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Good Practice for Battery Life and Home Charging

greeiig

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Location
London, UK
Driving
MG5
Hi all,
I just got my home charger installed - a PodPoint.
I'm typically going to do very few miles -just short trips round town - with the off longish trip thrown in.
My limited research would suggest that good practice would be:
1. not to continually recharge the battery - I'm thinking I'll just drive until the battery drops to around 20%, then charge it. This is likely to be less than once a week or until I know a long trip is coming up
2. When charging - best not to fully charge to 100%. I'm thinking I'll try to charge to 80% each time - unless I'm about to go on a long trip where I need the range.

Any views on the above would be appreciated. And also....

Assuming I'm not totally off the mark with the above: one thing I would like to be able to do - but don't think there is a way way with either the MG5 or my PodPoint charger - is to get the charging to automatically stop once I get to the charge level I want to. It would be great if that could be programmed either in the car or the charger. I think this functionality exists with some EV car makes?
Anyway, it looks like if I want an 80% charge, I need to either
1. stop charging manually at the right time - based on the estimated charge time shown. or
2. Set the Podpoint schedule to stop at the right time after I plug it in - but that means updating the time schedule manually once I've worked out how much I need. It seems a bit clumsy. Actually the more I think of it, if I know that it takes - say - 7 hours to charge from 20% to 80%, I just set the podpoint schedule for 7 hours by default. I'd just need to remember to take the schedule off if I want it to go to 100%.

I'm sure some of you clever lot have dealt with all this - I'd appreciate any wise words / suggestions
 
I can't remember the last time I had an unexpected long journey, and I can't think of many circumstances which would demand one
We had one last week, only a round trip of 90 miles and tbh might have just made it home but stopped at an instavolt for a top up. Bought a bag of chips, got to charger, plugged in (er hem first one failed so shuffled car to next one) tapped debit card, sat in car, ate chips, tapped card, unplugged and drove home. Literally a 15 min top up (£6.35) and still had 30% battery when we got home. Personally I'm quite prepared to accept that if my battery lasts longer. After all it is the most expensive component in the car.
 
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Everyone to their own for suitable charging regime.
But I bought my car to suit my needs.
Do not want my fuelling and driving to be the most suitable for the car.
 
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I don't think anyone is suggesting doing anything other than what works best for you. Those of us who pay a bit more attention to the state of charge are thinking more long term - how much degradation there will be after 5 years or so.

The main thing is that people make an informed choice, which is why it's great to discuss our different strategies.

For me, it's mostly about economy. Charging to 100% wastes some energy every time, and, if the battery is already full, there's no space for any free charging (either from solar or at the supermarket). Around 75% of my charging is free.
 
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As the used EV market is in its infancy, I wonder if, down the track, buyers of used EVs will demand (along with service history) proof of battery SOH?
 
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I think this pretty much sums it up. If you're planning on keeping the car very long term, then yes following best practice will preserve the longevity of the battery.

If you're on a 2-3 year lease deal, chances are the SOH isnt going to drop significantly enough to affect your real-world range requirements, it's going to be 'someone else's problem' - lets face it, you're the kind of owner 2nd hand buyers are wary of, but at least you used it how you wanted to.

I have a 70 mile/round trip commute, planning on charging between 30-80% using the cheaper hours at night, or works charger. Definitely doing the balance charges in work for free. Most of my unexpected journeys are to work's so I know even if I leave with 50 miles range, I can charge when I get there.
 
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Those of us who pay a bit more attention to the state of charge are thinking more long term - how much degradation there will be after 5 years or so.
I think the jury will always be out, on what is the best % to charge to help preserve the long term condition of your HV pack.
I am from the charge to 80% camp, unless I have a longer trip.
In which case, the car is charge to 100%.
Here is a very recent video reporting on battery degradation on a Hyundai Ioniq Electric 28kWh.
The car is now 5 years old and has covered 89,000 miles.
A scan of the HV battery pack shows it is still at 100% SoH.
 
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I tend to charge to 100%. As I have elderly relatives living over 100 miles away I like to make sure there is plenty of charge should I be called out at short notice.

Car is on PCP and with working from home my mileage ahs dropped from 15000 to 7000 miles a year so I wouldn't expect to be affected by battery issues before I trade in.
 
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Typically 30-80% from a 4 hour Go charge although that wasn't driven by ideology, just convenience.
I wonder how long you'd have to go before the car prompted you to do a balance charge? You must have done 20 or more cycles of 30-80%..
I'm sure some people will suggest you should have done a balance charge earlier, but the manual does say the car will prompt you when it's necessary.
 
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Driving from 100% today for pretty much the first time since I got the car highlighted one significant side effect.
As a consistent KERS3 user, it felt really weird having no regen. Almost as if I was driving a completely different car.
That would be weird. I use kers 3 every time now.. totally different driving experience if it's not kicking in..
 
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The balance wasn't even a drawn out process.

balance.png


To explain the graph, I couldn't be bothered to change my 0030-0430hrs charge schedule so I let it do its thing and switched it back on when I got up in the morning. There was a short peak followed by a load of around 300W which completed at 0945hrs.
 
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I wonder how long you'd have to go before the car prompted you to do a balance charge? You must have done 20 or more cycles of 30-80%..
I'm sure some people will suggest you should have done a balance charge earlier, but the manual does say the car will prompt you when it's necessary.
The car will prompt you when it is desperately needed. If you wait that long it is too late. Those of us that had these warnings with the buggy BMS installed on the ZS know how long it took to get the car right again.
Don't wait for the warning light, because that is what it is, it is not a gentle reminder.
 
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I'm still waiting for someone to say they have actually seen the reminder/warning/whatever on an MG5.
ZS did have an issue driven by the original BMS but we aren't talking about the ZS.
 
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"Keeping" is probably not the right term, only put it on charge between that range. Keeping suggests taking it off charge once up to 80% but that would only apply if rapid charging. If fast or home charging then take it up to 100%.

Avoid "top-up" charging i.e. putting on charge when already above 80% unless specific planned journeys require it to be fully charged.

Often not mentioned is storage. Lithium-Ion batteries should not be stored at 100% but generally around 50%. They actually lose charge by about 5% within a few days when taken off charge then lose about 1% per month. So if off on a world cruise (I wish:() run it to below 40%, recharge to 60% and you are good for 6-9 months at least:D. The lead acid ancillary battery is more problematic as this should be fully charged and then disconnected which as discussed causes issues.
 
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I specifically asked the dealer about the 20/80% charging, and he seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. Also, I can't see any mention in the manual. What chemistry is the battery? Apparently Lithium Ion batteries may not suffer this restriction. Hopefully someone clever can advise
 
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I'm still waiting for someone to say they have actually seen the reminder/warning/whatever on an MG5.
ZS did have an issue driven by the original BMS but we aren't talking about the ZS.
Well I guess it doesn't apply to the MG5 then if no one has reported seeing the warning.

It happened on the ZS because balancing never actually took place even though it appeared to with the buggy BMS software and ended up with vastly reduced range. There is no reason to think that the result would be any different on the MG5 in the same circumstances.

If anyone wishes to never balance their batteries (hopefully no-one), then please let us know how long it takes to start seeing reduced range on the GOM. Charge to 100% without carrying on to balance, unplug and switch on with nothing else switched on such as heater etc.. Reset accumulative trip and see what the range is. Any less than the WLTP figure and you have lost range due to imbalance. As the balance gets worse the range will slowly drop.
 
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Driving from 100% today for pretty much the first time since I got the car highlighted one significant side effect.
As a consistent KERS3 user, it felt really weird having no regen. Almost as if I was driving a completely different car.
All that wasted regen energy on top of the extra cost of getting to 100%!
 
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I specifically asked the dealer about the 20/80% charging, and he seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. Also, I can't see any mention in the manual. What chemistry is the battery? Apparently Lithium Ion batteries may not suffer this restriction. Hopefully someone clever can advise
All batteries suffer from this, with LFP being the least affected.
 
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