swajames

Excellent video from Engineering Explained which gets quite deep into the physics and chemistry and is really about how to extend your battery life.

Lots of references to the work of Professor Jeff Dahn who is recognized as one of the leaders in battery tech and who has a research partnership with Tesla.

Bottom line seems to be to charge little and often, try to keep your SOC within a reasonably narrow low/high range, keep the max charge where practical to 75% or so, and not to store the car with high SOC, particularly when temperatures are high. Obviously would be a little different with certain other battery types.

RXSF

What always intrigued/bothered me is that the batteries already set aside some percentage of unusable battery, so a 100kw pack only allows 92kw usable for instance. Why are we still charging to 80% suggested when that buffer is built in? As a multiple EV owner, I learned early on that charging to 80% each time really lowers the appeal of an EV. Mind you at my work, the chargers are always full, and I live in multiunit housing so I don't have my own garage. They do have chargers available but it's not always 100% available.

Anyway, I also heard the battery chemistry on the regular Model 3 can be charged to 100% with little degradation effects, being different from the LR model.

AMIRZA786

Tesla's advice (from the manual) is to plug it in daily, charge to 80 percent, and try to avoid letting it go below 20 percent. Here's advice on the HV battery when the car is not in use:

High Voltage Battery Information

Model Y has one of the most sophisticated battery systems in the world. The most important way to preserve the high voltage Battery is to LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when you are not using it. This is particularly important if you are not planning to drive Model Y for several weeks.

Note
When left idle and unplugged, your vehicle periodically uses energy from the Battery for system tests and recharging the low voltage battery when necessary.There is no advantage to waiting until the Battery’s level is low before charging. In fact, the Battery performs best when charged regularly.

Note
If you allow the Battery to discharge to 0%, other components may become damaged or require replacement (for example, the low voltage battery). In these cases, you are responsible for repair and/or transporting expenses. Discharge-related expenses are not covered by the warranty or under the Roadside Assistance policy.The peak charging rate of the Battery may decrease slightly after a large number of DC Fast Charging sessions, such as those at Superchargers. To ensure maximum driving range and Battery safety, the Battery charge rate is decreased when the Battery is too cold, the Battery’s charge is nearly full, and when the Battery conditions change with usage and age. These changes in the condition of the Battery are driven by battery physics and may increase the total Supercharging duration by a few minutes over time. You can minimize the amount of charge time by using Trip Planner (if available in your market region) to warm the Battery while driving to a Supercharger. See Trip Planner for more information.

Battery Care

Never allow the Battery to fully discharge.

Even when Model Y is not being driven, its Battery discharges very slowly to power the onboard electronics. The Battery can discharge at a rate of approximately 1% per day, though the discharge rate may vary depending on environmental factors (such as cold weather), vehicle configuration, and your selected settings on the touchscreen. Situations can arise in which you must leave Model Y unplugged for an extended period of time (for example, at an airport when traveling). In these situations, keep the 1% in mind to ensure that you leave the Battery with a sufficient charge level. For example, over a two week period (14 days), the Battery may discharge by approximately 14%.

Discharging the Battery to 0% may result in damage to vehicle components. To protect against a complete discharge, Model Y enters a low-power consumption mode when the displayed charge level drops to approximately 0%. In this mode, the Battery stops supporting the onboard electronics and auxiliary low voltage battery. Once this low-power consumption mode is active, immediately plug in Model Y to prevent a jump start and low voltage battery replacement.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/m...641FFAEF4.html

AMIRZA786

The LFP battery pack in the Model 3 rwd, Tesla recommends charging to 100 percent. The LR uses the regular Lithium Ion pack, 80 percent recommended for normal daily driving

swajames

I think you can generally sum it up as it’s totally OK to charge to 100% when you need it, but don’t do it when you don’t, don’t let the battery charge get too low, treat the manufacturers built-in buffer as an extra safeguard against degradation but mostly just drive the car as you would any other. The 80% recommendation really doesn’t get in the way of regular day today usage. Most people aren’t using anywhere even close to maximum range anyway so it’s largely a distinction without a difference. Even if you do, that’s just fine. The key seems to be just trying to do what you can when you can to take it easy on the battery and you’ll likely get a better outcome. The video showed how following best practice could theoretically let you get to 800,000 miles with 85% capacity left and contrasted that with what happens if you were to store at full SOC in high temperatures.

AMIRZA786

If I can get 8 to 10 years out of my Model Y's battery pack, I've gotten my money's worth!

Bob04

So, what do you think the average Joe or Jane that might be considering a switch from ICE to EV thinks when they see something like this?

AMIRZA786

The average joe or Jane doesn't need to know any of this. This is just information being shared amongst us geeks. The average battery pack, even abused will easily last over 300k. It's kind of like a discussion on boosting engine life or performance. Not relevant to the average owner. What octane, service intervals and recommended oil viscosity is all they need to know.

Same with charging .... charge to the recommended level (which is usually preset), and go on with the rest of your life

swajames

Things like this being useful and helpful information backed up by some interesting science and clearly explained by a mechanical engineer?

The main takeaway should be that it’s pretty easy to maximize your battery life by following some simple and basic best practices when you can. The information in the video is essentially the EV equivalent of change your oil regularly, don’t drive hard until your engine is up to temperature, don’t excessively idle and avoid lots of short trips that don’t get your engine up to operating temperature.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

exactly. if a car is $50k and you get 10 years, that's 5k a year, then throw it away, lol. or give it away, whatever.

no doubt CR will have (or has already had) articles like this to scare encourage their faithful to continue to buy more camrys and rav4's.

Bob04

Not sure the average American is there yet. Used car market definitely isn't ready for that in a large scale.

Yeah, most Americans don't want that type of relationship with their electric "gas" tank. Even if you tell people it will almost assuredly be just fine for the amount of time they will need their car, even if they don't follow the recommendations, I think it would introduce doubt that will turn away some buyers.

AMIRZA786

Just speaking for myself living in California which is extremely EV friendly, people are moving to EVs because they are easier to own than a gas car. Virtually no maint, just plug it in. 90 percent of people I know who own at least one EV don't even think of range as being an issue. Which is why EV's are fastest growing vehicle segment here (lead by Tesla). My Polestar is at 28K now, and I've only had to take it in once for maint, and all they did was inspect it, change the cabin filter, wiper blades and add windshield wiper fluid.

The biggest obstacle to EV adoption IMO is misinformation, fear mongering from the media and certain officials, which leads to unwarranted consumer anxiety. Last week I had a conversation with one of my co-workers who's in the perfect position for EV ownership. He currently owns a Subaru that's hit 200k, and his transmission is going bad. Dealership quoted him $10k for new one Lol, and because it a CVT, there are no other independent shops that will touch it. He checks all the boxes...owns a house, commutes less than 20 miles a day, has solar panels, etc. But he's reluctant because of all the misinformation he's heard and read from publications like CR.

Anyway, from my standpoint, except for a few minor adjustments (like not having to go to a gas station ), EV ownership has been much easier, less trips to the mechanic, over the last 4 years my maint routine has been checking tire pressure and adding windshield wiper fluid

703

Or live in a hot climate or seasons with high temperatures.

swajames

Agree on the misinformation point, @AMIRZA786 . To add to that, the other part of misinformation being one of the biggest obstacles EVs have to overcome isn't necessarily the existence of the misinformation itself as much as it is the number of people who are susceptible to uncritically accepting that misinformation as fact. So on the one hand we can and should blame the misinformation purveyors, but just as much blame, IMO, is on those who willingly accept things as fact without any effort to validate it and then pass it off as their own opinion.

swajames

EVs generally do pretty well in hot climates, certainly better than they do in very cold climates. Mine has an extra cooling circuit for the battery (the extra cooling circuit 's part of my max tow package, but it works to keep the battery cool under other circumstances). Really the only thing you need to do is remember to avoid long periods of inactivity at a very high state of charge. Of course the climate EVs like best of all is the temperate climate where it never freezes and rarely gets close to the triple digits but that's mostly true for any type of car.