Battery 100% for how long?

[dsr]

I have an ER, but assume my query relates to LRs as well.
A charge failure last night led me to think how awkward that would be if I wanted a 100% battery for a long trip the following day. Would I be damaging the battery if I charged to 100% the night before = 24-30 hours before setting off on a long trip?
I appreciate I could play safe by charging to 80% in advance and topping up on the final night, knowing that a failure then would still leave me with a full-ish battery.

 

[mg4mc]

If you are only doing it occasionally then I can't see it being a problem at all. Leaving it at 100% regularly, or for prolonged periods is what will cause some degregation. How much degregation is debatable, as 100% isn't really 100%, and batteries are not as susceptible as they used to be. Are you going to keep the car for a long time anyway?

 

[Adam C]

Some really good videos posted yesterday in link below talking about this.

Guy recommends not charging your car regularly to 100% & letting it sit for days before using it.

Batteries in EVs best way to look after them

Hi everyone in the MGEVs podcast on Monday 4th March there was once again a fair amount of discussion about charging your EV well the 2 videos below I think give a very clear explanation of what is considered best practice for different types of batteries in the first one. And the 2nd one...

www.mgevs.com

 

[MSvirus]

I keep my 64 kWh battery topped up to 80% each night at a minimum, and tops it off further to 100% the night before long trips. I guess you do a lot of long trips, since you have the ER, so topping it off to 100% the nights before would mean a lot of time per month sitting on 100%. That is nothing I would do unless really needed.

 

[Rolfe]

This one is good. He's more worried about weeks than days, and even then only if you make a habit of it.

 

[Adam C]

Another decent video below talking about this & other topics.

There’s another video from the same guy I’ll try & find again where they had 20 batteries, run them through 500 cycles of fast charging them to 100%, draining them all the way down (I don’t know what batteries they were) with no balancing etc.

Now that would be quite a lot of mileage even on a smaller battery.

I believe after this, 14 of them suffered between 4-6% battery degradation, the rest between 7-11%.

Say for example these batteries tested could do 200 miles, by my calculator 500 charges = 100,000 miles.

So at worst 11% battery degradation after 100,000 miles. To me that doesn’t sound too bad especially considering that was probably a hard strain to constantly be charged to 100%, then drained all the way down.

 

[Tuareg]

Also remember that EV battery prices are set to plummet over the next 5 years plus also, newer battery tech will be coming on stream, so changing an EV battery will be much cheaper in a few years time anx there'll be a big industry in this areas as there will be a big market with lots of used EVs.

 

[FiferMG4]

Also remember that EV battery prices are set to plummet over the next 5 years plus also, newer battery tech will be coming on stream, so changing an EV battery will be much cheaper in a few years time anx there'll be a big industry in this areas as there will be a big market with lots of used EVs.

That’s good to hear, as we need the general public to get on board and not just the early adopters.

 

[Adam C]

That’s good to hear, as we need the general public to get on board and not just the early adopters.

I’ve posted before, the last 6-12 months I’ve seen a lot more EVs here on the Isle of Wight.

Of course you always see what I call the “Hate Mob” on social media but I never get involved, there’s no discussion or reasoning with some people.

The friends & family that have been in mine all seem to like it but the majority of the time it’s always “But they don’t go very far” …. “Take too long to charge” I tell them the range mine can do & I can do a charge in 30 minutes & the miles I can get in that short charge they seem shocked so I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two of them pull up beside me in their own EV in the near future.

I think the biggest obstacle right now is for the people who can’t have a home charger & will have to rely 100% on public charging, this needs to improve, obviously more chargers & cheaper