I have had a very similar experience except I used to charge to 80% immediately on returning home. Now I schedule charging for 4am. If a shorter commute day, I charge to 60-70%. If a longer commute day, I charge to 75-90%. Stats app tells me I’m now around 283 miles at 100%, after 4 years and 80,000 miles. It was in the low 270s when I used to immediately charge to 80% about a year and a half ago. I feel much better seeing 283!
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What Percent is Your Tesla Charged to While at Home?
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0% displayed is safe so with a personal margin for range anxiety your good.
As small cycles also is good, charge every day if you have the possibility and do not charge more than you need. There is no win in aiming for a specific lower SOC number.
Really great info, thank you!!
How about during extreme temperatures? It will get very hot in the summer and pretty cold in the dead of winters here. I can keep her plugged in but ideally would like to park outside for full utility.
What would you recommend - if it can be garaged, is that the ideal situation?
How about during extreme temperatures? It will get very hot in the summer and pretty cold in the dead of winters here. I can keep her plugged in but ideally would like to park outside for full utility.
What would you recommend - if it can be garaged, is that the ideal situation?
because the car that came out with 310 miles later was increased to 335 via software updates to increase efficiency. So it's loss is that it's back to original miles and lost the miles that were gained via the update.
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Lowest for battery health would be 0-1%, but most drivers are not able to estimate usage with the precision to arrive home or at a charger at 0-1% reliably (maybe @AAKEE can do it, or even do it to about -4% to use up the buffer to approach the true 0%), so the practical minimum is whatever buffer amount the driver needs to avoid the risk (or range anxiety) of getting to 0% before reaching the destination.
Keeping it plugged in could help compensate for any vampire drain that may occur while parked (including for battery conditioning due to ambient temperatures, as well as stuff like sentry mode or cabin overheat protection if these are enabled).
Keeping it in a garage can help keep the car cleaner and reduce deterioration (e.g. of tires) due to sunlight all day. Regarding its effect on charging, in a garage or outside may affect the ambient temperature the car is exposed to.
The main question we should answer is, how much is a battery pack degraded "just using it" and charging to 90 percent, to say, someone charging to 70 percent . Each user dropping the battery by 40 percent or something each day. Are we looking at, after 4 years, something like a battery thats degraded 5% vs someone else who might have 10 percent? So a 5 percent difference to baby the thing?
I wonder what battery management will be built into these cars in the future to account for this sort of data listed above.
It seems like the actual answer here is to charge it often (small charging cycles), keep the battery temp down.
I wonder what battery management will be built into these cars in the future to account for this sort of data listed above.
It seems like the actual answer here is to charge it often (small charging cycles), keep the battery temp down.
E90alex
Active Member
It’s been answered based on the data posted by AAKEE above which you can extrapolate, as well as his own vehicle data compared to fleet average.
The inflection point is about 55%. So 70% vs 90% is not going to be much difference. But 50% vs 90%, it’s about half as much degradation.
But again, if 5% degradation is insignificant to you or 50% charge is going to be an inconvenience to you, then don’t worry about it. The battery will be “fine” charging to 80-90% normally if you want. It won’t be the best it can be in terms of degradation, but nonetheless it will be fine and survive at least through the warranty period without needing replacement.
Tesla and other EV makers aren’t going to tell people or program the BMS to say you should try to keep it below 50% because most people won’t care about degradation and/or won’t care to micromanage the battery. For others, they think it’s worthwhile to make small adjustments to their routine to keep the battery in best shape possible.
It like the people who PPF their whole car and get it ceramic coated immediately after delivery and only hand wash it with the best boutique detailing supplies. And others just take it through a regular spinny brush tunnel wash without a second thought or care.
Yes, to me 5% over 4 or 5 years is insignificant. Why is there even a discussion at that amount? It seems padentic with those kinds of numbers.
and to your car wash example, theres a middle ground which is to hand wash the car , but not drop 7k on full body coverage. That example would be more inline with micro managing your SOC, which the middle ground is just keep it plugged in as much as possible so that the car can care for its own battery. Set it to whatever SOC you can handle and be done. No abuse, but no extra care as well.
and to your car wash example, theres a middle ground which is to hand wash the car , but not drop 7k on full body coverage. That example would be more inline with micro managing your SOC, which the middle ground is just keep it plugged in as much as possible so that the car can care for its own battery. Set it to whatever SOC you can handle and be done. No abuse, but no extra care as well.
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Because, a lot of these cars are owned by data crunching, min maxing type of people. Not all of them, for sure, but a lot of them. Also, from the number of posts I see on Degradation (at least a couple of attempts at new threads daily, every day, since I joined here) there are lots of people who care about such numbers even when they dont impact them in the slightest.
Meaning, people will come here and complain in some variation of "OMG I dont believe it, My 100% charge is 15 miles less than it used to be only 6 months ago! " when if you actually question them on it and dig into it, they either have never actually driven the range out on their battery, or only done it 1-2 times, so whether the number reads 290 miles on the screen or 270 miles on the screen doesnt impact them in the slightest..... yet they still care and complain about it.
So, yeah people care, for different reasons. Some because they like to play the min max game, some because they have some picture of "driving this car into the ground" and think that an extra 20 miles of range after 5-6 years ownership is something to strive for, and others just because they are data nerds.
I personally dont care, but fully acknowledge there are people who do, and am grateful for the people who dig into this stuff with data so I dont have to, so I can make my own decisions on what works for me, and not worry about what works for everyone else (other than having to deal with all the degradation threads because I volunteered to mod here, that is, lol).
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
It is a true outlier! It’s very interesting and it makes people wonder why.
Hooray, you’ve communicated information about capacity loss clearly; I got 13/13.
Try making a long stretch between superchargers (fortunately more rare these days - long runs between superchargers tend to be time inefficient - but long stretches still exist, and likely will for a few more years; look in Nevada Basin & Range area, c'mon Tesla, would an Ely Supercharger really be that hard...lol!). It matters sometimes - you'd probably make it in either case, but in the higher capacity loss case you're going to have to slow down.
E90alex
Active Member
There’s a discussion because other people may find that significant enough to worry about even if you don’t. Or just because they’re data nerds and want to know the numbers whether they put the information into practice or not.
For me there is no functional difference in how I use the car whether it’s charged to 50% or 90%. Either way I will still only use 10-15% per day and plug in every evening. If I’m planning to go out of town one weekend then I’ll increase the charge limit. It’s not that I’m “worried” about degradation and afraid to charge more, but more so why not do a lower SOC if it’s even marginally better for the battery and of zero inconvenience to me?
Again everyone’s personal use case and comfort level will vary. Set it to the lowest you’re comfortable with that works for you. If that happens to be 90% then so be it. No one is saying absolutely do not charge more than 50% ever or you’re killing your battery. We’re just reporting what the data says (lower charge level is better, lower temp is better, smaller depth of discharge is better) and it’s just up to each owner how they want to apply that information.
Well, for me, I care enough to think about this stuff and take reasonable measures to mitigate risk of battery degradation because money doesn’t grow on trees, and my M3 is twice the price of any previous car I have ever owned. I don’t take the investment lightly. And I drive a lot. I want the car running at peak performance. Call me crazy!
If you actually want that, you probably want a higher state of charge because lower states of charge have lower horsepower output. I dont think you actually mean peak performance though.
I remember when Tesla supposedly increase the mileage yet my 2018 Model 3 never saw it and I read that many others didn't see the increase either. At that time I was still only getting 310 miles of range and rumor has it that Tesla took that software increase away for some reason.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Lost in the sands of history at this point. Hard to know what happened with your specific vehicle but at least you know the capacity now.
1) this was an increase to 325, not 335.
2) it applied only to Model 3 LR RWD 2018/2019. Not Ken’s car. (AWD)
3) It did not appear to increase available capacity or change the constant. I assume this means the buffer was reduced, or another possibility is that the degradation threshold was increased from 72.5kWh to 76kWh. Hard to know without SMT reads in those early days exactly how it was done. But some owners have some energy graph pictures showing rated line at 239Wh/mi (corresponding to 234Wh/mi) prior to the change, allegedly.
4) There were some efficiency changes but not sure they were really connected. Recall that the initial EPA test results were voluntarily reduced (from either 325 or 335; don’t remember - would have to check docs).
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Indeed. The story is as old as time. 200 years ago a man was judged by the condition of his tools. 120 years ago “you could judge the cut of a man by the way he cared for his horse”. Today we say “All it takes is a little skill, a few bills, and the will”. Men would run Amsoil, Redline or Motul even if they were trading it in soon, while others would go to Walmart and say “Cheapest way, I’m not keeping it”. Attitude, dare I say class, will out.
In EV’s it’s even more telling. There is no skill, tons of information is but a click away. Bills? It costs nothing to day to day treat an asset with regard. Heck, it’s almost entirely automated. No, now it’s mostly the man. Will. Attitude. The cut of his jib, so to speak. A few use-case extreme’s of course, but in general some will care for their horse and others won’t.
On a more practical note be assured time will indeed tell. Ever hear of Carfax? Have you noticed what a bad Carfax does to a trade-in? Informed consumers are already looking at battery degradation when they buy a used EV. Dealers will soon, if not already, begin considering battery condition as a factor in trade-in value.
Finally, a story: I know of a Tesla owner that charges to 100% every night and trades in for something new every 2-3 years because “I have bad luck with cars”. One day dead of night at -10f he runs completely out of power in a “not all that safe” area of town. Who do you think got the call to come rescue him? His “think the same way” buddies, or somebody he knew that understood cars? Push come to shove everybody knows who’s who, it just doesn’t come out until SHTF.
Not really, no.
1) Cycle duration isn't really an issue. Consider four charges of 40% to 50% vs one of 10% to 50%. Not really much difference there. We talk a lot about "Percentage" because it's something the average guy grasps easily enough. In reality we're talking about voltage levels, and the less stress (peak voltage) placed on the cells the longer they last. Ergo ABC to as low a level (which equals as low a voltage) as your immediate range demands. Akee makes a pretty solid case for a tipping point of around 57%, and I'm certainly not going to argue with him. (Akee, care to suggest the corresponding voltage level?)
2) Battery temp being kept down isn't what you might think. In fact, a battery is harmed LESS if heated to 100F when being supercharged. This is the genesis of supercharger routing, battery hearing, etc. Anything we're doing at home charging rates (L1 or L2) is way way under 1C and isn't going to hurt the battery vis a vis temperature. A higher termination voltage hurts them a little every time.
Earlier I suggested there was lots of research available if one just looked for it. Akee is one of many here with exceptional knowledge in this area, but perhaps the following link will give you some links to pursue.
EV Charging Best Practices
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