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What is your daily charge level?
- Thread starter Chetanh
- Start date
I have to remember myself to not think about charging the model 3 like I’m charging my phone. Even at 60% charge I have close to 200 miles. I don’t even get gas till I’m down to 80 miles left. So I should just charge to 50-60% around town. And 70% when going to work.
darth_vad3r
Well-Known Sith
Exactly.
And actually, we should also start charging our phones and tablets and laptops more like our cars. Leaving them plugged in overnight at 100% isn’t so hot for them. Unplug them at 90% if you spot it there ... otherwise unplug it when it’s done and let it drain a bit overnight instead of staying at 100% plugged in. This is what I do with all my devices since learning about the batteries a lot more via the car.
edigest
Member
Excellent point. Not enough advancement in phone/computer technology to justify replacing phones and laptops every year so battery health has taken on a new significance.
BTW, if Jeff Dahn says 70% that is good enough for me.
Tesla Battery Expert's Recommendation For Maximum Battery Life - Video
In iOS13 (beta) Apple is now learning what time you get up and will only charge to 80% and then does the 100% right before you alarm goes off.
Wonder if the upcoming Smart AC charging may have a similar feature?
p-f-g
Member
66%
But I don't charge each day.
As for this "Peak Performance Capability" in the iPhone screenshot, this morning the car was below 20% and the performance was definitely far from peak, power wise.
But I don't charge each day.
As for this "Peak Performance Capability" in the iPhone screenshot, this morning the car was below 20% and the performance was definitely far from peak, power wise.
darth_vad3r
Well-Known Sith
Yep ... only took them 13 software iterations to finally do something!
They should have a charge slider like Tesla. I think some other EVs (most?) don’t have this even.
groovidad
Living the Dream!
I’ve had my 3 since last December. I drive 37 miles round trip, daily, in heavy traffic, both ways. I charge to 90% every 2-3 days and my 90% SoC is 270 mi, consistently.
Your level of charge is based on your comfort zone, while reserving 100% for extended trips only.
Your level of charge is based on your comfort zone, while reserving 100% for extended trips only.
Thunder7ga
Member
Yes, I do. Elon has suggested it and there is no real evidence with the Model 3 battery that says otherwise. Last I heard Elon says that they are trending toward 300,000-500,000 mile averages for the Model 3 and it's battery.
Can you show many anywhere here Tesla indicates that charging to 90% isn't safe for the battery? And don't start back with the experts graphs crap, real numbers for the Model 3 batteries. Oh, they don't exist?
darth_vad3r
Well-Known Sith
Refer to @elonmusk tweets that preferred 80% to 90% for long term health. This implies he believes that 80% is better. If 80% is better, by definition 90% is not better, and at best equal, if not worse.
How much worse? We don’t know. 1 mile difference after 500,000? 10% difference?
Catastrophic cliff fall-off at 600,000 for 90% but 700,000 for 80%?
Who knows.
If it’s easy choose lower, go with lower for some unknown future benefit ... why NOT?
In general ALL systems can benefit from limiting extremes. No doubt that the 2170's is one of the most tolerate and resilient lit-ion batteries mass produced PERIOD. But it is still governed by ALL the general rules that apply to lit-ion batteries.
I charge to 70% or 75% for typical daily use. For trips, I rarely exceed 90%, which yields about 280 miles max, or around 250 with a little reserve. I have found that anything over 90% will begin to degrade regenerative braking, which gets one into the area of decreasing returns. I usually need a restroom break anyway long before those miles are consumed, so I schedule the supercharging accordingly. .
For those of you who do not have a garage and must charge outside, you might consider charging in the morning before departing instead of the night before. I found that on cold mornings, regenerative braking is substantially limited until the batteries warm. By scheduling the charge to be complete a few minutes prior to departure, the batteries are still warm. thus minimizing the impact on regenerative braking.
For those of you who do not have a garage and must charge outside, you might consider charging in the morning before departing instead of the night before. I found that on cold mornings, regenerative braking is substantially limited until the batteries warm. By scheduling the charge to be complete a few minutes prior to departure, the batteries are still warm. thus minimizing the impact on regenerative braking.
davewill
Active Member
I charge to 80% daily (have an SR that's still acting like an SR+, batterywise). Don't hesitate to bump that up if I think I might want the extra range. Haven't managed to run the battery down below 40-50% except once on a long day trip. If I was regularly running it down below 20-30%, I'd bump the limit up to 90%
This is long overdue. It still bothers me a lot that only a few manufacturers of laptops offer the functionality to set a more battery healthy upper charge limit like 80%. Lenovo and Samsung do, and maybe one or two others, but a lot of the other major ones like HP, Dell, Apple, etc. don't offer it, and it just trashes laptop batteries having them sit at 100% constantly, since a lot of people leave their laptops plugged in a lot.
I found out from researching this that it's not something that can just be implemented with a Windows software utility, since managing the charging levels is controlled by the BIOS of the laptop hardware. So the laptop maker has to make this function available, which can then be toggled with a software switch.
So why not add that disclaimer to the end of your suggested rules "Who knows"?
Exactly my point. People are already worried about their new EV and how long the battery is going to last. They already know how long their iPhone battery lasts and so they really want to make sure that the car does better. It doesn't take babysitting to make the car battery last longer. In fact, with some of the abuses that I've heard (multiple Supercharging daily, batteries in auction lots going to 0) you would think that there are tons of replacements being done today. (There was some periods in the past)
But they aren't
I favor helping people get over their range and battery anxiety. I can't count the number of people who have said that they can't charge to 100% because it will hurt the battery, and I believe even you know that's just not true.
Tesla is the one that has to honor the battery warranty. If they felt that they were going to have budgetary issues honoring it, don't you think that they may even add slightly more guidance than a sentence or two that I think has maybe even been around since the Roadster???
darth_vad3r
Well-Known Sith
I firmly believe that 90 is much better than 100, 80 is a bit better than 90, and 70 is slightly better than 80.
(This is based on Tesla experts like Elon Musk and Prof. Dahn, and is also supported by other generic Li-ion data available)
It’s entirely possible that this difference is not noticeable until AFTER the 8yr or X miles warranty expires ... and many people plan to keep their cars 10+ years.
I do.
So I want to do what’s best for my battery now, so I reduce the odds of some catastrophic failure in year 14, or whatever.
Tesla’s easily going to stay within warranty spec within the pretty short miles or 8yr they give you ... after that it’s up to you.
If you charge to 100% daily “because warranty” and plan to sell the car before then ... fine.
If you plan to keep the car longer, or you know, you just care about the environment and not wasting useful life of the battery just to be wasteful (even though it only affects ‘the next owner’) — then I would do whatever reasonably possible to extend the healthy life of the battery.
To me that means minimizing the number of high charges, and minimizing the time spent at high state of charge. Tesla makes this easy by providing the daily range slider from 50-90. Seems to me the lower you can get away with in that range, the better overall. Elon said 70 is diminishing returns over 80 and not worth it if inconvenient. I’d say anything lower than ’convenient’ (for you) is not worth it.
If easily doable, choose a lower SoC. Dahn says 70%, that’s good enough for me on the low end without trying to shoot for 50%.
(...but — as @ewoodrick would like me to point out — “who knows” ... but also it can’t be WORSE to charge lower (80 instead of 90), so “why not?”)
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