Anyone keeping track of the battery's soh

I generally charge in the 80s max, but then do a balance once a week on our EVs right before a departure. Easier on the ID4 as it has a limiter that can be set in 10% increments. I'm still taking the SEs battery stats every month. No major changes. If I balance a few times a month the top buffer gets smaller. If not, it gets larger. Bottom buffer never changes from 11.5
 
Originally the SE was recommended to charge to 100%, and it apparently has a large top buffer to avoid overcharging. This means 100% SoC is not the same as 100% battery capacity. It wasn't until the 2022 LCI (Life Cycle Impulse, aka update) that the owner's manual was updated to add the 80% charge note. I personally think it was an editing issue and not a technical change, which I think is backed up by the fact that the SE has no way to restrict charging to anything other than 100% SoC.

Anecdotally, I've driven nearly 100,000 miles in my SE and have charged to 100% SoC nearly every day for the 4.5 years I've owned it, and I see absolutely no noticeable drop in range.
 
Darrell Hayes said:
I generally charge in the 80s max, but then do a balance once a week on our EVs right before a departure. Easier on the ID4 as it has a limiter that can be set in 10% increments. I'm still taking the SEs battery stats every month. No major changes. If I balance a few times a month the top buffer gets smaller. If not, it gets larger. Bottom buffer never changes from 11.5
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11.5...%?

Certainly not kWh. However, even 11.5% doesn't seem right, as that is greater than the total top+bottom buffer.
 
Puppethead said:
Originally the SE was recommended to charge to 100%, and it apparently has a large top buffer to avoid overcharging. This means 100% SoC is not the same as 100% battery capacity. It wasn't until the 2022 LCI (Life Cycle Impulse, aka update) that the owner's manual was updated to add the 80% charge note. I personally think it was an editing issue and not a technical change, which I think is backed up by the fact that the SE has no way to restrict charging to anything other than 100% SoC.

Anecdotally, I've driven nearly 100,000 miles in my SE and have charged to 100% SoC nearly every day for the 4.5 years I've owned it, and I see absolutely no noticeable drop in range.
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I don't know if it means anything or not, but I believe that is also when the recommended long-term storage SOC was reduced to 30-50% from whatever higher value it was before (he types while is car sits at 67% for a 3rd week....I hate winter!).
 
Puppethead said:
Originally the SE was recommended to charge to 100%, and it apparently has a large top buffer to avoid overcharging. This means 100% SoC is not the same as 100% battery capacity. It wasn't until the 2022 LCI (Life Cycle Impulse, aka update) that the owner's manual was updated to add the 80% charge note. I personally think it was an editing issue and not a technical change, which I think is backed up by the fact that the SE has no way to restrict charging to anything other than 100% SoC.

Anecdotally, I've driven nearly 100,000 miles in my SE and have charged to 100% SoC nearly every day for the 4.5 years I've owned it, and I see absolutely no noticeable drop in range.
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I totally agree with @Puppethead as I own I 3 for 6 years only 20000 miles I always have driven the same distance 40 miles each way as I would like keep a car never give me a problem charge to 100% always bc I have expierience with mechanicals on any cars I sold a car to not put $5000 to fix an issue by dealer as I don’t want to make a statement what was wrong ! And I bought SE in 2022 now 18000 miles charged not so often on L 2 only to 100% in my garage I don’t see any different on distance driving once a week 70 miles each way I always come back to my house with 50-40 miles as I charged SE again to 100% on my destination in 20’ F or 70’ F and always on Sport mode bc as I know I make home I don’t care to waist electricity on my SE . On different modes a car is to slow for me as I challenge every crab on a road with $ 60000-100000 tag SUV s . As now I’m on bigger tires for 3 month 205/55/ 16 with spacers 5 mm .all weather Nokians they are are with snow approve snow flake my driving distance didn’t change as distance from as really is not snow on highways in NY NY/CT and I want be with tires on my cars approved for 40’ F and below not summer tires I m very happy with Nokians if you already out of your summer tires buy Nokians if you are with climate like NY not Az/CA /NM /NV /FL but is not a size we need I recommend a 5 mm spacers to make a clearance as to fit Nokians they are Remedy with Kevlar and low resistance rolling design for EV 205/55/16. As SE come with basic rims of 16” and I’m not promoting those tires as I noticed as they are wider I can take a turns faster as SE is a race car with small package IMG_1903.webp
 
right 11.5% as reported in the Electrified app under SOC. The 91.4% goes up if I do more balancing, or down ( as low as 89.3%) when I haven't balanced much lately. The 11.5% never changes. Capacity & SOH also go up when balancing often.
upload_2025-2-24_15-15-18.webp
 
I don't really know how any of this data fits reality , but I'm marginally uneasy about letting the battery sit above the real 80% for long periods of time. I don't drive that far, so it's easy enough to just charge to around 85% and once or twice a week, go up to 100 before I do a 20mi trip. If I had a 20+ mi daily drive, I'd probably do the ABC thing.
 
Darrell Hayes said:
I don't really know how any of this data fits reality , but I'm marginally uneasy about letting the battery sit above the real 80% for long periods of time. I don't drive that far, so it's easy enough to just charge to around 85% and once or twice a week, go up to 100 before I do a 20mi trip. If I had a 20+ mi daily drive, I'd probably do the ABC thing.
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If you can handle 80%, it certainly doesn't hurt--as long as you fully charge once in a while to allow the Battery Management System (BMS) to balance the cells. As @Puppethead notes above, MINI originally advised owners to charge their SEs to 100%.

If MINI really wanted owners to charge to 80%, why didn't they include an 80% charging option?

My guess is that BMW worried they couldn't sell an EV with a "recommended" range of well under 100 miles. They figured that many owners would charge to 100% daily and the company would suffer a black eye (and a bad bottom-line) if that practice resulted in battery failures and warranty claims. So they designed a BMS that would always protect the battery even if it was charged to full daily over more than 100,000 miles.

MINI owes us an explaination about the new 80% charging recommendation after the SE's EPA range increased from 110 miles to 114 miles. Again, why recommend 80% charging and then not give owners an easy way to adhere to that recommendation?
 
BTW, while searching for info on MINI's 80% charging recommendation, I discovered Google's AI has some bugs to work out:

upload_2025-2-25_19-22-59.webp
 
SameGuy said:
https://www.theautopian.com/some-ge...nto-bmw-i3s-creating-a-potential-forever-car/

It seems reasonable to assume that when the time comes, there should be a third-party battery swap option for the Cooper SE.
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I read the same story and had the same thought. However, unlike the i3, our cars are going to rust eventually, at least in most climates. So, will it even be worth putting in a new battery a decade plus from now? Surely by that point there will be competing new car options.
 
CuriousGeorge said:
I read the same story and had the same thought. However, unlike the i3, our cars are going to rust eventually, at least in most climates. So, will it even be worth putting in a new battery a decade plus from now? Surely by that point there will be competing new car options.
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If someone has a well-preserved F56 SE 10 years from now, the 110/114-mile range will be a joke, but in 10 years will there be another lightweight EV that's as much fun to drive?

The holy battery grail would be a solid-state batter pack that increases range and decreases weight. Unfortunately, there isn't a large number of F56 SEs to start with, so the number of rust-free examples in a decade might not be large enough for a battery company to invest in developing a solid-state battery pack for this wonderful car. The market would be further limited by the substantial cost of such a battery pack.
 
IMG_1988.webp
CuriousGeorge said:
I read the same story and had the same thought. However, unlike the i3, our cars are going to rust eventually, at least in most climates. So, will it even be worth putting in a new battery a decade plus from now? Surely by that point there will be competing new car options.
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In 2018 when I own 2014 BMW I3 / 22kWh battery pack was an option to ship I 3 to Austria to change HV battery with price tag $60000 and get 435 miles range with 100kWh battery
 
Rexsio said:
View attachment 23980
In 2018 when I own 2014 BMW I3 / 22kWh battery pack was an option to ship I 3 to Austria to change HV battery with price tag $60000 and get 435 miles range with 100kWh battery
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Thanks for that Drive article @Rexsio. I'd never seen that news back in 2018.

After reading that article, I found others that covered that extraordinary upgrade. However, I couldn't find any information about the LiON company actually making that battery pack available for customers. I wonder how much interior space the 100 kWh battery pack required and how heavy their 100 kWh i3 weighed?
 
insightman said:
Thanks for that Drive article @Rexsio. I'd never seen that news back in 2018.

After reading that article, I found others that covered that extraordinary upgrade. However, I couldn't find any information about the LiON company actually making that battery pack available for customers. I wonder how much interior space the 100 kWh battery pack required and how heavy their 100 kWh i3 weighed?
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As I don’t remember exactly those HV batteries were solid state light weight batteries in development stage but at that time they offer for i3 replacement $45K i3 and $60K battery as I try to remember Arnold electric hummer was send to Austria and upgrade was $200000 with range of 600 miles I have no idea what battery was fitted in that car but that company cooperated with BMWI at that time IMG_1989.webp
 
CuriousGeorge said:
Understood, and thanks. Still doesn't really make any sense, though, since the total buffer is less than 11.5%.
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Not entirely true. You get 28.9kWh of a 33.6kWh pack. That is 86%. This gives a top buffer of around 11.5% and a bottom buffer of 2.5%.
 
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