160mi Daily Commute. Ok to charge 90% everyday?

[gsxr310]

Hi ya’ll! I have had my MYP for about 2 weeks now!!! Love it!!! My question is…
I commute to work a total of 160mi. So far I’ve charged every night to 90%. When I arrive at work, I’m at 56-57%. When I get home, I’m at around 22-27%. Is my charge routine ok Monday-Friday? My understanding is to try not to get the batt below 20%.

 

[FloridaSun]

Hi ya’ll! I have had my MYP for about 2 weeks now!!! Love it!!! My question is…
I commute to work a total of 160mi. So far I’ve charged every night to 90%. When I arrive at work, I’m at 56-57%. When I get home, I’m at around 22-27%. Is my charge routine ok Monday-Friday? My understanding is to try not to get the batt below 20%.

Don't see an issue with 90% on a daily basis. Just dont't charge above that on a regular basis..

 

[AlexHung]

Hi ya’ll! I have had my MYP for about 2 weeks now!!! Love it!!! My question is…
I commute to work a total of 160mi. So far I’ve charged every night to 90%. When I arrive at work, I’m at 56-57%. When I get home, I’m at around 22-27%. Is my charge routine ok Monday-Friday? My understanding is to try not to get the batt below 20%.

I prefer to keep it around 80% max for daily commute like this. I'd suggest finding a charger for lunch time, if possible, for small top up. That may be enough to keep you between 20% - 80% every day.

 

[DayTrippin]

Don't believe Tesla when they say 90% is fine. Go do your research on battery university and you can pretty quickly tell what is best to maximize the life and performance of your battery while minimizing degradation. There is a ton of info on EV batteries there as well as other batteries. It can get in the weeds if you want but also pretty easy to pull out what matters in your situation.

 

[jcanoe]

The Tesla Model Y Owner's Manual does not specify a maximum charging level for daily use: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_y_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf

The Tesla Mobile App charging settings graphically bounds the range for Daily charging as 50% up to 90%; separately shows 90% and above up to 100% for a Trip. I would not be concerned about charging up to 90% for your daily driving. You could lower your maximum charging level, i.e. to 85% if you feel the need but don't leave yourself without sufficient charge in case of bad road conditions. When driving in rain your energy consumption is going to be significantly higher. If you don't charge to 90% you could need to stop in bad weather on the return trip to charge.

Another thing you can do is enable Scheduled Departure Charging. Enter the end of your electric utility off-peak rate period in the Tesla charging screen under Scheduled Departure - Settings. If you don't have an off-peak rate period just accept the default (06:00) local time. The Tesla Model Y will always complete charging or end charging before the end of the off-peak rate period. Since this will normally be shortly before you leave in the AM so the vehicle will not be at the 90% state of charge (SOC) for more than an hour or two. Even if you have charged and leave the battery fully charged to 100% for a time, up to 24 hours, this will not cause any issue with the battery.

 

[Marcust99]

I prefer to keep it around 80% max for daily commute like this. I'd suggest finding a charger for lunch time, if possible, for small top up. That may be enough to keep you between 20% - 80% every day.

In that case why not just keep it at 90% max and forget the hassle of having to "top up" because you only charged it to 80%. Even
Elon said 90% was fine, but going over will affect regen breaking capacity.

I always charge to 90% and it's been working out fine.

 

[gsxr310]

Thanks all for the replies!

 

[jjrandorin]

Hi ya’ll! I have had my MYP for about 2 weeks now!!! Love it!!! My question is…
I commute to work a total of 160mi. So far I’ve charged every night to 90%. When I arrive at work, I’m at 56-57%. When I get home, I’m at around 22-27%. Is my charge routine ok Monday-Friday? My understanding is to try not to get the batt below 20%.

I have been charging to 90% daily for 2.5 years (since I got my model 3). This is relevant, even though this is the model Y subforum, because the cars have the exact same battery.

I have less reported battery degradation than those who have complicated charging regimens of "charge to 82.455135%, every other day, except if its sunny outside before 3pm, then charge to 85.3251290% on a saturday only"

(obviously tongue in cheek post above, but only slightly so.. some people "really" obsess about it and charging anywhere on the slider from 50%-90% is fine).

 

[NotThatChewie]

I charge to 90% daily. I don’t stress over what to charge the battery.

 

[sleepydoc]

Question - is there anywhere along your commute that you can stop to charge if necessary? If so, then try charging to 80-85% for a week or so and see how it goes. If you’re getting too low you can stop and charge without worrying about getting stranded. If not then I’d say the risk and potential stress of getting stranded far outweighs the battery concern.

 

[gsxr310]

Question - is there anywhere along your commute that you can stop to charge if necessary? If so, then try charging to 80-85% for a week or so and see how it goes. If you’re getting too low you can stop and charge without worrying about getting stranded. If not then I’d say the risk and potential stress of getting stranded far outweighs the battery concern.

I can charge to 80% and make it back home but it will be below 20%. Is this bad to do mon-fri? I do have several chargers along the way but would like to avoid if possible. Im not worried about getting stranded. I'm more concerned about battery degradation/longevity.

 

[jcanoe]

I can charge to 80% and make it back home but it will be below 20%. Is this bad to do mon-fri? I do have several chargers along the way but would like to avoid if possible. Im not worried about getting stranded. I'm more concerned about battery degradation/longevity.

The Tesla Model Y will start to alert you when the battery SOC falls below 20%. Also, you may not have maximum power available although at a steady speed you would not notice the lack of power. When driving in the rain or into a head wind your increased energy use could be 20% greater. You would have no reserve battery for these scenarios and would need to stop to charge to reach your home.

 

[Schulz1983]

I can charge to 80% and make it back home but it will be below 20%. Is this bad to do mon-fri? I do have several chargers along the way but would like to avoid if possible. Im not worried about getting stranded. I'm more concerned about battery degradation/longevity.

I charge daily to 90%. It isn’t going to hurt the battery. People keep talking about battery longevity. Most graphs I have seen show battery degradation to be minimal to about 160k miles and up. I’m just not concerned. Ask yourself how many miles you intend to keep your Y for? If the answer is 100k-150k just charge it and run it. That’s what I am doing. Love @jjrandorin post! Hit the nail right on the head there!

 

[jjrandorin]

I can charge to 80% and make it back home but it will be below 20%. Is this bad to do mon-fri? I do have several chargers along the way but would like to avoid if possible. Im not worried about getting stranded. I'm more concerned about battery degradation/longevity.

In the model 3 forum that I moderate here, we have a master thread that is over 100 pages (not posts, pages) long, on this subject. Boiling it down at a (very) high level, because of the way battery chemistry works, it will be "better" to charge it to 80% than 90% for battery longevity.

The question is, "how much?" Is it 3 miles better after 5 years? 2? 4? 10? No one really knows, except that as you reduce the percentages, 90% is A LOT better than 100%, but 80% is only "a little" better.

Couple this with the fact that each battery starts with a somewhat "in flux" amount of storage capacity (notice they stopped using kW numbers a long time ago), the only thing we all can tell you definitively is, "only charge to 100% when you need to, and avoid leaving the car at 100%, and leaving it at under 10% for extended periods of time".

Other than that, anything between 50% and 90% is fine. My 2.5 year old model 3, that started with "310 miles range" really was supposed to be rated at 299 because it came with 20 inch wheels. Tesla later downgraded the range estimates on model 3 performance with 20 inch wheels for my year to 299. My 2.5 year old car, charged to 90% every time It hits my garage, shows 293 miles range at 100%.

There are people who do all sorts of third party apps, studying it, only charging to this or that, unplugging, re plugging in, etc and they have more miles "missing" than I do.

The short version is, charge it to 90%, based on your drive, there isnt any reason to charge it to less than that. You are going to be cycling your battery either way, and 90% allows you some buffer that 80% doesnt, and its not worth the stress to have, "some undetermined amount" better.

 

[gsxr310]

Thank you jjrandorin for the helpful reply!!!!!

 

[bluenycom]

Hi ya’ll! I have had my MYP for about 2 weeks now!!! Love it!!! My question is…
I commute to work a total of 160mi. So far I’ve charged every night to 90%. When I arrive at work, I’m at 56-57%. When I get home, I’m at around 22-27%. Is my charge routine ok Monday-Friday? My understanding is to try not to get the batt below 20%.

It should be fine but if you're really paranoid about the number, just charge to 87-88%. There is no rule that it has to be even round number like 80 or 90.

 

[patnshan]

Yes. I do and Elon said it's OK to do it as well

 

[wraithfive]

The other thing I would add is don't worry too much about going below 20%. If you were to arrive home every day at 15% and plug in the car, that would not make a huge difference. What you want to avoid is getting home at 15% and leaving it unplugged and sitting there for a week getting even lower.

Don't misunderstand me, if my options are to charge to 90% every night and get home at 25% or charge to 80% and get home at 15% then I'm charging to 90. But it is because I might have some reason to need to spend that extra 10% on some unplanned errand or emergency and then I'd still like to be able to drive home rather than worrying about running the battery below 20%. Owning an EV is not meant to be a complicated nightmare of constantly working out charge strategies. Some people like doing that, but for most of us just doing what we need to do with the car everyday and not worrying about it is exactly how the car is meant to be used.

 

[gsxr310]

Appreciate all the helpful replies! I’ve been doing the 90% and so far it’s been great. There was a couple times I did the 80% and like wraith said, I needed the extra 10% to do errands after work. So for me, 90% is what’s working for me! Thx!!

 

[Johnny Vector]

Another thing is to imagine how nice it would be to be able to plug in and charge at work. If your company has the power to add chargers to where you park, think about agitating for chargers. They're gonna have to install them sometime in the next few years or risk looking old-fashioned. Even if they say no, it'll start them thinking about it, and that's the first step toward making it happen. If we all push just a little toward making EVs the default, that's a lot of total force!