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New battery

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Question for a technical person :)
I know Tesla recommends to keep the battery between 50 and 80% for daily use.
But for a new battery, I remember reading somewhere that a few deep discharge to full charges cycles are required to "break-in" a battery and allow us to use more of its full capacity?
How true is that fact? Anybody knows more about this?
 
No, Tesla does not recommend keeping the battery between 50-80% for daily use. The CHARGE LEVEL can be set between 50-90% for daily use. It's expected that you will go below 50%, just try not to go below 10% very often.

There is no "breaking in" required, recommended, or anything else.

Just plug it in when you can and let the battery management system manage the battery. Enjoy your car.
 
Many years ago, when charging was dreadful, you needed to do such things with NiCd packs. With anything modern it's much harder on the battery to run it down. Just use it, and run it down when you need that capacity. The best long-term life will be had when you can keep the charge level closest to 70%, making 80% a popular daily charge level.
 
Don't try to break your battery in.

In a perfect world, you would only charge to whatever you needed until the next time you plugged in. If you dig through the old Roadster and S threads you'll find a ton of good info. Some that come to mind are tests done by the US Army, info about range and aerodynamics. Good reads.

I'm guilty of over-charging. I consistently charge to 90% and rarely need it. If you are just getting started, welcome to the community and try to build good habits around your charging level. Your battery will be better off with you charging to 50% or 60% rather than 90%. Definitely don't want to go over 90%.
 
But for a new battery, I remember reading somewhere that a few deep discharge to full charges cycles are required to "break-in" a battery and allow us to use more of its full capacity?
How true is that fact? Anybody knows more about this?
I have never heard of that "fact" and I try to follow this stuff pretty closely. There is no such thing as a "break in" for a new Tesla battery.

Set your daily charge level to be in the 50 to 80% range approximately. Charge to maximum only when you really need to so to make it to your destination. Try to avoid discharging the battery to a very low state, like less than 5% or so.

Enjoy your car!
 
This is all good advice. I have had a different experience though in my 2013 S85. For a year and a half I charged to 60% daily (I have a very short commute), and during that time my 90% charge dropped 3 miles to 223. After reading Brianman's experience of keeping his first (also early) car to the original Tesla recommendation of 90% for several years, he had a much better 90%. So, for the last 18mo I've been back at 90% daily. And my 90% is now 227.

This does not, or course, address your question about new batteries. YMMV.
 
Sound advise DarkMatter. Thanks!
Since I drive so little daily, I will apply the 50-80% rule and plug it in when i am getting closer to 50% since it may take me a week to drop from 80 to 50%.

Tesla recommends that you leave your car plugged in whenever you are not using it. Don’t leave it unplugged just to get down to 50% or some other arbitrary number. I feel like you might be overthinking this a bit. The car does very well with battery management, so there really isn’t a lot that you need to do.

It’s not great for the battery to be charged above 90% frequently or to drop under 10% frequently, but other than that, just keep it plugged in when you’re not driving it and forget about it.

And in rare cases when you have a long distance to travel and need to go over 90% and/or under 10% then do it and don’t worry about it. As long as it’s not something that’s done regularly it will really have a negligible effect on battery life.
 
This is all good advice. I have had a different experience though in my 2013 S85. For a year and a half I charged to 60% daily (I have a very short commute), and during that time my 90% charge dropped 3 miles to 223. After reading Brianman's experience of keeping his first (also early) car to the original Tesla recommendation of 90% for several years, he had a much better 90%. So, for the last 18mo I've been back at 90% daily. And my 90% is now 227.
You didn't lose range. You just lost accuracy of your estimated range.
 
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Tesla recommends that you leave your car plugged in whenever you are not using it. Don’t leave it unplugged just to get down to 50% or some other arbitrary number.

It's the leaving it plugged in daily that I don't get. If it is to go from 80 to 75%, then plug at night, and 80 to 75 again the next day, it's just a pain.
Why not simply plugin to 80%, and then slowly use it down to 50% if it takes you a week to get there?
I am still staying in the 50-80 range. Shouldn't that be fine?

I know we are not doing something terribly bad either way, but I am just curious.
 
It's the leaving it plugged in daily that I don't get. If it is to go from 80 to 75%, then plug at night, and 80 to 75 again the next day, it's just a pain.
Why not simply plugin to 80%, and then slowly use it down to 50% if it takes you a week to get there?
I am still staying in the 50-80 range. Shouldn't that be fine?

I know we are not doing something terribly bad either way, but I am just curious.

There are many views on this, but the consensus does seem to be that "Always Be Charging" is a good motto. But I will admit to not following it too religiously. Being retired, i do not drive all that much. So sometimes I do not plug it in at night, if my SOC is above 60%. there seems little point. Besides that, sometimes I came home thinking I will be going out again later, but end up not going anywhere. And unless I need extra range for the next day, sometimes I just leave it unplugged and don't worry. I am more careful in the winter, however, because that facilitates warming the car and the battery.
 
For some reason my delivery guy said to put it at 88%. Don’t know where he got that number
Any higher than 88% and you risk travelling through time.
back-to-the-future.jpg
 
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