EV Battery Care: How to treat your battery right! (and limit degradation)

Even though Electric vehicles have much less maintenance due to the lack of engine and transmission, there is a bit of a tradeoff. Instead of worrying about oil changes and other engine work, there is now a gigantic battery to worry about.

More in-depth on Battery Care and what causes lithium-ion to degrade: https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...

This may seem like a big deal, but in reality it is actually much simpler and easier than caring for a gas engine.

Most modern EVs utilize Lithium ion batteries, and just like other batteries, they do lose capacity over time. But these aren’t the same batteries you’ll find in small electronics like your smartphone that might lose a large portion of its capacity in a couple years to the point it is unusable. EV batteries are designed to last the life of the car, and along with the car’s built in battery management system and some simple battery care from you as the driver, you can ensure it will have minimal capacity loss over time.

Being lithium-ion batteries, they are actually happiest at a 50% state of charge. So the further that charge moves away from 50%, both higher and lower, the more damage it can cause to the battery resulting in lower capacity over time.

This means you want to avoid extreme states of charge, so below 10% and above 90%. That doesn’t mean that you can’t let your battery get into those extremes, it just means that if it is, you shouldn’t let it sit there. If your charging level is below 10%, it's probably best to plug in as soon as you can, and if you’ve charged above 90%, it’s best to drive immediately and use up that energy.

As for those lower states of charge below 20 or 10%, you’re probably going to plug naturally anyway, but just another reminder that this is the right thing to do. Letting your battery discharge all the way down isn’t necessary for lithium ion cells and you want to get that charge level back up if it drops down low like that.

The last thing that can prolong battery life and limit capacity loss is reducing the amount of times you utilize superchargers or DC fast chargers. These do charge extremely fast and are really useful on road trips, and I think that’s when they should be reserved for. Doing so on a consistent basis isn’t great, and its best to just use level 1 or level 2 AC charging if you can.

So what does this mean for actual driving and day to day driving? Well with my car, the Model 3, Tesla has said it's safe to charge to 90% day to day without any significant battery capacity loss. That’s why inside the car and the app you’ll see that it kind of snaps around that 90% mark. Charging above 90% is okay, but it's typically reserved for when you really need that range for longer trips where you will be driving immediately after charging. To make things simple, I would leave your charge limit at 90% and not worry about it unless you think you’ll need those extra miles.

If your charge drops below 10 or 20%, its probably a good idea to go ahead and plug in if you can.

And for charging, utilize your level 2 chargers the most, as I think those are the best balance between speed and limiting battery damage from charging. These are easy to get installed at home and the best option for long term battery health.

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