When to plug-in at home?

[AB3]

Hello all,

Have had my Cybertruck for a couple of weeks now. Been using a nearby supercharger when I need to charge up but am getting a universal charger put in at my house in a few days. Wanted to come here and ask when should I be plugging in at home? Should I be plugging in every night and having it top off over night (I have my limit set to 80%) or should I only plug in whenever I hit 20% and actually need to charge up? Just want to make sure I'm taking the right care of the battery. Also not sure if it matters but I do live in Ohio and right now it's pretty cold and have been getting a good amount of drain overnight, does plugging in solve all of that? Sorry if this is a common sense thing, this is my first EV.

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[ABILISK]

These batteries like to charge. Plug it in whenever you can and leave it plugged in until you drive it. Even if it’s done before you go to bed, leave it plugged in until morning.

Back in the days, you wanted to run certain things dead so your battery could develop a “memory” of how much power it could output. NOT SO with these.

Charge early, charge often.

 

[AB3]

These batteries like to charge. Plug it in whenever you can and leave it plugged in until you drive it. Even if it’s done before you go to bed, leave it plugged in until morning.

Back in the days, you wanted to run certain things dead so your battery could develop a “memory” of how much power it could output. NOT SO with these.

Charge early, charge often.

Thanks for the quick reply. Will leaving it plugged in keep me topped off at 80% (continually charging to keep it from slightly draining overnight) or will it just cut off once it hits 80 and not charge until I manually turn it back on?

 

[nubbin77]

Here is my short version, 2 cents.
Plug in every night. If you don't use most of your battery every day you can just set your charge limit to less than 80%, like 70 or even 60. But generally best to plug in and leave plugged in. Smaller charging ranges are better for the battery. But also... Don't overthink it.

 

[Crissa]

What every works for you. It'll charge up to the set point and no more, unless you tell it to be ready by a certain time.

Or you can just plug in when it's convenient. It's not like you have to watch it.

Honestly, it would rather be on a Level 1 extension cord than Supercharging all the time. It's always waking up to send data home from the day's drive, or thermally managing the battery. So it wants to be plugged in. It just doesn't need to be.

Thanks for the quick reply. Will leaving it plugged in keep me topped off at 80% (continually charging to keep it from slightly draining overnight) or will it just cut off once it hits 80 and not charge until I manually turn it back on?

It'll wait awhile and then top up later. So that means it's often above or below the target point, according to others' reports on the forum.

-Crissa

 

[yohst]

Additionally, be aware that you can create charging schedules for every day of the week so that your truck is charged at the most ($$) opportune time.

 

[ABILISK]

Thanks for the quick reply. Will leaving it plugged in keep me topped off at 80% (continually charging to keep it from slightly draining overnight) or will it just cut off once it hits 80 and not charge until I manually turn it back on?

It will turn itself back on. It might take a few %s to notice so you might wake up to a 77-79% but it shouldn’t be lower than that. You might also wake up to a 81-83%. It isn’t an exact science and the battery is constantly updating how much charge it thinks it has. Certain times, I’ve taken a short drive (like 3 miles-ish to the local store) and had a higher percentage than when I left.

 

[Luke Warmwater]

I have my charge limit set to 70%. The truck is plugged in at home and has been parked for a few days. The app indicates the charge level is now 64% but at no time does it seem to turn the charger back on to maintain or bring it back to 70%. Not what I expected. Do I have to manually turn charging back on to bring it back up to 70% and why would it not detect the loss of charge and do this automatically? Thanks

 

[arodriguezfeo]

I have my charge limit set to 70%. The truck is plugged in at home and has been parked for a few days. The app indicates the charge level is now 64% but at no time does it seem to turn the charger back on to maintain or bring it back to 70%. Not what I expected. Do I have to manually turn charging back on to bring it back up to 70% and why would it not detect the loss of charge and do this automatically? Thanks

I have the wall connector, and it does appear to add charge when necessary to keep the battery at my set point of 80%. I think wall connector is way to go if you have the option.

 

[Luke Warmwater]

I am using the mobile charger plugged into a NEMA 14-50 outlet. I would think it would be the battery management system on the truck, not the charger, that would decide when to enable charging?

 

[mongo]

I have my charge limit set to 70%. The truck is plugged in at home and has been parked for a few days. The app indicates the charge level is now 64% but at no time does it seem to turn the charger back on to maintain or bring it back to 70%. Not what I expected. Do I have to manually turn charging back on to bring it back up to 70% and why would it not detect the loss of charge and do this automatically? Thanks

The battery is cold. The charge is at 70%, but 6% is unavailable and should show as blue bar sections in the app.
In vehicle display doesn't do white/blue differentiation.
Out status right now at 23F. Charge limit 80%, current SOC 79%, available 74%:

 

[mongo]

I am using the mobile charger plugged into a NEMA 14-50 outlet. I would think it would be the battery management system on the truck, not the charger, that would decide when to enable charging?

Yep, truck has the actual charger and controls everything. Mobile (and Wall) connector are just smarter than average GFCI breakers with higher (29mA ish) trip limits.

 

[Luke Warmwater]

Ah ok I see.

 

[Luke Warmwater]

Thanks for the explanation

 

[mongo]

Ah ok I see.

Before heading out, I turn on cabin climate control which also warms the battery. If I'm feeling especially overkill I also bump up the charge limit a couple percent to kick in the charger.

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