Charging > 90% and immediately continuing trip. Harm done?

[brjr]

I am doing a cross country from Ohio to Washington. I am using the app ABRP and for some legs it has me leaving with a 90% charge and specifies a speed limit to maximize efficiency to make the distance. On one leg it tells me to keep my speed max at 68mph.
Question, on such a leg, if i charge to 95% and immediately take off on the road, will that avoid harm to the battery? How long could i delay departure at 95% charge before harming tha battery?

 

[Apprunner]

I am doing a cross country from Ohio to Washington. I am using the app ABRP and for some legs it has me leaving with a 90% charge and specifies a speed limit to maximize efficiency to make the distance. On one leg it tells me to keep my speed max at 68mph.
Question, on such a leg, if i charge to 95% and immediately take off on the road, will that avoid harm to the battery? How long could i delay departure at 95% charge before harming tha battery?

Once you get to that level of charge, you’ve already stressed the battery. I don’t think a couple hours at 95% will do much damage. If you leave it for all day and night, I’m sure it not great for it.

 

[brjr]

Thanks for response. What to you mean by 'already stressed the battery'? I plan on taking off with 95% within minutes of charge.

 

[Apprunner]

Thanks for response. What to you mean by 'already stressed the battery'? I plan on taking off with 95% within minutes of charge.

It’s more strenuous for the battery to take in more charge past 90%. A couple times for a trip isn’t going to do much but definitely not good for it. If you are leaving within minutes of 95%, it’s not a big deal.

 

[Watts_Up]

Once you get to that level of charge, you’ve already stressed the battery.
I don’t think a couple hours at 95% will do much damage.
If you leave it for all day and night, I’m sure it not great for it.

Thanks for response. What to you mean by 'already stressed the battery'?
I plan on taking off with 95% within minutes of charge.

I think the interpretation of 'stress the battery' would be 'fill up the battery'.
It is true that it will take a lot of extra time trying to charge above 90% or 95%, which might not be worth your time when travelling.

A recommendation when you need to charge above 90% is to charge at home or a using a slow destination charger.
And to try to complete the charge just before starting your trip to avoid keeping your battery with full charge.
Also you will not get regenerative brake so avoid doing so if there will be some city driving or doing down the hill

Which particular stretch will you need to charge at 90% and limit your speed?
- This might be of interest for other users.
- Also, is there any plan for a future Supercharger, or recommendation for adding one.

There was a recent discussion regarding a stretch between Little Rock, AR and Tulsa, OK.
- One recommendation was trying finding an L2 charger halfway to get an extra security boost.
- A good news is that a new Supercharger - Ozark, AR is under construction.

Why I'll Use the ICE Car For Vacation

Why is there no supercharger between Oklahoma City, OK and Little Rock, AR?

Little Rock, AR to Fayetteville, AR - Realistic range expectation?


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[jerry33]

The harm comes from leaving it at a very high charge level, not from driving it off shortly after you finish charging. The only real issue is that it takes a long time to get from 80% to 95% or 100%. On a trip, sometimes you need to do that. It's not a big deal. There is zero need to be paranoid.

 

[Sukhshanti]

I charge to 95% on a daily basis, I used to set it to 80%, but I wanted to enjoy the full performance of my car. I gained 2-3 miles of range since changing my setting, so I don't know how much faith I put into these specified charge levels. I just avoid 100% as much as I can because Elon told me so.

 

[SageBrush]

I am doing a cross country from Ohio to Washington. I am using the app ABRP and for some legs it has me leaving with a 90% charge and specifies a speed limit to maximize efficiency to make the distance. On one leg it tells me to keep my speed max at 68mph.
Question, on such a leg, if i charge to 95% and immediately take off on the road, will that avoid harm to the battery? How long could i delay departure at 95% charge before harming tha battery?

No worries.

Just keep in mind that ABRP has no idea about headwinds or wet roads so don't put too much faith in the estimate. If the car tells you to slow down, do it.

 

[dhrivnak]

I am doing a cross country from Ohio to Washington. I am using the app ABRP and for some legs it has me leaving with a 90% charge and specifies a speed limit to maximize efficiency to make the distance. On one leg it tells me to keep my speed max at 68mph.
Question, on such a leg, if i charge to 95% and immediately take off on the road, will that avoid harm to the battery? How long could i delay departure at 95% charge before harming tha battery?

No. In fact occasional full charges are good for balancing and pack calibration. We do it about 6 times a year and after 47,000 miles and 32 months our pack is better than most Actually now up 2 miles from when he got the car. We also routinely charge to 90%.

 

[jerry33]

No worries.

Just keep in mind that ABRP has no idea about headwinds or wet roads

Correct. However, I've found that because it's dynamic, if you are in a high wind or rain situation, because the energy use has been high it will start to alert (don't drive faster than X to reach your destination) if the Nav thinks you are running low. So while it doesn't forecast rain or wind, it does act on the rain or wind already experienced. If you know there will be high winds and rain, then start the trip a bit slower and you can speed up if it appears you will have a lot left. (I judge by the percent remaining shown at the bottom of the turn by turn popup.)

 

[outdoors]

Correct. However, I've found that because it's dynamic, if you are in a high wind or rain situation, because the energy use has been high it will start to alert (don't drive faster than X to reach your destination) if the Nav thinks you are running low. So while it doesn't forecast rain or wind, it does act on the rain or wind already experienced. )

That is one of the reasons I enjoy using ABRP. The dynamic ability to see the rate consuming. Yet many don't know you have to login the car to get the car data to ABRP. Some just put the car information in and don't understand what the are really using at 65mph. So putting bad data in gets bad data out.

I will go to 95 or 98% from home if it helps me hop a supercharger that is routinely full. Other than that I rarely charge above that.

 

[UncleCreepy]

Not likely any harm done. I went on a 6000 mile road trip this summer and whenever I stayed at a hotel and had a long trip ahead of me I charged to 90% overnight and then continued to almost 100% when I got up in the morning. I always took off shortly before the battery was fully charged, usually at 98%.

I also depleted the battery down to about 4-6 % before supercharging.

Range before the trip: 404 km @ 80%
Range after the trip: 404 km @ 80%

Like others said before: don't let the battery sit at 100%. As long as you leave right after, you should be okay.

 

[SageBrush]

if the Nav thinks you are running low. So while it doesn't forecast rain or wind, it does act on the rain or wind already experienced. If you know there will be high winds and rain, then start the trip a bit slower and you can speed up if it appears you will have a lot left. (I judge by the percent remaining shown at the bottom of the turn by turn popup.)

I use the trip:energy screen in much the same way.

 

[Knightshade]

Charging to 95 (or even 100) then immediately driving for a specific trip is fine.

Main reason NOT to do that at a supercharger is charging the last 10% takes a LOT longer.

usually you are better off stopping twice for an 80% charge than once for a 100% charge, you'll spend half the time actually charging with the 2 stops than the 1.... So unless you're taking an route that has 200+ miles between chargers there's usually no reason to charge past 80ish

(exception would be for a stop where you plan to do a sitdown restaurant- might as well charge more since you're spending the time there either way)

 

[SageBrush]

So unless you're taking an route that has 200+ miles between chargers there's usually no reason to charge past 80ish

Or
Going up uphill
Going against wind
Using a lot of cabin heating
Driving in snow

 

[MentalNomad]

Question, on such a leg, if i charge to 95% and immediately take off on the road, will that avoid harm to the battery?

Taking off immediately will cause no harm.

How long could i delay departure at 95% charge before harming tha battery?

If the car is unplugged, you can delay as long as you like with no additional harm.

There is no new harm really caused by the battery sitting at a high state of charge. The harm, which is minimal, is caused by the process of raising the charge.

So once you charge it to 95, any harm is done. Whether you leave immediately or 6 hours later makes no meaningful difference.

However, if you leave it plugged in after it's at 95%, and it's in the sun, and the air conditioner keeps kicking on because you have cabin overheat protection turned on, then it will keep using some charge and then turning on the charger to top it back up to 95. This additional charging may cause (miniscule) additional harm.

 

[ucmndd]

You should never hesitate to charge to 95 or 100% if you need the range. All the tiptoeing hocus pocus battery damage fear that this forum leads people to develop is absurd.

 

[lUtriaNt]

Mr. Musk has tweeted that charging to 90 or more is fine, but here is what he says about charging to 100 when someone asks:

It’s not a big deal. Charge to 90% to 95% & you’ll be fine. At 100% state of charge, regen braking doesn’t work, because the battery is full, so car is less energy efficient.

you can take from this that if you want to get the most efficient use of the battey and regen, just charge up to 95, since greater than 95 the regen is deactivated, causing you to have to use brakes and thus not getting that free regen juice back into the packs.

didn't mean that chargin' to 100 is gonna hurt the battery - just that you cant use regen so you have tro use friction brakes.

also agree about just charging the car to 100 if you need it.