Best Practice for battery preservation

SJ_Okay

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Hi folks... I’ve been doing some research online around best practice for getting the most out of your EV battery. I was curious to hear what others on the forum, who own EVs think, as there is a lot of info out there.

Firstly it looks like slower battery charging is significantly better for the battery life than high speed charging. Would anyone here argue against that?

2ndly, I’m hearing some say that the battery should never be charged to 100% daily as it can stress the battery... additionally you should not let your battery sit at 100% for long periods... ie: only charge to 100% when you need it, and only aim to 100% charge just before you start your drive. But I’ve also read that leaving your car plugged in over night keeps the battery warm, and that can reduce stress and prolong life.

Other things like every 3 months or so you would want to run the battery to depletion and recharge. Then there is a whole lot of really confusing info on grace capacity!? What the heck is that?

Would appreciate some advice from those who have been driving EVs for some time now, and things they notice that help and don’t help with battery life.
Thanks!
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s7davis

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Refer to the above link and I do believe your questions will be answered. However, for your questions their has been a ton of topics on this subject over on the Tesla forums and what they have said is like a split and Elon has even mentioned that it is not best practice to continuously fast charge the car. It will eventually degrade a little faster but also depends on the type of batteries.

On an electric car you never want to keep 100% charge on the batteries only about 80% so you leave some space. You do put 100% if you about to go traveling but that is the only time.

Keeping car plugged in is ok as its CPU will control the charging as it reaches what lvl it needs to it shuts off. I would think that the sensors will shut it down if they can tell the battery is overheating.

I have heard that you never want to deplete the battery to 0 that is not good for the batteries.


THink of an electric car as a big R/C car with Li-Po battery pack. Those packs are very strong and very dangerous if not taken care of properly.
 

Badgeringweasel

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On an electric car you never want to keep 100% charge on the batteries only about 80% so you leave some space. You do put 100% if you about to go traveling but that is the only time.
One caveat to that has been talked about on this forum pretty continuously. Ford has not told us what kind of buffer they are going to build into the battery, meaning that when our battery shows 100% charge, we don't know what percent of the physical capacity we are actually using. It's possible that Ford will build in enough of a buffer that they will tell us you can charge to 100% every time, or it may be that they only recommend charging to 80-90% unless you expect to need the full range.

Hopefully that info will come out soon.
 

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Tesla says, keep at around 80%, and fast charging won't hurt. They've had cars around since, what, 2010? There was video comparing battery charging etc. between a new car and a 2012 with little difference. I know when traveling as soon as the car knows I'm going to be hitting a super charger it will begin "conditioning" the batteries. I believe that sort of giant AA battery format makes it easier to cool or heat with their battery coolant.
 


AFVolt

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IMO, I don’t want to make it a daily routine to think for the car about charging.

This is a high tech, expensive vehicle
It should do it without my intervention.

The percentages presented to us as drivers should take into account any buffers built in. All the magic should occur “behind the curtain” and I should not be aware or even think about how to best preserve the battery.

I should be able to treat it like any other vehicle. I get home, plug it in and expect when I leave for work the next day that it is charged appropriately.
 

hybrid2bev

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IMO, I don’t want to make it a daily routine to think for the car about charging.

This is a high tech, expensive vehicle
It should do it without my intervention.

The percentages presented to us as drivers should take into account any buffers built in. All the magic should occur “behind the curtain” and I should not be aware or even think about how to best preserve the battery.

I should be able to treat it like any other vehicle. I get home, plug it in and expect when I leave for work the next day that it is charged appropriately.
I agree. It should be easy for us as customers and not a daily task to think about.

I'm thinking I'll set up the charging profiles for the vehicle after I get it. Maybe it'll be a one time setup and then just plug it in when I get home and let my pre-set schedule/settings do the work so I don't have to think about it daily.
 

ChasingCoral

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I'm thinking I'll set up the charging profiles for the vehicle after I get it. Maybe it'll be a one time setup and then just plug it in when I get home and let my pre-set schedule/settings do the work so I don't have to think about it daily.
Me too. I really hope I have greater flexibility for pre-programming charging on the MME than I have on the Leaf. I have my Leaf pre-programmed to charge in the morning so that it is ready to go at the time we usually leave. While we don't have time-of-day electrical rates (we should), this both allows the battery to cool after last use before charging on our L2 charger as well as has the battery pre-conditioned for driving in the morning. I could set up climate control to be ready by then but our commute schedules are too erratic for that. I just hit that on the phone app if I want the car warmed before I get in.

What the Leaf doesn't have is an ability to tell it at what battery level to stop. I'd really like to tell it to just charge to 80% on normal days.

A good phone app would provide options for pre-programmed timing, end charge state, and climate control, as well as on-demand and one-timed programmed overrides for all of these.
 

JamieGeek

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Me too. I really hope I have greater flexibility for pre-programming charging on the MME than I have on the Leaf. I have my Leaf pre-programmed to charge in the morning so that it is ready to go at the time we usually leave. While we don't have time-of-day electrical rates (we should), this both allows the battery to cool after last use before charging on our L2 charger as well as has the battery pre-conditioned for driving in the morning. I could set up climate control to be ready by then but our commute schedules are too erratic for that. I just hit that on the phone app if I want the car warmed before I get in.

What the Leaf doesn't have is an ability to tell it at what battery level to stop. I'd really like to tell it to just charge to 80% on normal days.

A good phone app would provide options for pre-programmed timing, end charge state, and climate control, as well as on-demand and one-timed programmed overrides for all of these.
The Focus Electric had pretty much all that except what level to charge to--with only 70 miles of range you always charged to full.

On the Focus the settings were location based as well. So you'd have settings for home, settings for work, and any where else that you frequently charged (there also was a default for locations not setup).

In the winter my Focus would be charged up and 80F inside every day when I left for work without requiring my intervention at all--I'd set it up in the fall once the temps got low enough. In the spring I'd change that to 72F and let it run the A/C or heat depending on the overnight temps. All automatic.

I miss the timed preconditioning: The Bolt doesn't have that, it only has the charge settings.
 

s7davis

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I agree. It should be easy for us as customers and not a daily task to think about.

I'm thinking I'll set up the charging profiles for the vehicle after I get it. Maybe it'll be a one time setup and then just plug it in when I get home and let my pre-set schedule/settings do the work so I don't have to think about it daily.
I do believe that it is a one-time set up then that is what the car will charge to everytime you plug it in before it stops charging. So once you get the vehicle you just have to go to the charge settings and set the time to start charging if you prefer to charge only at night for non peak hours. and at what percentage you would like it to charge to every night. I was going to set mine to 80% and plus you do not need to charge every night unless you do a lot of driving in your day. I would say just charge it about every 3 or 4 days.

If you only drive like 30 or 40 miles a day you can go 2 or 3 days without having to charge the car. Then one night do that full 80% charge then go another 2 or 3 days. This way saves on electricity bill as well.
 

dbsb3233

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And presumably the bottom 10% will take care of itself. Meaning (a) the BMS will probably keep us from going much past that, and (b) range anxiety will usually keep us from getting all that close anyway. Most drivers start getting increasingly nervous when we drop below the 1/4 tank point.

85% is probably what I'll set as my routine overnight charging cap. (Knowing that the car really adds it own buffer to that). I might even set it at 90%. Unless of course I'm planning a long drive the next day, where I'll just turn off the limiter and go to 100%. That should be rare though.

Honestly, my usage will be low enough (in retirement) that I'm not even sure I'll install a 240v outlet. I probably still will, but the 120v outlet already in the garage would probably suffice. Ford says the included mobile charger adds 3 miles/hour. A 16 hour charge should add 48 miles. We don't even drive half that most days. Many days we don't even leave the house, and could charge 40 hours straight.
 

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One caveat to that has been talked about on this forum pretty continuously. Ford has not told us what kind of buffer they are going to build into the battery, meaning that when our battery shows 100% charge, we don't know what percent of the physical capacity we are actually using. It's possible that Ford will build in enough of a buffer that they will tell us you can charge to 100% every time, or it may be that they only recommend charging to 80-90% unless you expect to need the full range.

Hopefully that info will come out soon.
We probably wont ever get that info from Ford but we can figure it out once we take delivery. My Focus Electric has a 33.5kw battery but only about 30kw is useable at originally delivered.

Simply put, the vehicle software takes care of battery charge management for you. You wont have to worry about it.
 
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SJ_Okay

SJ_Okay

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We probably wont ever get that info from Ford but we can figure it out once we take delivery. My Focus Electric has a 33.5kw battery but only about 30kw is useable at originally delivered.

Simply put, the vehicle software takes care of battery charge management for you. You wont have to worry about it.
So this is probably a question for everyone as well as you, so I’m going to do some tagging @LYTMCQ @dbsb3233 @ChasingCoral @JamieGeek @hybrid2bev - So I remember hearing from a vlogger who was reading back info from Ford on the MME, and he was saying that the available batteries on the MME are 70kw & 90khw, but the sizes are actually 75kwh & 98kwh... does that mean the extra 5kwh & 8kwh are the buffer? If so, would this mean we can charge to 100%, as we’d only be at 90khw on the battery?
 
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JamieGeek

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So this is probably a question for everyone as well as you, so I’m going to do some tagging @LYTMCQ @dbsb3233 @ChasingCoral @JamieGeek @hybrid2bev - So I remember hearing from a vlogger who was reading back info from Ford on the MME, and he was saying that the available batteries on the MME are 70kw & 90khw, but the sizes are actually 75kwh & 98kwh... does that mean the extra 5kwh & 8kwh are the buffer? If so, would this mean we can charge to 100%, as we’d only be at 90khw on the battery?
For the Focus Electric (FFE) Ford always published the entire size of the battery. What was useable was figured out by owner's once they started driving it.
One way was a run down test: The FFE has an enhanced trip meter showing kWh consumed. You would charge to full, reset the trip meter, and turn it on with the HVAC set to full defrost...let it sit there until the battery was fully discharged--the kWh reading on the trip meter would show you how much of the battery was useable.
The other way, once Forescan added FFE support, was simply to read the value off the OBD-II bus.

My FFE had the smaller battery at 23kWh and only used about 17-18kWh of it.

I think at this stage you're looking at engineers and salespeople just giving you rounded amounts and not specific values. Thus I don't think the 5kWh and 8kWh are buffer's of any sort--just a mental rounding error. It won't be until people start driving the vehicle before we really find out and even then a simple software change could change the ratios.

From past experience (and even on the hybrids, "Energi" models) Ford has always published the total size of the battery so I would be pretty confident in saying that their targets are 75kWh and 98kWh for the total battery overall; we'll just have to wait to see what or if there is any buffering...
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