Best LFP Charging Practices when going on vacation?

[Candleflame]

I might add that the vast majority of people live in a..... coldish climate and dont really have to worry about the SOC% too much - the difference are just too small at <20C pack temperature.
the 1 week its 30C in europe is clearly irrelevant. And even in most of the USA it is just not THAT warm to worry about it.
Countries where the debate is worth having are probably South Africa, North/mid Australia, Southern USA, Middle/South America, South east asia.
And thats probably it.

Also interestingly, I always blamed my 16% degradation on living in tropical QLD for 3 years with the car. A buddy there has even more degradation on their car. Then I met someone in Brisbane the other day who also has an early australian car and also has exactly the same degradation. Makes me thing its all battery lottery with all closely together manufactured packs having similar degradation.

 

[blackT3$!@]

I am planning on taking a 3 week vacation soon and will be leaving my M3 RWD in the garage for the duration. What is the best way to take care of the battery?

I was gone for over a week and left it plugged in at 80% SoC. Disabled sentry mode cause it was in my garage. You might want to set a "pin to drive" before you leave for peace of mind. I have a 21 3LR AWD 18" wheels 54k miles with no aero covers and charge it to 90% every night and drive to between 50-60% on work days. At 90% SoC the "mileage guess-o-meter" says I have about 301 miles.

 

[MrMime2]

Why not plug it in and set the max charge top 50%? Insurance.

The battery drain is not bad at all. When I took my car to get warranty work done, the Tesla advisors left my car parked outside in the Florida sun with sentry mode on and overheat protection. For like 2 days while I was driving the loaner, my car dropped like only 3%.

I’m going to be at home where the car will be in my garage and sentry mode is automatically disabled. I’m not worried about my car dropping to 0% while I’m gone

 

[Dave EV]

I might add that the vast majority of people live in a..... coldish climate and dont really have to worry about the SOC% too much - the difference are just too small at <20C pack temperature.
the 1 week its 30C in europe is clearly irrelevant. And even in most of the USA it is just not THAT warm to worry about it.
Countries where the debate is worth having are probably South Africa, North/mid Australia, Southern USA, Middle/South America, South east asia.
And thats probably it.

Also interestingly, I always blamed my 16% degradation on living in tropical QLD for 3 years with the car. A buddy there has even more degradation on their car. Then I met someone in Brisbane the other day who also has an early australian car and also has exactly the same degradation. Makes me thing its all battery lottery with all closely together manufactured packs having similar degradation.

For most vehicles even with NCA batteries, capacity loss due to cycling is going to be minor compared to capacity loss due to calendar aging. For LFP - calendar life due to cycling is going to be negligible.

The two most important factors that drive calendar aging are temperature and SOC.

Temperature - not a whole lot you can do, the pack temperature is going to trend towards average ambient. Now the battery will trend a lot warmer if you drive it a lot as Tesla lets the battery warm up quite a bit before doing any active cooling, so if you do drive a lot, your average temperature is going to be higher. Supercharging will drive temperatures a lot higher as well.

SOC - For LFP minimize SOC time spent above 70% - for NCA minimize SOC time spent above 55%. For both - lower average SOC is better. So if you can, time your charges so that it finishes shorty before you drive.

If all of this sounds like too much trouble - stop worrying about it and just charge and drive as you wish - but you will lose capacity faster that if you did not.

 

[Candleflame]

The battery drain is not bad at all. When I took my car to get warranty work done, the Tesla advisors left my car parked outside in the Florida sun with sentry mode on and overheat protection. For like 2 days while I was driving the loaner, my car dropped like only 3%.

I’m going to be at home where the car will be in my garage and sentry mode is automatically disabled. I’m not worried about my car dropping to 0% while I’m gone

then the car did not use overheat protection ( think it only works for 24h anyway)