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Is it better to charge few miles everyday or all in one shot?
- Thread starter gujudog
- Start date
I would encourage you to RTFM, which has the answer to this and many other questions new Tesla owners have. Especially read the battery section. The short answer is plug in when you can, don’t wait until the charge gets low.
Tesla used to pass out a card that said “A connected Model S is a happy Model S”. The same is true for a Model 3.
A connected Model S is a happy Model S
Tesla used to pass out a card that said “A connected Model S is a happy Model S”. The same is true for a Model 3.
A connected Model S is a happy Model S
Read the friendly manual. (Is one interpretation)
TT97
Active Member
From the manual:
"There is no advantage to waiting until the
Battery’s level is low before charging. In fact,
the Battery performs best when charged
regularly."
"There is no advantage to waiting until the
Battery’s level is low before charging. In fact,
the Battery performs best when charged
regularly."
Birdman325
Member
TT97
Active Member
Wait, was does LMGTFY mean? Can someone Google it for me?
Charging is like voting. Do it early and often.
Edit for more useful info:
On a serious note, if you're only driving a few miles a day (which I'm guessing is the case if you can go multiple days without charging), your battery will last longest if you keep it close to 50%.
If you need 10%/day, you can:
Generally, I charge my S to 60-70% overnight. I go higher if I have a trip the next day, but I have a local supercharger if an unexpected need arises.
Edit for more useful info:
On a serious note, if you're only driving a few miles a day (which I'm guessing is the case if you can go multiple days without charging), your battery will last longest if you keep it close to 50%.
If you need 10%/day, you can:
- Charge weekly to 90%, drive down to 20%, then repeat.
- Charge daily to 90%, drive down to 80%, then repeat.
- Charge daily to 55%, drive down to 45%, then repeat.
Generally, I charge my S to 60-70% overnight. I go higher if I have a trip the next day, but I have a local supercharger if an unexpected need arises.
Last edited:
Unnecessarily complicated for mainstream owners. There may be statistically significant difference in battery experiments with different charge levels, but no one has shown any meaningful difference in range with the Model S after many years regardless of usual charge level within the daily range.
Owners shouldn’t have to think about the battery or what charge they will need the next day. Just set it to 90% and leave it there unless you’re going out of town.
True. I didn't mention that I'm unnecessarily anal about this stuff...
OTOH, I wonder how many people on an enthusiast car forum count as "mainstream."
Thunder7ga
Member
I use 50% of my battery every work day.....so I charge to 80% overnight and by the time I get home she's at ~30% and I repeat.
What do you mean by “better”? Is it that in 10 years you might see a difference of a mile or two in range? Because regardless of what you read about battery experiments, in the real world of Tesla driving there hasn’t been any meaningful difference in battery degradation seen after five years of people typically charging to 80% or 90%.
My Model S only lost 5% of range after 5 years of daily charging to 90% and charging to 100% many times for trips. You’re not going to do better than that.
The early Model S firmware only had two settings, 92% for daily and 100% for trip. The slider giving the ability to lower the daily setting exists because of stupid EPA policy of averaging a daily and trip range together— so if there aren’t two settings, there’s nothing to average and Tesla got to advertise the 100% range.
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