Where can I buy a Hitch for my Tesla 3 to carry my bikes---Also why is it better (Per Tesla) to charge your battery only 85 % in town and 100% when you are going to be on trip. All battery co. I have talked to say batteries will last longer if you charge them to 100% all the time. Gene Wakefield
Trailer Hitch and Charging Batteries.
- Thread starter GWTENNIS
- Start date
darknavi
Member
Daniel in SD
Well-Known Member
Charging to 100% is fine for trips. That's why they let you charge it to 100%. You shouldn't let the battery sit at 100% charge though. Lithium Ion battery are damaged by letting them sit at 100%.
Torklift is releasing a trailer hitch very soon. They've had one for the Model S for a few years.
This is the first suggestion I have ever seen that a Tesla battery should be charged to 100% regularly, wherever you are getting that information from? Either you need to ignore or you need to learn to filter information better. If you read that in relation to a lead acid battery and are just blindly assuming it applies to all batteries then you need to work on how you process information.
Li-ion degrades primarily by two factors: high temperature and high charge. These conditions create a more favorable condition for an unfavorable chemical reaction, where the lithium ions become permanantly trapped on the anode, which means reduced capacity.
Tesla manages the battery temperature. We have control over charge level, depending on our range needs. For commuter cars, setting your max charge level lower is better for the battery. For example: cycles of 50 to 30% are less stressful than cycles of 80 to 60%. Smaller discharges are better than large discharges: 80 to 60 is less stressful than 80 to 30 (the greater stress occurs during recharge, not discharge). I'd say that large discharges are not as impactful with a Tesla because of the good thermal management. It's the heat created while charging that weakens the battery over time.
Temperature is way more significant than charge level in terms of impact to battery longevity.
Tesla manages the battery temperature. We have control over charge level, depending on our range needs. For commuter cars, setting your max charge level lower is better for the battery. For example: cycles of 50 to 30% are less stressful than cycles of 80 to 60%. Smaller discharges are better than large discharges: 80 to 60 is less stressful than 80 to 30 (the greater stress occurs during recharge, not discharge). I'd say that large discharges are not as impactful with a Tesla because of the good thermal management. It's the heat created while charging that weakens the battery over time.
Temperature is way more significant than charge level in terms of impact to battery longevity.
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It's better for the batteries to be charged to 85%. The difference is not large, however, so for trips when you need the range it's okay to charge to full. But when you don't need the range, 85% is better.
The advice you are getting about always charging to 100% is for different kinds of batteries. Different batteries have different chemistries, and different chemistries have different characteristics. Lead-acid batteries, like you have in a regular car, should be charged to full. Ni-Cad batteries should be fully discharged before being charged. Lithium-Ion batteries last longest if they are charged to 85% or thereabouts and not discharged below about 10%. On your phone or your laptop, these limits are built in to the software, so when your phone says it's 100% charged, the battery is really at 85% or 90%, and when it shuts itself off and says it's empty, the battery is at 10%. This is to protect the phone or the laptop from users. Tesla tells you what's good for the battery pack but gives you the choice to use more of the battery's capacity in order to get the additional range that you might want occasionally.
Different kinds of batteries require different kinds of care.
Yep charge to 75% max and discharge to 25% min for normal daily use, for a long and happy battery life. Charge to 100% and GO immediately if you need range for a road trip (and take it down to 10-15% for every leg after that, recharging just enough plus a cushion for the next supercharger stop).
Waiting for the AWD announcement that tow hitch is included lol.
Waiting for the AWD announcement that tow hitch is included lol.
Randy Spencer
Supercharger Hunter
I've often wondered why discharge depth matters but it makes sense that really it's the heat built up by the longer charge cycle when restoring the charge that can have the impact. Deeper the discharge, longer the charge cycle to recover the warmer the battery.
********There is a Hitch avil. for the Tesla 3 from TORKLIFT--I ordered one and put it on. I have made three trips and it did great.*****
RedModel3
Member
Torklift Ecohitch - 2018 Tesla Model 3 Stealth EcoHitch
There is also a cover you can get so that when you take the hitch off, you can't even tell that you have a hitch. It's great!! Here's my car with my bike rack attached:
There is also a cover you can get so that when you take the hitch off, you can't even tell that you have a hitch. It's great!! Here's my car with my bike rack attached:
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CapnOMatic
Member
I got a seasucker mini bomber for my model 3 that goes on the roof. I was thinking about the tow hitch from torklift, but I was worried about whether or not it would interfere with the rear sensors and didn't know if cutting a hole in the back was really necessary for the installation of that tow hitch. So for simplicity sake I just went with the sea sucker.
RedModel3
Member
Randy Spencer
Supercharger Hunter
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