Recommended high and low level when charging

[Chuck]

Go read the manual.
Charge to 100 every night.
Never charge to 100.
Sometimes charge to 100.
Set it to 90, and always plug it in.
Set it to 90 but only plug it in when it gets to 20.
Keep it as close to 50 at all times.


I think that covers 99% of the responses you’ll see .

Personally I have mine set to 90 like the manual says and plug it in every couple days. 100 before going on a trip.

DC fast charging 20-80 is pretty much the optimal range.

Ford recently gave new guidelines for charging and one of the things of note is that if the car has the standard battery they recommend charging to 100% at least once per month.

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[HuntingPudel]

Note that whatever strategy you choose to follow, the Battery Management System occasionally will need to car to be driven to a low State of Charge (somewhere below 10%) then charged to 100% indicated. This is so that the BMS can correctly re-balance the cells in the pack. Since I don’t put a lot of miles on mine I do this quarterly. If you put a couple of thousand miles on yours a month, you might want to consider monthly. ??

 

[Space_Pony]

Ford recently gave new guidelines for charging and one of the things of note is that if the car has the standard battery they recommend charging to 100% at least once per month.

What are the new guidelines for the NCM battery?

 

[Mach-Lee]

• LFP (2023.5 and later standard range pack) - Charge to 100% at least once a month
• NCM (all other packs) - Charge to 90% or less daily

NCM packs still need an occasional deep charge to 100% overnight to calibrate and balance.

Try to keep the pack above 20%. It’s ok to go down to single digits on road trips, just make sure you plug in afterwards. Avoid parking the car for more than 12 hours with the battery below 15%, as the 12V battery can die.

 

[Chuck]

What are the new guidelines for the NCM battery?

You'll have to search this forum.

 

[4wheeldog]

I thought the battery changed and up to a certain point 80% is recommended, after that 100% is ok.

Correct. He has a 2024. My post was appropriate for it.

 

[Phil-Springs]

I limit my upper level to 90% and always have the car plugged in,, so that the car can be pre-conditioned and the cabin warmed/cooled when I want it. As I understand it, the conventional thinking has been that these battery packs can survive a certain number of ‘full’ charge cycles, that is, from say 5% to 100%, which if done that way, could get you over 200k miles according to the latest data (around 700 of these charge cycles). My strategy means my car gets recharged from whatever-to-90% every day. So charging from say 80% to 90% is only adding 10%, and so is not a ‘full’ charge cycles, and theoretically the car could tolerate 10 times as many of those compared to full charges.
ALL THAT SAID, charging strategies are an evolving topic. Changes are occurring as new data from long-term owners is added to the data pool. This newer data has some surprising new data points that upend earlier thinking, such as: certain cars that have been charged exclusively at Tesla DC fast chargers, and whose capacity degredation curve is no worse than cars that were only charged at home on A/C. It turns out that conclusions drawn from laboratory controlled studies does not represent real-world experience, which includes batteries getting constantly recharged via regen braking, a feature that has not been a part of the lab studies. The bottom line is that earlier advice now seems unnecessarily conservative, and that these batteries will tolerate almost any kind of charging strategy.
The most conservative strategy, prompted by those lab tests, says you should keep your high and low states of charge around 50%. If you use 20% of your battery on average every day, then charge at 40% and only go to 60%, etc. I did that when I first got my 2024 seven months ago, but In the face of new data challenging that have changed my approach as described; I always want to have close to maximum range available every day, JIC, and I also want to be able to pre-condition my cabin on a whim, while using house electricity.
Finally; full disclosure…….I leased my car and only anyway drive around 7k miles a year. I’ll likely upgrade to whatever is the new 2027 model when the lease is up and so am not worried about whatever battery capacity may be left by then. Still, as the new data suggests, it should fine with what I’m doing.

Sorta what I suspected that as long as you stay away from repeated, long term, storage at extreme SOH and Temperatures. The second factor was time and manufacturing issues you have no control over. The charging strategy discussion while interesting is but probably a third or fourth order variable wrt SOH. Charge it like you need it, drive, every once in while (or alot if LFP) take it to the extremes to recalibrate everything.

 

[dalola]

lol.... this is like the "when should I change my oil" threads on the ICE forums..... ? No one seems to like what manual says about that either.... ?

 

[RickMachE]

lol.... this is like the "when should I change my oil" threads on the ICE forums..... ? No one seems to like what manual says about that either.... ?

Exactly. I was on the F-150 forum for a decade. Here's some of the oil changing answers:

- I change my break-in oil (despite there being no such thing anymore) on the way home from picking up my truck.
- I change my break-in oil at 500 miles, then every 3,000 miles after that.
- If the oil is dirty looking (not a determinant of oil quality), I change it.
- Oil only lasts 1 year at most. Then you point out that the Fusion PHEV recommends every 2 years, and they don't say much.

The IOLM (Intelligent Oil Life Monitor) recommends changes at 10,000 miles, 1 year, or when the algorithm determines it needs to be changed if less than those 2 measures. 50% or more of the forum members don't agree with it...

You can't teach an old dog new tricks, nor can you fix stupid.

 

[Space_Pony]

You'll have to search this forum.

I'll just follow the manual and what Mach said. It doesn't sound like anything new. Same thing I've been doing for the last 1.5 years.

 

[Teslaeata]

lol.... this is like the "when should I change my oil" threads on the ICE forums..... ? No one seems to like what manual says about that either.... ?

And brake fluid, wait for it…………….

 

[dalola]

And brake fluid, wait for it…………….

I had a conversation with a poor fella on another forum that was convinced DOT3/4 brake fluid absorbed water because the chemical engineers couldn't figure out how to make it to not do that.... ? For many, perception is reality. ?

 

[Teslaeata]

I had a conversation with a poor fella on another forum that was convinced DOT3/4 brake fluid absorbed water because the chemical engineers couldn't figure out how to make it to not do that.... ? For many, perception is reality. ?

You do hear a load of shite!

 

[ChasingCoral]

Great set of single regression analyses. This could use a multiple linear regression to tease out which is the most likely independent variable and which are just correlations. The big recurrent analysis done on Teslas indicated age was the primary driver with little added impact of mileage, battery cycles, or DCFC. I suspect the same applies here.

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