Summary:
We bought this car for AWD, 7 seats and ease of traveling long distances. AWD is great, and technically it does have 7 seats - but we knew the 3rd row would only be for little kids, which is fine. While the Supercharger network enables long distance driving, the poorly functioning safety and driver assistance systems deter from using the car in general. Our vacuum cleaners are safer drivers than the Tesla autopilot. Reason being hardware and software. The lidar sensor on the vacuum cleaner works really well and radar works really well on our Kia, while the camera-based system on the Tesla has no way to clean all the optics, and is not reliable in real conditions. The software could be tweaked for some of the dangerous behavior caused by the hard-disengagement of autopilot and driver monitoring could be done via the in-cabin camera instead of steering wheel torque. The suspension tune is too harsh for comfort when taking the (albeit poor) highways around Seattle. Would I buy it again? Yes, I would unfortunately, as there isn’t anything else in that price range out there that in theory checks all the boxes. But, I am looking forward to taking a look at the Kia EV9 as soon as it becomes available.
* I also used enhances autopilot on the loaner car I was given for about 250 miles. While the autopilot mode on Interstates is better than when not on Interstates, it still is a pain to use and changing lanes is cumbersome - and dangerous if you let go too soon of the turn signal.
TLDR;
Buying experience:
Online ordering was easy, then I spent way too much time in the MYLR7 waiting room threads over the next 2 months. Pick-up was cringeworthy. We really wanted to test drive (not just look at) our new car. Mentioning our concern about squealing driving unit that’s been reported on the internet, the lady working there and driving the cars around in the parking lot said that, yes, that does happen. Inside, we were given the option of test driving their demo model Y, but they couldn’t under any circumstances let us drive our new car because if it has any miles on it and get a possible rock ship, they can’t sell it ‘new’ anymore. Never mind that it had listed 15 miles on the purchase agreement, when it only had 1 or 2 miles on the odometer. The test drive of the demo unit went well, but we noticed a lot of road noise even at max 45 mph. Back inside the pick-up, I tried one last time: “Would you please drive us around in the parking lot? We just want to make sure the basics are in good working order.” I have no idea what changed the sales guy’s mind, but he took the key card and told us to get in and took us for a 10 min test drive around a few blocks: accelerating fast, hitting potholes (no rattles). We noticed a lot loess road noise than the demo vehicle (possibly because of 19” rims?); it showed us that the car is in good working order, so we went back inside and paid the $66k incl tax having spent about ~2 hours there.
(Kia: Finding a trust-worthy dealer took a lot of time, but once I had found one, the buying experience was first class. Price was agreed to in advance over the phone. Did 2 test drives: the dealer even recommended to drive it all the way home to show the family. Spent about 2 hours at the dealership incl. lease financing department. Price with buyout came to $31k incl tax. )
Initial quality: Water leaked into the car through the taillights for the first month before I noticed, leaving about a half-cup standing water in the deep trunk. I had arranged for Tesla mobile service, but they changed to in-house service as this repair was ‘not possible’ in the field; leaving me with another 3 days before this gets fixed. Seeing other on Tesla forum having this issue and growing mold, I took the trunk apart myself since Tesla didn’t seem to care that a brand new car might be starting to mold. I dried it all out - no mold yet. I did break a couple plastic clips on the trunk parts, and Tesla agreed to replace those for free, presumeably acknowledging their lack of response time for this issue that I fixed myself. Mobile service is scheduled for next week to replace those items. I was given a loaner MYLR5, which rattled like mad in the trunk and has a squealing drive unit for the first 15 min when it’s cold. (I fixed the rattling license plate for them - the nut inserts were broken so the plate couldn’t be tightened by using zip ties. But, it just kept on rattling afterwards.)
(Kia: No issues with 35k miles on the odometer. )
Ride quality: The ride is sporty, no body roll in corners, steering is very accurate. Very easy to do emergency maneuver at highway speeds. However, the ride is ‘busy’ for lack of a better word: I notice every little bump in the road. I don’t find this comfortable, but it does handle bigger hits well. Road and wind noise is ok. Good turn circle. AWD is great and power is tremendous.
(Kia: It leans a bit through the corners, and shock absorbers are easily overwhelmed on bigger hits. Small bumps are barely noticeable and driving around town is comfortable. Road and wind noise is ok. Good turn circle, but FWD without much weight over the tires makes it easy to loose grip even with the best wet-tracking tires I could find. )
Charging: Trip planning with Superchargers is a cake. Very, very impressive integration.
(Kia: The CCS network is for those who aren’t afraid of adventure: Will the charger work? Will I be on the phone with service for 20 min? Will there be a line since there are only 2 chargers?)
Safety (1): The lane departure alert / correction does not always work! And when it works, it also has issues: Driving along the bumpy highway that is I-90, to avoid the potholes, I was hugging the right line. At first, the car did attempt to correct but I held the wheel. It then disabled (!) lane departure for the _rest_ of the trip after continuing near the line for another 20 seconds. Message on the screen came on that it “may be re-enabled after the next start”. The lane correction force is very weak and wouldn’t actually move the car back into the lane if you don’t help it. Similarly poor is the alert (vibrating steering wheel) which is barely noticeable. Very unsafe programming of this safety feature.
(Kia: Lane departure system works. The alert chime is good volume and correction force, if enabled, will move car back.)
Safety (2): The lane-hold assist (called “Autopilot”) locks onto the lane very ‘hard’. Issues arise when you want to do any kind of steering correction (avoid potholes, change lanes, keep car from drifting into exit or on-ramps). The hold-force is very high, requiring an even greater amount of force to override. This results in jerking the car left/right quite substantially. This is scary at highway speed. The system does not automatically re-engage as soon as possible. The driver monitoring system consists of measuring the driver-applied torque to the steering wheel. On long straight stretches of highways, this is a like a Chinese water torture requiring you to apply steering force without actually turning the wheel. If you don’t do that, the screen flashes blue and eventually the system disengages until you restart the car. The best way to make this work seems to be hanging my hand/arm on one side as if I were steering, just so there is a torque applied to the steering wheel. I don’t feel safe doing this, as I could not easily correct steering when I am already “counter steering” the entire time. Overall, the system makes driving less safe. And it’s about as relaxing as having a screaming toddler in the car - it does whatever it wants, it will bug you ever minute, and if you don’t do what it says, it will have a fit.
(Kia: The lane-hold assist does not recognize the lanes as well as the Tesla. It centers the car in the lane pretty well, but is prone to take the exit ramps. Steering corrections are accommodated easily and system re-engages as soon as possible after switching lanes. The force to override is just right. I use the system even around town, and it comes on automatically with cruise control. Driver monitoring system is capacitive touch - so having your hand on the wheel like you would normally will work 100% of the time. Overall, the few failure modes are very predictable, inline with a level-2 ADAS, and it makes driving safer and more relaxing for me. )
Safety (3): Cruise control is camera based. Several issues came up: When I engaged cruise-control on a local street (35 mph), an oncoming panel truck in the opposite lane (2 lane street) caused the car to brake very hard for a very brief amount of time. Holy crap. Something flashed briefly on the screen that appeared like a semi truck was detected in front of me, but I was unable to clearly see what it was. At other times, the car will slow down going around curves like a grandma driving. At other times, the car will slow down hard when going around a corner on the interstate with not other cars nearby. When there is a dip in the road, car will abruptly slow down. When it’s raining hard, message came on “Weather is bad, disabling autopilot.” (or something like that).
(Kia: Radar-based cruise control works flawlessly during all weather conditions, except for 1 known failure: when car is driven at speed in the HOV next to stopped traffic to the right, and the interstate turns left, the car will slow down as the radar doesn’t realize that our lane is veering left up ahead. )
Safety (4): Rear cross-traffic alert does not exist. This Model Y does not have ultrasound sensors, instead the “Park assist” feature is based on cameras and is pretty much useless. The distances to objects wiggles all over the place, sometimes going right through the hood of the Tesla itself. No, there was no crash, and the hedge in front of me was still a foot away from the bumper. The objects displayed on the screen show up as all kinds of incorrect things (semis, cars, cones), and jump all over the place.
(Kia: The rear-cross traffic alert works. There are not other park-assist features.)
Safety (5): Visibility is very good out the front and sides. The side mirrors are oddly shaped and small and the blind spot is not well covered by them. The side-camera view is shown on the screen when signaling to make a turn, but since the screen is in the center of the car, it’s pointless: the displays needs to be on the side where one is looking already. Rear visibility is a total joke. When the backup camera fails to come on (which has happened once on the loaner), it’s impossible see what’s behind. There are no distance markers on the display. The Park assist will take itself offline when there are rain drops on cameras. Coming home in the rain today, there was no alert that would have prevent me from driving right through the garage door if I had relied on the car to detect objects in front of it. No forward collision warning. Nothing.
(Kia: Visibility is good all around. The backup camera covers a wide enough field to see not just back but also a bit to the sides, and the screen has 1, 2, 3, foot distance markers.)
Interior: Love the clean look, and the minimal buttons are working for me. Even the famed automatic wiper controls are not difficult to use: a menu pops up when your push-to-wipe. Climate controls are intuitive and well done. Very nice and clean layout. The pleather seats are very comfortable but don’t breathe and I get a sweaty lower back after an hour in ~60 F weather with some sun. The sound system is outstanding. Navigation system is outstanding. Cabin is roomier than one would expect from the outside. Cargo capacity is good (a little less than Subraru Outback), but the deep trunk and frunk make it workable. Tiny people love the 3rd row, which is what we bought that for.
(Kia: Buttons, buttons everywhere, like a traditional car. Takes about 0 seconds to get used to for anyone who has never driven an EV before. The clothes/leather seats are decently comfortable and breathe well. Everything is functional and Android/Apple CarPlay integration makes navigation a breeze. Sound system is pretty good. Rear passengers have a surprising amount of space. Trunk space was helped by removing the top fake-floor and building a new sub-floor of plywood. Also purchased a custom-made frunk that hold a few things like charger cable and basic emergency things.)
Exterior: I love the shape of the Model Y, I am not a fan of frameless windows due to potential for water ingress and freezing, but they are working fine so far. The auto-wipers are working well enough, not always the best speed and sometimes an extra wipe is needed, or sometimes the wipers come on to wiper away grime - which of course just makes the windshield worse. Charge port is in the rear: not very convenient, but our charge cable is long enough to reach without having to back into the driveway. The 2” receiver hitch is recessed into body molding; it looks nice with the cover on, but is not nice to use. Getting trailer chains through the hitch hooks is a real pain. I have no idea how I will tighten the anti-rattle bracket for the bike rack. I might have to cut out a pice of the under panel molding to make room for a wrench. The hitch cover is really hard to remove and replace. I haven’t installed the roof crossbars yet, but hoping those will work well given how heavy they are.
(Kia: It looks frumpy and weird. The charge port is in the front, which is super convenient, but looks odd. I installed a 2” receiver for bike racks only and it’s easy to access. The EV is not rated for towing in the US. The rear camera collects grime like mad, but I installed a toothbrush-like device (ordered from Norway) on the rear wiper and now have a clean camera whenever I turn on the rear wiper. Kia’s own roof cross-bars installed easily on the rails.)
Range: The advertised range hardly seems achievable in the real world. Count on 10% less than advertised with 60/40 city/highway driving. We are at 3.6 miles/kWh driving decently but keeping up with traffic. With 81 kWh battery, that translates into 290 miles, not the advertised 327 miles.
(Kia: range meets expectations, getting 3.7 miles/kWh over the last 35k miles. With an actual battery capacity of 68 kWh, this results in 250 miles with +/- 20% in winter-highways vs. summer-city driving. Kia advertises 239 miles.)
Tech: The phone key and card keys work most of the time. Probably once er week, the phone doesn’t unlock or the key is very slow to be picked up. Locking/unlocking with key card can only be done from the driver side. The car doesn’t shut off when locked, instead it drains the battery ~1% day just sitting in the drive way. Tesla recommends to plug in the car when not used. The regen is inconsistent and misses a lot of energy when coasting down the big hill we live on in the morning. Tried to cure the battery not accepting charge by lowering charge limit to 80%, but same issue persists. Energy is just wasted by braking, instead of using the energy to at least heat the battery or the cabin.
(Kia: The Kia key fob needs to be near the doors and then a push of a button on the driver or passenger door handle unlocks one or all doors. This works flawlessly. The car shuts off when the doors are locked and even in winter, coming back 24 hours later, does not lose battery range. I would feel very comfortable leaving the car sitting anywhere when going on a weeklong trip. Regen works consistently and is blended very well with the brakes. Coasting down in the morning always add ~1% to the battery. We charge to 90%.)
We bought this car for AWD, 7 seats and ease of traveling long distances. AWD is great, and technically it does have 7 seats - but we knew the 3rd row would only be for little kids, which is fine. While the Supercharger network enables long distance driving, the poorly functioning safety and driver assistance systems deter from using the car in general. Our vacuum cleaners are safer drivers than the Tesla autopilot. Reason being hardware and software. The lidar sensor on the vacuum cleaner works really well and radar works really well on our Kia, while the camera-based system on the Tesla has no way to clean all the optics, and is not reliable in real conditions. The software could be tweaked for some of the dangerous behavior caused by the hard-disengagement of autopilot and driver monitoring could be done via the in-cabin camera instead of steering wheel torque. The suspension tune is too harsh for comfort when taking the (albeit poor) highways around Seattle. Would I buy it again? Yes, I would unfortunately, as there isn’t anything else in that price range out there that in theory checks all the boxes. But, I am looking forward to taking a look at the Kia EV9 as soon as it becomes available.
* I also used enhances autopilot on the loaner car I was given for about 250 miles. While the autopilot mode on Interstates is better than when not on Interstates, it still is a pain to use and changing lanes is cumbersome - and dangerous if you let go too soon of the turn signal.
TLDR;
Buying experience:
Online ordering was easy, then I spent way too much time in the MYLR7 waiting room threads over the next 2 months. Pick-up was cringeworthy. We really wanted to test drive (not just look at) our new car. Mentioning our concern about squealing driving unit that’s been reported on the internet, the lady working there and driving the cars around in the parking lot said that, yes, that does happen. Inside, we were given the option of test driving their demo model Y, but they couldn’t under any circumstances let us drive our new car because if it has any miles on it and get a possible rock ship, they can’t sell it ‘new’ anymore. Never mind that it had listed 15 miles on the purchase agreement, when it only had 1 or 2 miles on the odometer. The test drive of the demo unit went well, but we noticed a lot of road noise even at max 45 mph. Back inside the pick-up, I tried one last time: “Would you please drive us around in the parking lot? We just want to make sure the basics are in good working order.” I have no idea what changed the sales guy’s mind, but he took the key card and told us to get in and took us for a 10 min test drive around a few blocks: accelerating fast, hitting potholes (no rattles). We noticed a lot loess road noise than the demo vehicle (possibly because of 19” rims?); it showed us that the car is in good working order, so we went back inside and paid the $66k incl tax having spent about ~2 hours there.
(Kia: Finding a trust-worthy dealer took a lot of time, but once I had found one, the buying experience was first class. Price was agreed to in advance over the phone. Did 2 test drives: the dealer even recommended to drive it all the way home to show the family. Spent about 2 hours at the dealership incl. lease financing department. Price with buyout came to $31k incl tax. )
Initial quality: Water leaked into the car through the taillights for the first month before I noticed, leaving about a half-cup standing water in the deep trunk. I had arranged for Tesla mobile service, but they changed to in-house service as this repair was ‘not possible’ in the field; leaving me with another 3 days before this gets fixed. Seeing other on Tesla forum having this issue and growing mold, I took the trunk apart myself since Tesla didn’t seem to care that a brand new car might be starting to mold. I dried it all out - no mold yet. I did break a couple plastic clips on the trunk parts, and Tesla agreed to replace those for free, presumeably acknowledging their lack of response time for this issue that I fixed myself. Mobile service is scheduled for next week to replace those items. I was given a loaner MYLR5, which rattled like mad in the trunk and has a squealing drive unit for the first 15 min when it’s cold. (I fixed the rattling license plate for them - the nut inserts were broken so the plate couldn’t be tightened by using zip ties. But, it just kept on rattling afterwards.)
(Kia: No issues with 35k miles on the odometer. )
Ride quality: The ride is sporty, no body roll in corners, steering is very accurate. Very easy to do emergency maneuver at highway speeds. However, the ride is ‘busy’ for lack of a better word: I notice every little bump in the road. I don’t find this comfortable, but it does handle bigger hits well. Road and wind noise is ok. Good turn circle. AWD is great and power is tremendous.
(Kia: It leans a bit through the corners, and shock absorbers are easily overwhelmed on bigger hits. Small bumps are barely noticeable and driving around town is comfortable. Road and wind noise is ok. Good turn circle, but FWD without much weight over the tires makes it easy to loose grip even with the best wet-tracking tires I could find. )
Charging: Trip planning with Superchargers is a cake. Very, very impressive integration.
(Kia: The CCS network is for those who aren’t afraid of adventure: Will the charger work? Will I be on the phone with service for 20 min? Will there be a line since there are only 2 chargers?)
Safety (1): The lane departure alert / correction does not always work! And when it works, it also has issues: Driving along the bumpy highway that is I-90, to avoid the potholes, I was hugging the right line. At first, the car did attempt to correct but I held the wheel. It then disabled (!) lane departure for the _rest_ of the trip after continuing near the line for another 20 seconds. Message on the screen came on that it “may be re-enabled after the next start”. The lane correction force is very weak and wouldn’t actually move the car back into the lane if you don’t help it. Similarly poor is the alert (vibrating steering wheel) which is barely noticeable. Very unsafe programming of this safety feature.
(Kia: Lane departure system works. The alert chime is good volume and correction force, if enabled, will move car back.)
Safety (2): The lane-hold assist (called “Autopilot”) locks onto the lane very ‘hard’. Issues arise when you want to do any kind of steering correction (avoid potholes, change lanes, keep car from drifting into exit or on-ramps). The hold-force is very high, requiring an even greater amount of force to override. This results in jerking the car left/right quite substantially. This is scary at highway speed. The system does not automatically re-engage as soon as possible. The driver monitoring system consists of measuring the driver-applied torque to the steering wheel. On long straight stretches of highways, this is a like a Chinese water torture requiring you to apply steering force without actually turning the wheel. If you don’t do that, the screen flashes blue and eventually the system disengages until you restart the car. The best way to make this work seems to be hanging my hand/arm on one side as if I were steering, just so there is a torque applied to the steering wheel. I don’t feel safe doing this, as I could not easily correct steering when I am already “counter steering” the entire time. Overall, the system makes driving less safe. And it’s about as relaxing as having a screaming toddler in the car - it does whatever it wants, it will bug you ever minute, and if you don’t do what it says, it will have a fit.
(Kia: The lane-hold assist does not recognize the lanes as well as the Tesla. It centers the car in the lane pretty well, but is prone to take the exit ramps. Steering corrections are accommodated easily and system re-engages as soon as possible after switching lanes. The force to override is just right. I use the system even around town, and it comes on automatically with cruise control. Driver monitoring system is capacitive touch - so having your hand on the wheel like you would normally will work 100% of the time. Overall, the few failure modes are very predictable, inline with a level-2 ADAS, and it makes driving safer and more relaxing for me. )
Safety (3): Cruise control is camera based. Several issues came up: When I engaged cruise-control on a local street (35 mph), an oncoming panel truck in the opposite lane (2 lane street) caused the car to brake very hard for a very brief amount of time. Holy crap. Something flashed briefly on the screen that appeared like a semi truck was detected in front of me, but I was unable to clearly see what it was. At other times, the car will slow down going around curves like a grandma driving. At other times, the car will slow down hard when going around a corner on the interstate with not other cars nearby. When there is a dip in the road, car will abruptly slow down. When it’s raining hard, message came on “Weather is bad, disabling autopilot.” (or something like that).
(Kia: Radar-based cruise control works flawlessly during all weather conditions, except for 1 known failure: when car is driven at speed in the HOV next to stopped traffic to the right, and the interstate turns left, the car will slow down as the radar doesn’t realize that our lane is veering left up ahead. )
Safety (4): Rear cross-traffic alert does not exist. This Model Y does not have ultrasound sensors, instead the “Park assist” feature is based on cameras and is pretty much useless. The distances to objects wiggles all over the place, sometimes going right through the hood of the Tesla itself. No, there was no crash, and the hedge in front of me was still a foot away from the bumper. The objects displayed on the screen show up as all kinds of incorrect things (semis, cars, cones), and jump all over the place.
(Kia: The rear-cross traffic alert works. There are not other park-assist features.)
Safety (5): Visibility is very good out the front and sides. The side mirrors are oddly shaped and small and the blind spot is not well covered by them. The side-camera view is shown on the screen when signaling to make a turn, but since the screen is in the center of the car, it’s pointless: the displays needs to be on the side where one is looking already. Rear visibility is a total joke. When the backup camera fails to come on (which has happened once on the loaner), it’s impossible see what’s behind. There are no distance markers on the display. The Park assist will take itself offline when there are rain drops on cameras. Coming home in the rain today, there was no alert that would have prevent me from driving right through the garage door if I had relied on the car to detect objects in front of it. No forward collision warning. Nothing.
(Kia: Visibility is good all around. The backup camera covers a wide enough field to see not just back but also a bit to the sides, and the screen has 1, 2, 3, foot distance markers.)
Interior: Love the clean look, and the minimal buttons are working for me. Even the famed automatic wiper controls are not difficult to use: a menu pops up when your push-to-wipe. Climate controls are intuitive and well done. Very nice and clean layout. The pleather seats are very comfortable but don’t breathe and I get a sweaty lower back after an hour in ~60 F weather with some sun. The sound system is outstanding. Navigation system is outstanding. Cabin is roomier than one would expect from the outside. Cargo capacity is good (a little less than Subraru Outback), but the deep trunk and frunk make it workable. Tiny people love the 3rd row, which is what we bought that for.
(Kia: Buttons, buttons everywhere, like a traditional car. Takes about 0 seconds to get used to for anyone who has never driven an EV before. The clothes/leather seats are decently comfortable and breathe well. Everything is functional and Android/Apple CarPlay integration makes navigation a breeze. Sound system is pretty good. Rear passengers have a surprising amount of space. Trunk space was helped by removing the top fake-floor and building a new sub-floor of plywood. Also purchased a custom-made frunk that hold a few things like charger cable and basic emergency things.)
Exterior: I love the shape of the Model Y, I am not a fan of frameless windows due to potential for water ingress and freezing, but they are working fine so far. The auto-wipers are working well enough, not always the best speed and sometimes an extra wipe is needed, or sometimes the wipers come on to wiper away grime - which of course just makes the windshield worse. Charge port is in the rear: not very convenient, but our charge cable is long enough to reach without having to back into the driveway. The 2” receiver hitch is recessed into body molding; it looks nice with the cover on, but is not nice to use. Getting trailer chains through the hitch hooks is a real pain. I have no idea how I will tighten the anti-rattle bracket for the bike rack. I might have to cut out a pice of the under panel molding to make room for a wrench. The hitch cover is really hard to remove and replace. I haven’t installed the roof crossbars yet, but hoping those will work well given how heavy they are.
(Kia: It looks frumpy and weird. The charge port is in the front, which is super convenient, but looks odd. I installed a 2” receiver for bike racks only and it’s easy to access. The EV is not rated for towing in the US. The rear camera collects grime like mad, but I installed a toothbrush-like device (ordered from Norway) on the rear wiper and now have a clean camera whenever I turn on the rear wiper. Kia’s own roof cross-bars installed easily on the rails.)
Range: The advertised range hardly seems achievable in the real world. Count on 10% less than advertised with 60/40 city/highway driving. We are at 3.6 miles/kWh driving decently but keeping up with traffic. With 81 kWh battery, that translates into 290 miles, not the advertised 327 miles.
(Kia: range meets expectations, getting 3.7 miles/kWh over the last 35k miles. With an actual battery capacity of 68 kWh, this results in 250 miles with +/- 20% in winter-highways vs. summer-city driving. Kia advertises 239 miles.)
Tech: The phone key and card keys work most of the time. Probably once er week, the phone doesn’t unlock or the key is very slow to be picked up. Locking/unlocking with key card can only be done from the driver side. The car doesn’t shut off when locked, instead it drains the battery ~1% day just sitting in the drive way. Tesla recommends to plug in the car when not used. The regen is inconsistent and misses a lot of energy when coasting down the big hill we live on in the morning. Tried to cure the battery not accepting charge by lowering charge limit to 80%, but same issue persists. Energy is just wasted by braking, instead of using the energy to at least heat the battery or the cabin.
(Kia: The Kia key fob needs to be near the doors and then a push of a button on the driver or passenger door handle unlocks one or all doors. This works flawlessly. The car shuts off when the doors are locked and even in winter, coming back 24 hours later, does not lose battery range. I would feel very comfortable leaving the car sitting anywhere when going on a weeklong trip. Regen works consistently and is blended very well with the brakes. Coasting down in the morning always add ~1% to the battery. We charge to 90%.)
