Battery longevity 101

  • Thread starter Thread starter neal adkins
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Landshark said:
Here’s the complete wording from the manual. It actually recommends to recharge the battery “at least every three months” if the vehicle is left to sit unused for an extended period. While it does not define “recharge” it would not be unreasonable, in my opinion, to interpret that to mean a full charge, which the BMS regulates to ~90% or 4.09x VDC per cell.
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Yes that's true if parking for extended periods of time. But the manual also recommends charging before each drive.
 
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.
 
neal adkins said:
The main factor is how much time the battery sits on full soc.
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neal adkins said:
Yes that's true if parking for extended periods of time. But the manual also recommends charging before each drive.
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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?
 
ozy said:
I started to think that perhaps I should extend my battery neurosis to my car as well.
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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.
 
ozy said:
If my car is fully charged and I need to do a quick 3-10 mile trip, should I charge it again to full when I return home? Or is it bad for the battery to do constant little charges throughout the day? I normally use up my entire EV when I drive to work each day but occasionally I don't work and just do little drives around my area. It's easier for me to simply stick in the charger each time I return from one of those drives but I don't want to stress the battery if that's the case.
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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.
 
ozy said:
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.
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There's a lot different opinions about charging routine. My main point is only not to leave fully charged in extreme heat for long periods of time. That info was on the web when I googled do's and don'ts for best battery longevity.
 
ozy said:
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.
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back in 2018 or 19, there was a post in this forum where it was determined that cell voltage balancing was achieved at the end of the charge cycle. I would recommend checking out this web page.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mo...hium-ion-battery-life-tips-tricks-advice/amp/
 
ozy said:
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.
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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.
 
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