What's your daily charge rate and how many miles until you feel you need to recharge?

[Eagleye88]

Hello everyone. I am new on this forum and if this has been discussed please feel free to direct me to that link. I have looked and haven't really seen a discussion on it yet. I know that it mainly depends on how your driving habits are, your driving conditions, and your distance.

With that said I was wondering what have most of you have been experiencing on a typical daily charge (of either 70, 80, or 90% etc) how many miles do you actually get until you reach about 50% or so? As from what some people say that you should plug in and charge around that percentage?

I am curious because if I am charging this car to let's say 80% and I am driving around clients or fellow co workers I would like to estimate what my limitations are in terms of keeping up to the optimum percentage range for battery longevity. If i'm totally wrong on something I am all ears to learning and understanding more. Thank you!!

 

[rickdogg82]

I would not think about it too much. 80-90% maximum charge is the range that most will say is best for battery longevity. I simply set my limit to 80% and plug it in when I get home after my day which can run from 35-60 miles typically. I don't worry about anything else other than if I am taking a road trip where I might consider bumping the max charge % if it is advantageous.

 

[nicholb]

Plug it in every night and don't worry about it. Set your limit to either 80% or 90% and let the car manage the battery.

 

[ewoodrick]

Sometimes 80%, sometimes 90%. I then drop to maybe 100, maybe 50, unless I need to travel more tomorrow.

Other words, I don't really think about it

 

[dmurphy]

I set my car to 90% when I bought it. When I come home, I plug it in. That's all the battery management I do. Saves my brain cells for more important stuff - like wine.

 

[al503]

I charge at work and set it to 75% during the week. My daily commute takes it down to about 60-65% depending on the time of year.

I charge it to 90% on Friday for the weekend.

IIRC, Elon recommended staying between 30-80% via text/tweet or something.

 

[dmurphy]

I charge at work and set it to 75% during the week. My daily commute takes it down to about 60-65% depending on the time of year.

I charge it to 90% on Friday for the weekend.

IIRC, Elon recommended staying between 30-80% via text/tweet or something.

90% is ideal ...

"The best way to balance the Model 3 pack is to set charge limit to 90% or higher and let the vehicle sit idle for hours (plugged in or not)."

 

[al503]

90% is ideal ...

"The best way to balance the Model 3 pack is to set charge limit to 90% or higher and let the vehicle sit idle for hours (plugged in or not)."

So I guess I balance once a week.

 

[dmurphy]

So I guess I balance once a week.

Yup. And that's perfect. Keeps things quite healthy.

 

[ewoodrick]

90% is ideal ...

"The best way to balance the Model 3 pack is to set charge limit to 90% or higher and let the vehicle sit idle for hours (plugged in or not)."

Not really sure how batteries can balance to full charge when they aren't. 90% also doesn't reset the algorithms and results in false max numbers. My recommendations is to charge to 100% quarterly or preferably before taking long trips.

 

[dmurphy]

Not really sure how batteries can balance to full charge when they aren't. 90% also doesn't reset the algorithms and results in false max numbers. My recommendations is to charge to 100% quarterly or preferably before taking long trips.

It's not a matter of balancing to full charge; it's a matter of balancing the voltage differential between the bricks. This is easiest to do at a near-full charge, and in fact Tesla's controller only does it at 4.0V or higher (which is about 85% charge.)

The battery controller will shunt a bleed resistor across the brick with the highest voltage to slightly discharge it to the same level as the other bricks in the pack. This occurs in the following state:

- Brick voltage differential is > 5mV
- Minimum brick voltage is 4.0V or higher (which is about 85% charge)
- Vehicle is in stand by mode

24 hours' worth of balancing reduces the imbalance by about 1mV.

So yes - charge to 90%, leave it there for several days, and any imbalance in the pack will be handled automatically by the battery controller.

It's *not* a one time thing - a quick hit to 100% accomplishes nothing. You need to get it to that 85% or greater state and *leave it there* for a few days. At least 5. See above - 24 hours of balancing reduces imbalance by 1mV. But the balancing only occurs when there's a 5mV differential or more -- so it takes at least 5 days at 85% or greater of idle time to rebalance the pack.

Hence, why "set it to 90% and forget it" is the ideal situation.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I set to 90% daily and 100% before road tripping.

 

[who.m3]

...I was wondering what have most of you have been experiencing on a typical daily charge (of either 70, 80, or 90% etc) how many miles do you actually get until you reach about 50% or so? As from what some people say that you should plug in and charge around that percentage?

I am curious because if I am charging this car to let's say 80% and I am driving around clients or fellow co workers I would like to estimate what my limitations are in terms of keeping up to the optimum percentage range for battery longevity. If i'm totally wrong on something I am all ears to learning and understanding more. Thank you!!

My commute is about 25 miles round trip. My typical routine charge is that I started charging at 50% to 90% every 4 days. My car ends up using a lot more power than sans 100 miles by the 4th day, I would say maybe a 20% markup. Right now without being able to properly rebalance the battery, I believe I'm around 304 at 100%, so that leaves me about 150 miles of estimated range.

If I was in your shoes for work, I would charge every night to 90% because you'll never know when you'll need that charge in a pinch. So basically I agree with most of everyone's responses above.

Not really sure how batteries can balance to full charge when they aren't. 90% also doesn't reset the algorithms and results in false max numbers. My recommendations is to charge to 100% quarterly or preferably before taking long trips.

I agree with this. I've discharged to <10% and brought it back to 90% and I have not seen this "re-calculation" or "battery balancing circuits" engaged. I've tried to battery balance at home to 100% letting it sit at that SOC for at least an hour and I don't think it works since there was no change in total range. I've yet to go to a Super Charger to attempt battery balancing like many have mentioned here.

 

[dmurphy]

I agree with this. I've discharged to <10% and brought it back to 90% and I have not seen this "re-calculation" or "battery balancing circuits" engaged. I've tried to battery balance at home to 100% letting it sit at that SOC for at least an hour and I don't think it works since there was no change in total range. I've yet to go to a Super Charger to attempt battery balancing like many have mentioned here.

Discharge has nothing to do with it. See above about the shunting resistors in the battery pack. An hour doesn't do squat either, unfortunately. Takes days.

What I wrote above is paraphrased from a Tesla document. It's not speculative.

 

[who.m3]

Discharge has nothing to do with it. See above about the shunting resistors in the battery pack. An hour doesn't do squat either, unfortunately. Takes days.

What I wrote above is paraphrased from a Tesla document. It's not speculative.

I just saw your post in another thread about the light indicators about when it's balancing, fully charged, and charged & balanced. I will take your word for it and try it out for a week starting this weekend. Last I scoured the forums, the deep discharge and recharge to full was a thing when I had my car the first year. Never saw it peak to the 325 range after the 5% power boost for my LRRWD.

My reservation comes from experience because I use to charge it every day at work before my employer implemented a new parking policy that left ICE cars parking by the few outlets that use to be designated for EV parking. Before that I thought charging it everyday to 90% was reducing my range.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[hcdavis3]

90% is ideal ...

"The best way to balance the Model 3 pack is to set charge limit to 90% or higher and let the vehicle sit idle for hours (plugged in or not)."

I believe this is true Murph. I charged to 70 percent for a month, changed to 90% and got my range back.

 

[ewoodrick]

Hello everyone. I am new on this forum and if this has been discussed please feel free to direct me to that link. I have looked and haven't really seen a discussion on it yet. I know that it mainly depends on how your driving habits are, your driving conditions, and your distance.

With that said I was wondering what have most of you have been experiencing on a typical daily charge (of either 70, 80, or 90% etc) how many miles do you actually get until you reach about 50% or so? As from what some people say that you should plug in and charge around that percentage?

I am curious because if I am charging this car to let's say 80% and I am driving around clients or fellow co workers I would like to estimate what my limitations are in terms of keeping up to the optimum percentage range for battery longevity. If i'm totally wrong on something I am all ears to learning and understanding more. Thank you!!

Let me approach this a little differently. Let's look at the cars with the most mileage on them about 500,000 miles. They tend to Supercharge to 100% multiple times a day. While some have had battery changes, it was mostly with issues on the older batteries, and they aren't the newer Model 3 batteries.

So, while there are a LOT OF OPINIONS and "scientific fact" about batteries in general, (not the Model 3's) the current numbers from Tesla indicate that the cars should be expected to live for about 300,000 miles.

aka Don't worry about the battery. Tesla designed it so that you don't have to worry about it. Drive the car, enjoy the car charge it to 100% whenever you need to. If you don't need to then 90% is probably a good place. But just set it and forget about it.

 

[dmurphy]

I believe this is true Murph. I charged to 70 percent for a month, changed to 90% and got my range back.

Yup yup! That’s exactly what I’d expect. At 90%, you’re giving the battery controller the high sign to go ahead and rebalance the cell bricks. Basically as they charge and discharge, eventually they get out of sync by a little bit (I mean, millivolts.) The way the battery works, it stops charging when one of the bricks gets to a full 4.2 volts. The rest are usually really close. If they get out of sync a little, there might be a laggard or two. Nature of chemistry.

The range calculation is based on the lowest, not the highest brick (which makes sense) — so if there’s a bit of a gap from highest to lowest, you’re not seeing all the range it’s capable of.

So at over 85%; the battery controller actually DIScharges the highest cell a little, to bring everyone back into sync. Then tops them all off. This happens really, really slowly - you don’t want drastic measures.

So, yeah, getting it over 90 and leaving it there for a week will sort things out as it gets all those cell bricks back in sync with one another.

It’s a super smart controller — smarter than any of us. So why try to outwit it? Let it do its job ..,

 

[dmurphy]

I just saw your post in another thread about the light indicators about when it's balancing, fully charged, and charged & balanced. I will take your word for it and try it out for a week starting this weekend. Last I scoured the forums, the deep discharge and recharge to full was a thing when I had my car the first year. Never saw it peak to the 325 range after the 5% power boost for my LRRWD.

My reservation comes from experience because I use to charge it every day at work before my employer implemented a new parking policy that left ICE cars parking by the few outlets that use to be designated for EV parking. Before that I thought charging it everyday to 90% was reducing my range.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Charging to 90% every day is just fine. No issues there. The Blinkenlights I was referring to is on the Segway, which is kinda a precursor to Tesla. (The fact that Doug Field was a lead engineer at both companies is PURELY coincidental, right?

All seriousness though ... while 90% will be fine, you likely won’t see the 325 mi range, even though you have a RWD. What we’ve seen is that the “constant” part of the range equation wasn’t updated on all RWDs. Some, yes, but not all. None of us little people know the “why” behind that ..... but you should within a few percent of 310 in any case.

 

[DickBlonov]

Saves my brain cells for more important stuff - like wine.

Good advice!
Phil