1 month away from Tesla, best way to preserve LFP battery

[Darkwarrior]

Hi,

I'm expecting to take delivery of M3 RWD with LFP battery in late Nov (UK), and then I'll be away for the whole of Dec, with no access to Tesla which will be sitting in my driveway.

I don't have a 7KW charger installed yet, so options are 1) leave 3pin plug charged in tesla and schedule charge to keep at 100% 2) ask neighbour to help charge using their 7KW once a week to 100% or 3) leave at 100% with no charge for a month

Just trying to plan how to best preserve the life of the battery. Any advice, recommendations? I assume option 2 is best but most hassle.

Thank you

First Post be kind!

 

[ATPMSD]

Too many people spend way too much time worrying about the battery. Just avoid charging to 100% unless you need to, such as going on a trip, in which case do not hesitate to do so, and avoid allowing the SOC to get into single digits, unless on a trip and you need to. In the case of your car’s LFP battery, Tesla recommends charging to 100% once per week. This is mostly to ensure the battery management system can accurately manage the battery.

As to your options, leaving the car plugged into the 3pin is fine, but set to SOC to 90-95% (per above comment) - don’t worry about the weekly 100% charge for now. This option is the easiest to do. Note that Tesla recommends leaving their cars plugged in all of the time, but most people do not do this. Again, do it or not and don’t worry about it.

 

[cgell]

You ideally don’t want it to sit at 100% if you are parking it for a month. Tesla recommends charging once a week to 100% in order for the BMS accurately assess charge level, not to protect the battery. This is because the charge curve is flat for much of the charge/discharge so the system can’t get enough info for estimating the charge level.

LFP lasts longer than NCA, but still wears down over time. And while LFP is better able to withstand high states of charge due to lower cell voltage compared to NCA, it is still not great for the battery if your goal is to avoid degradation.

Personally I would leave it plugged in and set to charge to 70% (not a magic number, just what I would do) and leave it there. Keeping it plugged in will not have any negative effect. No benefit to unplugging. Each time you charge is not a charge cycle - a charge cycle is tied to the overall energy - 0-100%, 50-100% x 2, etc = one cycle.

 

[ATPMSD]

Personally I would leave it plugged in and set to charge to 70%

@Darkwarrior: Good point by @cgell , but 50% State-of-Charge is the recommendation for storing LFP cells. But again there are lots of recommendations and whatever you pick will be fine especially being a new car for just a month.

 

[3sr+buyer]

For long term parking, leaving it plugged in at the lowest target charge (which is 50% on Teslas) is an easy way to minimize battery issues. Charge it back up to 100% just before you drive off when you get back.

 

[glide]

Hi,

I'm expecting to take delivery of M3 RWD with LFP battery in late Nov (UK), and then I'll be away for the whole of Dec, with no access to Tesla which will be sitting in my driveway.

I don't have a 7KW charger installed yet, so options are 1) leave 3pin plug charged in tesla and schedule charge to keep at 100% 2) ask neighbour to help charge using their 7KW once a week to 100% or 3) leave at 100% with no charge for a month

Just trying to plan how to best preserve the life of the battery. Any advice, recommendations? I assume option 2 is best but most hassle.

Thank you

First Post be kind!

Don’t worry about it. How many cell phone batteries have you swapped out?

 

[DuncanM]

Hi,

I'm expecting to take delivery of M3 RWD with LFP battery in late Nov (UK), and then I'll be away for the whole of Dec, with no access to Tesla which will be sitting in my driveway.

I don't have a 7KW charger installed yet, so options are 1) leave 3pin plug charged in tesla and schedule charge to keep at 100% 2) ask neighbour to help charge using their 7KW once a week to 100% or 3) leave at 100% with no charge for a month

Just trying to plan how to best preserve the life of the battery. Any advice, recommendations? I assume option 2 is best but most hassle.

Thank you

First Post be kind!

IIRC, your 3pin connector still provides 13amps at 220v or nearly 3kw? This is plenty of power for daily and scheduled charging.

 

[ROTA]

From other posts I've seen on the internet, people have left their LFP Tesla's parked without charging over many months and with no affect on the battery. In my opinion, it should be alright just sitting in your drive with no charging.

 

[3sr+buyer]

From other posts I've seen on the internet, people have left their LFP Tesla's parked without charging over many months and with no affect on the battery. In my opinion, it should be alright just sitting in your drive with no charging.

Leaving it parked long term without being plugged in is fine, except if the vampire drain over time drains the high voltage battery below 0% (the true 0%, which is a few percent below the displayed 0%). Remember that the high voltage battery will top up the 12V battery from time to time, and certain features like sentry mode and cabin overheat protection with AC (during hot weather) will increase vampire drain if left on.

Since the OP will be a new owner who may not be completely familiar with the level of vampire drain and how various car settings affect it, it may be safest for the OP to leave the car plugged in with the charge target set to 50% during the long term storage.

 

[Darkwarrior]

Thank you all! Very helpful

 

[Rottenapplr]

I agree with the sentiment people worry too much about the battery. Plug it in set it at 50. Unplugged for a month? Set it to 80. The battery will drain slowly but I find when I went on a trip for 3 weeks it took slowed down significantly to about 10% decrease.

 

[Cantonalegod]

We have just returned from France/Spain after being away for 31 days (the whole of October).

Left our RWD LFP 2022 at 67%, and it was at 63% on our return.

I did check the app every few days.

Hope that helps!

 

[Rottenapplr]

People should post the average temps. That makes a big difference on battery drain.

 

[Adopado]

Hi,

I'm expecting to take delivery of M3 RWD with LFP battery in late Nov (UK), and then I'll be away for the whole of Dec, with no access to Tesla which will be sitting in my driveway.

I don't have a 7KW charger installed yet, so options are 1) leave 3pin plug charged in tesla and schedule charge to keep at 100% 2) ask neighbour to help charge using their 7KW once a week to 100% or 3) leave at 100% with no charge for a month

Just trying to plan how to best preserve the life of the battery. Any advice, recommendations? I assume option 2 is best but most hassle.

Thank you

First Post be kind!

I don't think any of the advice above mentioned "Sentry Mode" issue. All the suggestions above appear to be based on you NOT setting Sentry Mode to On. The reason for this is that the car will use significant power to run the computer and cameras when parked up for a month. If you really need to leave Sentry Mode on then you should leave the car plugged in for the duration.

 

[Matteo Pedalà]

Too many people spend way too much time worrying about the battery. Just avoid charging to 100% unless you need to, such as going on a trip, in which case do not hesitate to do so, and avoid allowing the SOC to get into single digits, unless on a trip and you need to. In the case of your car’s LFP battery, Tesla recommends charging to 100% once per week. This is mostly to ensure the battery management system can accurately manage the battery.

As to your options, leaving the car plugged into the 3pin is fine, but set to SOC to 90-95% (per above comment) - don’t worry about the weekly 100% charge for now. This option is the easiest to do. Note that Tesla recommends leaving their cars plugged in all of the time, but most people do not do this. Again, do it or not and don’t worry about it.

That’s not what Tesla recommends to do though