Daily commute

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QuietMini

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What’s your round trip daily commute? Do you charge everyday? Is level 1 charger enough for a 60 mile daily round trip?
 
Depends on the conditions but seems not quite...

If your driving efficiency is 4 miles per kWh (the EV rule of thumb) you will need to put 15kWh back into the battery. If the L1 charger manages 70% efficiency that means you need to pull 21kWh from the wall.
A typical 110v US wall outlet is 15A peak or 12A continuous. So you shouldn’t be drawing more than 1.3kW from it when charging. That would take 16 hours to charge.
However if you are pulling 15A then that’s more like 1.6kW then you would recharge your 60 miles in 13 hours.

if your driving situation lets you hit 5 miles per kWh then you can reduce those times by about 20%.
If you’re sitting at 75 on the highway, have a head wind, drive in cold weather etc then the numbers get worse, typically 10-20% worse for each of those things.
 
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My daily commute is 85-90 miles. I charge every day on Level 2 at home. I originally had only the 10 A Level 1 charging that came with the SE, and it wasn't good enough. I had to hit a public charger every three days. After I got my Level 2 EVSE installed it's been a non-issue, the SE is always 100% SoC each day.
 
My daily commute is 85-90 miles. I charge every day on Level 2 at home. I originally had only the 10 A Level 1 charging that came with the SE, and it wasn't good enough. I had to hit a public charger every three days. After I got my Level 2 EVSE installed it's been a non-issue, the SE is always 100% SoC each day.
You commute 85-90 miles in MN, even winter time without supplemental charging during the day? If so that's impressive!
 
My normal commute is under 30 miles and I charge every other day. I'm getting around 4.5mi/kWh roundtrip with no freeway.

My other normal commute is right under 50 miles and I will charge as soon as I get home. I'm getting around the same 4.5mi/kWh roundtrip with 22.5 miles on the freeway at 65-70 mph.
 
You commute 85-90 miles in MN, even winter time without supplemental charging during the day? If so that's impressive!
In below-zero weather I need about half an hour of level 2 charging to get all the way home, which I do during lunch. Summertime I still have as much as 40% SoC left when I return home. The SE has far exceeded my expectations.
 
I have tempered my ABC mantra to considering my plans and charge accordingly. I took the advice of several members here and had a new 240V outlet installed, and put in a Grizzl-e Level 2, and am VERY pleased. I have a round-trip commute of 30 miles per day, and pre-condition in the AM (when it's 37 degrees) and PM (when it's 80 degrees), and each time I come home I'm around 80%. With the level 2 I will charge every 3 days, and will look at the difference in average electrons entering my vehicle compared to the Level 1. I'm all about efficiency and I want to see for my own personal situation what the L2 does better. Speed, obviously; efficiency, should be better too. But what if you're charging from 80-100% every night as opposed to 40-100% every 3 nights? Upgrade the charger, in the interest of efficiency and less waste.
 
Convince your boss to install multiple level 2 EVSEs so staff and visitors can get free charging. That's what I did.
 
Giddy-up. that's a great point!!! Can't expect this with the feds, though.
Well previously the EVSE Alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit was for individuals and businesses (30% of costs) with a limit of $1,000 for individuals and $30,000 for commercial installations (with some depreciation rules, blah blah blah).
 
What’s your round trip daily commute? Do you charge everyday? Is level 1 charger enough for a 60 mile daily round trip?
No. My round trip is 76 km. And i cannot recover all the usage overnight. Missing like 10km a day. So for you might be losing 20 km a day. You need to top up at least every two days somewhere on top of level 1 charging
 
My round trip is 40 miles mostly freeway. GOM said I use about 30%. I am new to EV so I charged daily for the first few weeks. But now I charge every other day. I read online that it is better to charge less frequently if possible. I installed a 48 amp charger because I didn't have a chance to do as much research on it when I got my SE. I since learned that the SE max out at 7.3 amp. So it is a complete overkill but I am future-proofed for the next gen.
 
My round trip is 40 miles mostly freeway. GOM said I use about 30%. I am new to EV so I charged daily for the first few weeks. But now I charge every other day. I read online that it is better to charge less frequently if possible. I installed a 48 amp charger because I didn't have a chance to do as much research on it when I got my SE. I since learned that the SE max out at 7.3 amp. So it is a complete overkill but I am future-proofed for the next gen.
It tops out at 7.4kw, which at 240v is around 30 amps.

What article did you read that said to charge less frequently? I've been charging every day, but could probably make it all week without charging. Longer charges are more efficient, but I would think topping off every day would be better for the battery.
 
It tops out at 7.4kw, which at 240v is around 30 amps.

What article did you read that said to charge less frequently? I've been charging every day, but could probably make it all week without charging. Longer charges are more efficient, but I would think topping off every day would be better for the battery.
I also would assume the SE should be treated like the i3 and BMW's recommendation of "ABC", always-be-charging. They have decent buffers at the top of the batteries to prevent major degradation from constant charging.

That being said - unless you're leaving it unplugged in freezing temps, I'm not sure it would be detrimental to not plug-in every day.
 
My daily commute is 50-60 mi. You could do it on a level 1, as long as you start charging when you get home. I have a level 2 and start at midnight, end around 2-3:00 a.m.
 
I think the charging issue is for more intensive NCM batteries using 712, 811 and 9-0.5-0.5 (upcoming). The i3 and MINI uses NCM 333 so it's probably extra conservative. For the i3 94Ah Samsung SDI, the B sample testing was 4,600 cycles for 80% max SoC end of life. If you charged 0-100% everyday that would take 12.6 years.
 
I also would assume the SE should be treated like the i3 and BMW's recommendation of "ABC", always-be-charging. They have decent buffers at the top of the batteries to prevent major degradation from constant charging.

That being said - unless you're leaving it unplugged in freezing temps, I'm not sure it would be detrimental to not plug-in every day.

I still don't know about that ABC... I doubt it came from engineering, it definitely doesn't sound like something an engineer would say! I think it came from marketing to avoid discussion about further limiting the already small range (and the additional degradation from ABC was acceptable to the bean counters).

There's a lot more to battery health than just cycles including time aging which is affected by the SOC the car is sitting at. I've seen conflicting studies on this with some saying it's a spoon shape where ~80% SOC is the worst and 100% is as good as ~60%

Ultimately the battery warranty guarantees less than ~20mi lost and no matter what I do it'll degrade so I'm just going to use it and not worry!

If you like to gamble you could try to get below the 80% capacity before 100k/8yr and get a free battery out of it haha
 
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