20%), I'd find it worthwhile. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

20 months in service and 9,500 miles of mostly DCFC. SoH is 95%.

21 months in service and 9700 miles, never used DCFC. SoH unknown, but will be interesting to compare in 5 years or so.

 

[TheSteelRider]

I guess you have to do a tremendous amount of brain maintenance in order to make sure that you're paying attention to all the different things that affect performance of the vehicle. You would think that a manufacture the vehicle would build in systems to make sure that the battery is constantly being optimized so that it is always performing its best and that's not to say that it's not being done but worrying about how much you charge it is crazy because you should be able to charge it to 100% like you're able to fill the tank of a gas powered vehicle to full. If you have to go through all these iterations to make something last longer I guess you could say you've put it in the category of maintenance because like washing a car once a week it helps the paint and the overall performance of the outside of the car. So electric car is really aren't less maintenance going to the dealer per se but maybe they're more maintenance because we have to pay attention to them so more to make sure that every component last as long as it can I don't know strange experiment I can tell you after 2 1/2 years of ownership that the cost of ownership is exactly the same as a gas powered vehicle. Because insurance cost twice as much the chance of getting an accident getting totaled is much greater than a standard gas powered car and good luck finding a public charger in the orange county area in California you have to wait an hour to two hours just to get one so if you go somewhere too far and you can't make it back good luck finding the charger half the time they don't work again it's not to say that I don't like my electric car but again here's where I have to plan to make sure that I have enough power to get back to wherever I'm going From and then it itself at some form of maintenance

Nope. The car is designed so that you do what you want. 99% of people with EVs drive like they want, when they want and charge when they want, how they want. It's full on Ron Popeil set-it-and-forget-it.

Jason Fenske is and Engineer and nerd and loves to deep dive into the real nitty gritty design details. For example, he's done many, MANY videos on tires and just the exact right correct dealy-digs to get the most out of your tires. He's done the same with manual transmissions and CVTs. He has done several videos on the types / grades of oil and exactly what the precise amount of miles should be between changes.

His videos are not a how-to.

 

[TheSteelRider]

Did you watch his wheel size video? Sure he uses science and complicated words, but if you understand the science and complicated words, you figure out he didn't do a thorough analysis and left out some very important factors that impact range.

like ... ? I'm sure a lot of folk would love to have some extra knowledge, so please lay it on us!

 

[Logal727]

So I should stop filling it with gas??

 

[mkhuffman]

like ... ? I'm sure a lot of folk would love to have some extra knowledge, so please lay it on us!

I posted this on a thread back in September. But rather than link to it, here it is again:

He has a good start with the analysis of the aerodynamic impacts of tire width. That seems like a solid analysis. Then it goes downhill.

The rolling resistance analysis is pretty good, but then he makes it sound like the average tire has good rolling resistance so there is little room for improvement there. That is BS. Maybe if you have a stock Tesla tire the rolling resistance is good, and hard to improve on, but a standard non EV specific tire does NOT have good rolling resistance. And it is very difficult to know without testing how good rolling resistance is.

And finally, he totally craps the bed with the wheel size analysis. He compares three different tire and rim combinations and concludes smaller wheels are better. All three wheels have different tires, different wheel widths and different designs that greatly impact aerodynamics. But he just says smaller is better. Which is not true. And he does not explain why larger wheels are less efficient.

And then he tells us we hate the environment if we have big wheels. So annoying.

The fact is bigger rims with tires that have smaller sidewalls usually perform worse because of aerodynamic losses due to the wheel rotating and moving forward. Two different factors. The sidewall of a tire is smooth, so it has a less rotational resistance at high speeds when compared to a rim that has open areas to catch the air. But you can design a rim that has minimal aerodynamic losses and is better than a smaller wheel that isn't as aerodynamic. It is aerodynamics that matter, not wheel size.

By the way, he also misses the correlation of wheel width and rolling resistance. I agree width has a minimal impact on aerodynamics, but 50% more rubber on the road would reasonably have a significant impact on rolling resistance.

I wish people would top posting the video like it is some great analysis that provides real answers. It isn't.

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