2023 Mini SE Charging Guidance

Mini says to charge to 100, and have given no way for us to limit it. This suggests they have a sizable top buffet on the battery to avoid damage (ie what we see as 100% is not really 100%).
If it bothers you I suggest charging up to 100% before you know you will use the car, use it, and then don’t charge it again until you know you will need the car. Typically I charge to 100% overnight the day before we use the car to get groceries, get back with 90%, use it the next day without charging to say go to a restaurant, get back with 75%, use it a couple of days later to run some errand, get back with 60%. Then we don’t use it a couple of days and it sits at 60% before I charge it up again to 100 the night before we go grocery shopping for the following week. It depends on your use case.
But generally, it seems charging to the (not true) 100% is fine so to avoid being inconvenienced plug it in every time you get home and don’t worry about it.

 

This. If MINI really wanted owners to charge to 80% they would have made it easy to do that. Also, battery balancing occurs only when charging to 100%.

MINI's engineers knew that owners of a car with 110/114 miles EPA range would hate the idea of restricting their range to 80 miles; they expected owners to charge fully and designed the top buffer for that reality. As with its BMW i3 predecessor, ABC (Always Be Charging) applies to the MINI Cooper SE.

 

My carport evse can have a timer set, by WiFi . I usually use that to charge to 80-90% when it needs zapping. For weekdays, it charges until my usual leaving time. I tweak the start time according to battery level. 2.7 minutes per % with my 7.2kW max charge rate. Once a week or so, I give it a longer charge to 100% and float it for a few hours. Generally by hitting manual override on the EVSE page at bedtime.
I've seen a lot of advice suggesting cycling between about 20% and about 80% for maximum battery life. That's two commutes for me.
I always try to end charging just before I leave.

 

Yep, dropping the actual numbers here for the curious.

Battery Capacity: 32.6-kWh
Usable Capacity: 28.9-kWh
which means around 11.35% of top buffer

Edit: Maths, fixed 11.5% to 11.35%.

 

I'm going to reach 50,000 miles this week on my SE, and I do daily full charge (my daily commute is over 80 miles). There has been no apparent drop in range. ABC – Always Be Charging.

 

But some of that "unused" capacity goes to a bottom buffer to prevent damaging the battery by taking it down to an actual zero charge. So I don't believe the top buffer gets all of the unused 11.35%.

 

I charge to 100% every time I get a chance, often after a 20% drop in GOM. Always want to be ready for one of those impulse drives.

BMW seems to use a large enough safety factor that you don't need to worry about it, at the expense of rated/advertised range. Unlike some other cars where its left up to the owners to manage charge and where there is quite a bit of discussion. Thats where the 20-80% numbers comes from, and is not applicable to the mini. IAW, charging the mini to 80% indicated, is charging the battery to 60-70% of its capacity.

 

I'm a new owner too and was curious about this. I've seen the ABC mantra and wonder if there are any owners here with high mileage Minis (50k+) have done a battery health check at their dealer and seen the results?

 

This is less of an issue with the low nickel chemistry. Most EVs are about 2-3 times the nickel (high but unstable energy) as the MINI.

LFP is generally more stable at the cost of lower energy density and abysmal cold weather performance (32F and colder).

 

Buffer is spread between top and bottom. I think about 4% top, 7 bottom. Or thereabouts

 

so our batteries are LFP? I've been trying to find the chemistry on google but couldn't get a firm answer anywhere.

 

It's supposedly the same as the 94Ah BMW i3 so NCM 111/333. There may have been a chemistry update in 2023 models as cobalt is super expensive!

 

I'm firmly in the ABC camp. Everyone I've queried at my dealer agrees, and always having a full charge waiting for me works.

 

So the SE's Chinese CATL batteries are the same inside as the i3's Korean Samsung batteries? I find that surprising.

 

I’ve topped up the car twice now from about 40% to 100% (lots of acceleration runs on Saturday) my wife plugged it in on the chargers at her office today. I’ll prob plug it in Saturday or Sunday. She likes the seat heater in 3 and everything on. I’m more conservative. Next charge I’m going to take it down to 15-20% and top up

 

Probably the same chemistry. Based on the battery pack pictures it looks like 192 cells (96x2) for the MINI SE and 96 for the i3.

Cell dimension wise, I would say it's a double juicebox for the SE and a double VHS for the i3.

 

6 hours from what percent charged?

It sounds like the car is set to low charging rate. It's in My Mini settings.

 

From MINI USA's SE webpage (other countries may have different charge rates):