if Supercharging was free...How much would you use it? Battery health concern

[mreynolds767]

How much would you use it.
My concern is battery health.

I drive a lot (33K miles per year) Have home wall connector installed giving me 48 AMPs of juice at home so don't need to supercharge unless for a road trip.
But I also pay a high rate for electricity at home $.23 delivered and my provider offers nothing in terms of benefits, no off peak hours, no EV rebates, etc...

I have free supercharging for 2 years and a supercharger which is rarely used (never seen it full) is only a 8 minute easy drive from my house. Especially with YouTube / Netflix it really is not much of a bother to head over there and charge up.

I decided to make it a Sunday thing and not charge at home Friday night or Saturday and then fill it up to 80% Sunday,, I drive by it anyway going to the grocery store. Charging at home another 3-4 times per week to 80 or 85%.

Is this a bad plan for my long term battery health?
Would I be fine adding another day mid-week at the charger (supercharge twice every week) to save money? If I did that I would probably be charging equally at SC and at home 48 AMP.

 

[T-Mom]

i dont know if it is bad or not. i only know i have free supercharging and is one of reasons i got the car. in tahoe, electricity is expensive at home but not reason i got free supercharging. i travel a lot from tahoe to san francisco and los angeles. 80% of my charging is supercharging because being on the road and i haven't noticed any difference in almost a year of constant driving lots of miles.

 

[mreynolds767]

i dont know if it is bad or not. i only know i have free supercharging and is one of reasons i got the car. in tahoe, electricity is expensive at home but not reason i got free supercharging. i travel a lot from tahoe to san francisco and los angeles. 80% of my charging is supercharging because being on the road and i haven't noticed any difference in almost a year of constant driving lots of miles.

Thank you, I take it you are then super charging a couple of times per week on average?

 

[TomT]

At 80%, it shouldn't be an issue...

 

[gecko10x]

I think supercharging to 80% would be fine even twice a week.

 

[ngogas]

Take advantage of your free energy.

 

[ewoodrick]

Supercharging all the time isn't the best for the battery.
Supercharging all the time is a miserable EV experience.
Free Supercharging wouldn't change my habits of charging at home. My time is worth a lot more than that.

 

[vickh]

Supercharging all the time isn't the best for the battery.
Supercharging all the time is a miserable EV experience.
Free Supercharging wouldn't change my habits of charging at home.

Not if you're multitasking while SC (shopping etc).

RE: Battery health can you link proof? I've seen both sides say no problems vs bad for battery.

 

[TrooperCA]

Supercharging all the time isn't a real issue....I think the battery management system on the 3 is more advance than the S.

Tesloop has Model S that are in the high millage realm, and they only supercharge.

So all in all, do whatever is economical or convenient for you. If you really care about battery health, then charge up to 80%.

 

[SJC3]

everyday

 

[Nocturnal]

My habits wouldn't change at all. It's not worth taking time out of my day to save the $5 that my recharge would cost at home. Anyone who goes out of their way to use free charging (there can't be that many) are being penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[Jedi2155]

I tried it for about the first 10,000 miles but my results are inconclusive. I would say that battery might be out of balance though a bit more because of it which implies some additional degradation. So the general answer even Tesla says, is YES it impacts battery life.

But no one knows exactly "how much" because and I'm not even sure how much Tesla knows that answer.

 

[Occar]

I would still charge at home. My time is worth more to me than any cost savings from the inconvenience. I would take it for what it was, a nice perk for when I travel and actually need to use the chargers- nothing more.

 

[Lakeshow24]

It's a nice perk to have but I would rather just charge it at home overnight. But if I did have it I would probably use it once a week like on a weekend.

 

[jdcollins5]

I had 6 months of free supercharging with a referral. I only used it for travel. It did not change my charging habit at all. I much prefer to charge overnight at home. It typically costs me $2 to charge at home.

 

[Phlier]

How much would you use it.
My concern is battery health.

I drive a lot (33K miles per year) Have home wall connector installed giving me 48 AMPs of juice at home so don't need to supercharge unless for a road trip.
But I also pay a high rate for electricity at home $.23 delivered and my provider offers nothing in terms of benefits, no off peak hours, no EV rebates, etc...

I have free supercharging for 2 years and a supercharger which is rarely used (never seen it full) is only a 8 minute easy drive from my house. Especially with YouTube / Netflix it really is not much of a bother to head over there and charge up.

I decided to make it a Sunday thing and not charge at home Friday night or Saturday and then fill it up to 80% Sunday,, I drive by it anyway going to the grocery store. Charging at home another 3-4 times per week to 80 or 85%.

Is this a bad plan for my long term battery health?
Would I be fine adding another day mid-week at the charger (supercharge twice every week) to save money? If I did that I would probably be charging equally at SC and at home 48 AMP.

Even though supercharging all the time isn't the best for battery health, if I was in your situation, I'd use the heck out of the free supercharing; your high home electricity rate, IMO, offsets any potential detrimental effects on your battery.

Just keep a close eye on your battery health, and if you start to see inappropriate battery deterioration, you might want to reconsider your charging options.

With home electricity rates that high, you might want to consider Tesla's solar options. It seems to me that it would be a great solution for your whole home, not just charging the car.

 

[vickh]

Even though supercharging all the time isn't the best for battery health, if I was in your situation, I'd use the heck out of the free supercharing; your high home electricity rate, IMO, offsets any potential detrimental effects on your battery.

Just keep a close eye on your battery health, and if you start to see inappropriate battery deterioration, you might want to reconsider your charging options.

With home electricity rates that high, you might want to consider Tesla's solar options. It seems to me that it would be a great solution for your whole home, not just charging the car.

esp now that you can rent Tesla's solar options for $50/mo.

 

[fajitamondays]

esp now that you can rent Tesla's solar options for $50/mo.

If you live in one of six states.

 

[Piwacet]

I don't believe I've ever seen any conclusive answer either.

An additional consideration might be whether the supercharger is an "urban" supercharger, which restricts charge rate I think to 72kw.

Some Tesla's (I believe some versions of model S/X) have had their DC fast charging rate restricted to a lower rate after an "excessive" number of supercharging sessions. Apologize that I can't remember the details but others can surely chime in. Per Tesla this was to prevent battery degradation that could occur if the cars continued to charge at the rates they initially were capable of. From what I've read, this deliberately restricted rate was still in the 80-90 kw range. What is interesting to me is that the urban chargers are below this rate. If we speculate that the 80-90kw charge rate is a "safe rate," than it raises the question of whether the urban superchargers are inherently safer for the battery.

Of course this is all my speculation, and the model 3 has a different battery than the model S/X, so I don't really know.

There is a lot of discussion and analysis around these forums and the web by very smart people, many of whom are themselves scientists, who discuss the underlying chemistry/physics of DC fast charging and how it can be harmful to the battery. However, I've personally not seen much analysis specific to the model 3 battery.

 

[Tron 3]

I've never owned a $10,000 battery before, so I made it my business to educate myself on the subject.
A research paper said what's bad for battery life is charging to full and leaving it in that SOC, charging full and discharging full, and to a lesser degree dumping a lot of energy quickly into the battery - like supercharging.

The paper didn't specify the particular LiOn chemistry, but in their tests it said 20% to 80% a good cycling range.
It did make example of two extremes, full discharge to full charge gave 6,000 cycles, but discharging 15 -20% then topping back to 80% gave 16,000 cycles. One cycle is the entire battery capacity, so it would take 5 - 20% uses too equal one cycle.

IMHO supercharging isn't worth the impact on battery life, but then I can take advantage of off-peak rates at home.
I think Tesla should assign a dollar/value amount to free supercharging instead of a time limit. Not everyone takes a lot of road trips, and I feel a time limit devalues the perk.