Battery longevity 101

I realize that it's not quite the same thing but when it comes to cell phones it is better to keep them charged between 20-80% rather than to trickle charge them overnight, run them down to zero, charge them back to 100% etc. In fact there are devices available now whereby you can set your charger to actually turn off after 1-2 hrs of charging at 80% (rather than leave it all night). So after fussing over this regarding my new iphone 13 (which costs about 30X less than my Clarity), I started to think that perhaps I should extend my battery neurosis to my car as well.

 

Yes. I read that sentence and it was included in the part of the manual that I attached.

Maybe I left too much to the imagination. If the manual recommends charging the battery prior to leaving the car to sit for several months, why should we concern ourselves width letting the car sit, fully charged, for a few days?

 

Is recommend just plugging the car in whenever possible and then drive it when necessary.

FWIW: I keep phones as long as possible. The last one was about 4 years. Drained it and fully charged it overnight. The battery didn’t fail. It was the plug where the battery cable connected. This ones almost 3 years old same routine. Battery lasts all day.

I also tend to keep vehicles for 10-20 years or more. That’s my plan for the Clarity. I’m not willing to micromanage the battery. I’ve never bothered to micromanage the amount of fuel that’s gone into any other vehicle. The whole concept of operating between 20-80% just seems absurd.

I have no idea what the battery capacity will be as the car nears 10 years and/or 150,000 miles, but I’d rather it was 1/2% below the warranty threshold than 1/2% above, because I pampered it.

 

You need to be mindful of the cost of electricity if you live in an area that has time-of-use metering as I do. I plug the car in every time I park, but I have it set on timer mode so it only charges between midnight and 6AM when I get the special EV rate which is less than 10 cents per Kwh. If I charged mid-day during on-peak rates, I'd be paying closer to 35 cents a Kwh whcih is more expensive than gasoline.

 

Apologies for belaboring the tangent, but Apple is taking care of your phone for you. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512

 

On the iPhone topic, my wife uses her iPhone 12 Mini without thinking much about the battery while I take great care on charging my iPhone SE 2020. Both are about 1 year old. While hers is below 90% already, mine is 99% of the original capacity.
I use a timer plug + USB adapter which charges for 30 minutes when started. I try to keep it below 80%. It's usually around 20%-60%. I also try to avoid heat.

There is a setting in the iPhone to let Apple take care of the charging, but what it'll do is charge to 80% like normal, then depending on your schedule, what the phone thinks it is, it'll charge to 100% right before you usually unplug. It may work well for people that follow same routine and don't want to spend too much effort. I just wish Apple let users manually control all that stuff, then I'd just keep it max 60% and only increase it when needed.