Should I still be Charging to 80%?

[lUtriaNt]

Mr. Musk has tweeted a lot of things, he even stated to a twitter user last year its ok to charge to 90-95% mostly for regen benefits...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1118225459416682496

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.

i charge to 95% so i can get the max amount of battery power performance (model 3 perf with pup/20s) whilst still being able to regen (i like to keep my foot in the tank-- i bought the car for the performance, and drive as such. did not buy it to save money or help with burning less coal). regen kicks in at 94%. my daily life didnt change from this lockdown situation and I only have level 1 charge (20A), so should i have an impromptu trip pop up, or something happens to prevent me from charging for whatever reason, i have some battery "wiggle room". some of us dont have a nice house with 60A/rapid charging or whatever the high number is, so you do what you gotta do.

we all have different daily situations that require different charge scenarios--in my humble opinion, and with all due respect to the esteemed battery experts contributing in this thread, these threads do more harm than good for new tesla users and cause confusion /paralysis on how to charge, and it also doesn't help that tesla and Mr. Musk (with all due respect) can sometimes say different things , depending on the narrative.

 

[TyH2009]

I keep my display on percentage, but I just so happened to switch it over to miles this morning, at 80% I'm showing 224 miles, whereas I'm pretty sure when it was new I was doing 255 miles at 80%. If you extrapolate that to 100%, I'd only be at 280 miles of range.

So maybe my 50%-80% charging every 3 days is throwing off the car's range? Normally I don't really care, which is why I put it on % and just drive, but that's 30 or so less miles than before at 80%...

I don't plan on keeping the car forever, but this has me a little thrown off.

 

[CyberGus]

This is starting to sound like an oil-change thread. Sure, an engine will last longer if you change the oil every 1000 miles, but why? The BMS will protect the power pack, so even worst-case behavior will have only a marginal effect on battery health. Smarter charging is better, sure, but don't let your caution stop you from enjoying the car.

Besides, the the control arms will snap and the roof will fly off long before you wear out the battery ;-)

 

[Rocky_H]

WOW! That is a first for me. My comment got 1 of every single type of reaction. Well done, forum residents!

Mr. Musk has tweeted a lot of things, he even stated to a twitter user last year its ok to charge to 90-95% mostly for regen benefits...

Did you not read the context there? Here is the question he was replying to:

"I just bought a standard range plus model 3, and I have been hearing that you should definitely NOT charge your Tesla to 100% every night. Unfortunately, my commute is 80 miles each way, which leaves me little wiggle room for sentry mode/fun driving/errands. Thoughts?"

So the person asking this question has really big driving needs and is trying to have as much range as possible and is wanting to charge to 100% every single day. So do you see what Musk's response to that is?

"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."

He is telling the person to use a LOWER state of charge. You seem to have glossed over that and thinking that he was telling people to use a higher state of charge than we have been talking about here. That's not the case at all. He's talking with someone who wants to max it out all the time, but Musk is trying to talk him down from that some to prevent damaging his battery. You have to realize where people are coming from. A lot of people want the most of everything: the fastest, the most powerful, the most range, etc. etc. etc. But that is bad for the batteries, so there is some point in letting people know that.

The BMS will protect the power pack, so even worst-case behavior will have only a marginal effect on battery health.

If a user is determined to force the battery to sit at a high state of charge a lot, how do you think the BMS is going to "protect" it from the bad effects of that?

 

[CyberGus]

If a user is determined to force the battery to sit at a high state of charge a lot...

Most users are not that motivated lol

 

[cdswm3]

WOW! That is a first for me. My comment got 1 of every single type of reaction. Well done, forum residents!


Did you not read the context there? Here is the question he was replying to:

"I just bought a standard range plus model 3, and I have been hearing that you should definitely NOT charge your Tesla to 100% every night. Unfortunately, my commute is 80 miles each way, which leaves me little wiggle room for sentry mode/fun driving/errands. Thoughts?"

So the person asking this question has really big driving needs and is trying to have as much range as possible and is wanting to charge to 100% every single day. So do you see what Musk's response to that is?

"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."

He is telling the person to use a LOWER state of charge. You seem to have glossed over that and thinking that he was telling people to use a higher state of charge than we have been talking about here. That's not the case at all. He's talking with someone who wants to max it out all the time, but Musk is trying to talk him down from that some to prevent damaging his battery. You have to realize where people are coming from. A lot of people want the most of everything: the fastest, the most powerful, the most range, etc. etc. etc. But that is bad for the batteries, so there is some point in letting people know that.


If a user is determined to force the battery to sit at a high state of charge a lot, how do you think the BMS is going to "protect" it from the bad effects of that?

With a 80 Mile commute each way, maybe a SR is not the right choice.