Poll: Do You Plug In Every Day (for daily driving, home charging)?

[E90alex]

By charging to 80% only when the battery gets down to 30%, the average battery SOC is ~55%. Leaving the car plugged in and charging to 80% all the time would increase the average SOC which would decrease battery life.

I never said leave it plugged in and charge to 80%. You can set the charge limit lower and charge daily.

A larger depth of discharge also increases degradation.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

For daily driving, I wouldn't bother, but my commute is 80 miles round trip so I generally keep it plugged in overnight, just do it as a matter of course when I get home

I also do this so that when people tell me they can fill their icemobile up in as little as five minutes, I can tell them it only takes me five seconds

 

[Midpack]

By charging to 80% only when the battery gets down to 30%, the average battery SOC is ~55%. Leaving the car plugged in and charging to 80% all the time would increase the average SOC which would decrease battery life.

While true, every report I have read seems to suggest as long as you stay between 30% and 80%, battery life won't degrade much more than keeping it as close to 50% as possible at all times. If you have specifics please share.

Using superchargers a lot, and/or running close to 100% or 0% will degrade the battery much faster?

 

[turnbowm]

While true, every report I have read seems to suggest as long as you stay between 30% and 80%, battery life won't degrade much more than keeping it as close to 50% as possible at all times. If you have specifics please share.

Using superchargers a lot, and/or running close to 100% or 0% will degrade the battery much faster?

True statement.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I'm in the "Other" category, but only because if it's the weekend, or if I'll be heading out soon then I don't bother, but really I should be in the "Yes" category

 

[cthoreen]

I charge to 75% every other day unless traveling. I drive approximately 50 miles +/- each day. I'm retired with pretty much the same driving habits so that works out the best for me. I had a 2020 Chevy Bolt until last week. Put 65k miles on it and had negligible degradation so will continue with the same routine I guess?

 

[spokey]

No, it doesnt really make a difference.... but there is no benefit (none) to "running it down to charge it back up", either. Since that is the case, and because I have (2) EVs that both get parked in my garage, as well as (2) wall connectors, one for each EV, Its much easier for my wife and I to simply "plug the car in every time its in the garage".

I happen to fall in the camp that thinks Teslas recommendation is because of what @ATPMSD said in the post above mine. I know its not necessary to plug in every day, but I also know there isnt any reason NOT to, if its convenient, and for me, its more convenient to plug in than to not plug in.

For my wifes model Y, she doesnt even really pay attention to the range meter. She just plugs in every time the car is in the garage, and knows that it will charge to whatever level I set for it, whenever I set it for, so she doesnt need to think about it other than "plug it in".

This article - Depth of Discharge: Basics for Every EV Owner discusses you shouldn't wait to charge

 

[ucmndd]

Relatively surprised to see how many people can’t break themselves of the ICE mindset.

 

[dafish]

A larger depth of discharge also increases degradation.

E, you’ve made that statement twice just in this thread. I also see you own an LR, so we’re talking about “standard” nmc anode lion cells.. i know of no data that supports this, nor anybody well versed that says it.

calendar aging is of course accelerated by very high rates charge/discharge. Same with higher SoC over time. But lower?

Of course I try to keep an open mind. Are you interested in sharing why you feel this way?

 

[Midpack]

This article - Depth of Discharge: Basics for Every EV Owner discusses you shouldn't wait to charge

So my 40% to 80% to 40% scheme isn’t too bad, for someone for whom it’s not convenient to plug in every day.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

By "waiting to charge" the author meant stacking up days of small use before recharging.

 

[Midnightsun]

E, you’ve made that statement twice just in this thread. I also see you own an LR, so we’re talking about “standard” nmc anode lion cells.. i know of no data that supports this, nor anybody well versed that says it.

calendar aging is of course accelerated by very high rates charge/discharge. Same with higher SoC over time. But lower?

Of course I try to keep an open mind. Are you interested in sharing why you feel this way?

Start video @ 4:34 for the answer. Should actually take in the whole thing as it is rather informative from beginning to end.

 

[Sage Brush]

If the car is at home it’s plugged in 100% if the time.

I try to keep the battery pack at a SOC of 50% as much as possible. For the daily commute I leave the house with enough SOC to reach work as close to 50% as possible so it can sit there all day. Upon returning home it’s plugged in and brought back up to 50% right away and then sits over night with scheduled departure set up to take it to between 58%-60% right before I leave for my commute.

I haven’t seen anything official stating that living at a 50% SOC is the best way to maintain a healthy battery pack but it doesn’t cost me anything to do it.

To me, being plugged in all the time is great. If I need to bump the charge limit for a trip I can just simply pull up the app. If I need to precondition the battery on a cold morning I do so with no sacrifice to my SOC.

 

[E90alex]

E, you’ve made that statement twice just in this thread. I also see you own an LR, so we’re talking about “standard” nmc anode lion cells.. i know of no data that supports this, nor anybody well versed that says it.

calendar aging is of course accelerated by very high rates charge/discharge. Same with higher SoC over time. But lower?

Of course I try to keep an open mind. Are you interested in sharing why you feel this way?

I didn't say lower SOC accelerates degradation. Depth of discharge is the difference between your charge limit and when you plug it in again.

80-60% is 20% depth of discharge
50-30% is also 20% depth of discharge
80-30% is 50% depth of discharge
55-5% is also 50% depth of discharge

Basically, charging daily or as often as you can will reduce your depth of discharge. It’s more detrimental to “run it down” first and then “fill it up” like the mentality people have with an ICE vehicle.

Engineering Explained goes over why in a recent YouTube video he did about degradation.

(Not that of course this is just for daily driving use. It would be a huge waste of time and far too impractical to try and maintain a shallow depth of discharge on a road trip or something)

 

[dafish]

Thanks for more details. I’m not familiar with that conclusion. It appears you’re telling me if I charge to 55% (as I do for winter), and discharge to 15% it has more degradation than if I discharge to 30%, recharge, and repeat. Counter-intuitive to me (higher average SoC), but that’s why I asked. I’ll look further.

This is curiosity more than anything else. I ABC and won’t change. In fact I use 50% non-winter months. I can say having a 60a circuit at home offers me good recovery speed, and without it it would be harder to be comfortable with lowish target SoC levels.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Note: I have a Kona EV, not a Tesla, so I'm not in the poll.

Typical weeks are 3 times in winter, 2 times not in winter, but there are longer trip days where I plug in before and after. I think that makes it about 3 per week on average.

In essence, we just can't be arsed to plug in every day because we know we don't need to. It takes about 20 seconds total of our time each charge because (1) the charge port is on the front driver's side of the car and we don't otherwise go to the front (2) it's a manual charge port.

We drive a bit over 200 miles per week, so 3/week x 20s = 1min/week and a bit over 200 miles per minute charging.
If we plugged in every day, that'd be 2 minutes/week and a bit over 100 miles per minute, which _might_ be about as slow as refueling my Prius was.**

Our Volt (PHEV) normally gets plugged in after every day of driving and charging it is faster because (1) it uses the convenient "Detroit" charge port position of driver's side front fender (2) it's a 2013 with a button inside to open the charge port door*, so plugging in is a very easy one-handed operation.

Corollary: charge port position matters

* the last model year with that
** I never timed it, plus I used to log my tanks which added time at each stop. Maybe I can time refueling my Volt some time this fall or winter when I next have to put gas in it.

 

[gtae07]

40% gets me about 2 hours away from my house. Where could you possibly need to go suddenly more than 2 hours away that you wouldn’t have time to stop and charge?

It depends where you live and where you would need to go. I think a lot of folks here forget that not everyone lives near superchargers and there are many places (generally with lower population density and away from interstates) that one might need to travel between. I can think of places here in south Georgia where one could live and be able to charge at home, but not be able to reach a fast charger on 40% battery (especially on a standard-range car), unless perhaps you had a CCS adapter and the lone third-party charger wasn't TU .

I have two scenarios in mind for a "gotta go right now"...

First, my parents and in-laws are getting older and since my attempt to secure a job locally were unsuccessful, we're still four hours or so away. They are near/at the age where we could get a phone call and need to drop everything and head up there RFN for something. I always charge at home, but I also live walking distance from a supercharger so in a real pinch I could swing through on the way out. But someone else in this situation, living without a nearby supercharger and not having one on the way, may need more "in the tank" in order to be able to leave on short notice.

The other situation I can think of is a hurricane evacuation. For sure, you probably have some level of heads-up that it's coming (though storms can spin up surprisingly quickly), and if you can charge at home you can top off overnight, but anyone who can't charge at home might have to keep a lot of electrons stored up just in case. "Just" visit a fast charger on the way out sounds great, until literally everyone else with an EV will be trying to do the same thing. With ICE the common rule of thumb was to never go below half a tank during hurricane season, and I generally followed that year round. It might behoove EV owners to keep an eye on the weather. As it is, I have concerns about big wait lines at chargers during an evacuation, which is part of why I bought a CCS adapter and have tried to plot out ways to get as far as possible (back roads etc) without charging. If I keep the speed down to 65 ABRP says I can maybe just barely make it to my parents (our evacuation location) without a stop...

 

[Midpack]

^^^ good information, but this thread and poll is specifically about habits for daily driving for owners who charge to home primarily as the title noted. Many if not all us change our habits when superchargers are more likely.

 

[BillRadio]

I too was in the "charge up to X% after reaching Y%" camp for a while but then I couldn't remember why. Now I plug in every night mostly so I don't need to keep the math working in the back of my head. Also all of the "what if" scenarios have disappeared since my nightly full charge covers 99% of all my "what if's".

I am confident that more charges for shorter periods is either better, or at least no worse than, the opposite. But the real benefit lies in the simplification of the process and more time think about where to drive next.

 

[gsl120]

Just make sure when you travel to have (add super chargers to you route) in the NAV setup. That way, it will condition the battery while
in route to the super charger. The system will charge faster. I always change to 100% before heading home. That way I can use my
off grid solar system to top off to 100% when I leave for traveling. I always had my Bolt to 100% and never had degradation issues.

Tesla might be different, so I leave it 80% when it's parked. YMMV! I took delivery on April 3rd. My production date it 3/24.
Mine was built in Auston TX. What is yours ? The info is on the B pillar when you open the drivers door, above the rocker panel.

Hello, sorry for the late replry.
Mine was built in Freemont. Makes sense, given that I live in California. If that's the built date, mine was built 3/24 as well.

totally unrelated topic, the load cannot exceed 375 KG or 826 pounds. I weigh about 220 pounds, so I really gotta be careful whom I'm riding with hahha.