A 'can of gas' in the bed of the CT (or the kW equivalent)...

[FlykidCT]

Man, thats good news! I was told that charging to 100% was actually bad for the battery life overall. I have solar panels on my house, so I pretty much can charg for free, so why wouldn't I keep it at 100% if I want to? thanks again!

Because it DOES degrade the battery quickly.

The point of the referenced post is - on long road trips leaving home or superchargers when you have lots of extra time and need the added range it’s fine to charge to 100 occasionally but start driving it right away.

I’ve done a tone of road trips in Model 3 and CT and here’s what a do different in prep different from my daily drive setting….. nothing.. ok maybe one thing .. I change the charge level so I get to my first planned charge stop at 5%.

There has only been one time I’ve only thought about charging to 100. Long drive into a national forest about 110 miles away from the closest charger of any kind. I went backpacking for a week and had to drive out of there with enough juice to get to the same supercharger…

Even then I charged to 92 or so and just left. Round trip trailhead and back I had like 25 or so estimated arrival on the way out- no problem.

Bottom line- unless you have LFP battery .. and you don’t in CT… sitting at 100 for hours WILL degrade your battery prematurely especially over and over and over.

You do you though

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[CyberGus]

Man, thats good news! I was told that charging to 100% was actually bad for the battery life overall. I have solar panels on my house, so I pretty much can charg for free, so why wouldn't I keep it at 100% if I want to? thanks again!

You will receive lots of conflicting and unsolicited advice on charging habits lol. Here's my attempt:

1. The software will protect the battery, you'd need to try very hard to trigger a warranty replacement.
2. Tesla recommends up to 80% charge for everyday use, go higher when needed for long trips. Going to 100% is fine, but minimize the amount of time there.
3. Tesla recommends daily charging, since frequent small charges are better than big ones.

 

[Kyril]

Because it DOES degrade the battery quickly.

The point of the referenced post is - on long road trips leaving home or superchargers when you have lots of extra time and need the added range it’s fine to charge to 100 occasionally but start driving it right away.

I’ve done a tone of road trips in Model 3 and CT and here’s what a do different in prep different from my daily drive setting….. nothing.. ok maybe one thing .. I change the charge level so I get to my first planned charge stop at 5%.

There has only been one time I’ve only thought about charging to 100. Long drive into a national forest about 110 miles away from the closest charger of any kind. I went backpacking for a week and had to drive out of there with enough juice to get to the same supercharger…

Even then I charged to 92 or so and just left. Round trip trailhead and back I had like 25 or so estimated arrival on the way out- no problem.

Bottom line- unless you have LFP battery .. and you don’t in CT… sitting at 100 for hours WILL degrade your battery prematurely especially over and over and over.

You do you though

Thank you very much FlykidCT. If you have read thru the many replies to my question, you will see how VERY different the responses have been. I'm sure each one is heartfelt and from personal experience, but wow... what's a newbie to take away from all that? I will error on the side of the cautions you have listed. Thanks again.

 

[Kyril]

You will receive lots of conflicting and unsolicited advice on charging habits lol. Here's my attempt:

1. The software will protect the battery, you'd need to try very hard to trigger a warranty replacement.
2. Tesla recommends up to 80% charge for everyday use, go higher when needed for long trips. Going to 100% is fine, but minimize the amount of time there.
3. Tesla recommends daily charging, since frequent small charges are better than big ones.

Man are you right about all the conflicting advice!!! Yours seem very reasonable tho, so thank you very much.

I’ve done a lot of cross country driving and seen the boomer at charging station phenomenon and you’re not alone ? and it’s not just boomers. I once saw a gen Z guy in a Harvard sweatshirt (and his wife or gf) with a rental EV very cluelessly trying to figure out whether to charge at a level 2 or level 3, downloading the app etc.

You’re better off seeking advice here before you head out into the wild blue yonder of charging but luckily with Tesla it’s pretty straightforward. You punch in your destination and get told what your arrival range will be and where and how long you need to charge along the way . No need to worry about charging above 80% as the main issue is optimizing for charge time and you will very rarely want to go above 80 because it is super slow once you hit about 70%. They call this the charge curve and when you’re out on the road you want to be charging from below 20% to about 70ish to optimize your time spent charging. Too much time charging above 70 will just lead to wasted time unless you aren’t in a hurry.

The navigation is pretty bad at optimizing and if you’re savvy you can skip a charge or get the timing down better. This is certainly not for amateurs ? but once you have a sense of the numbers game with EVs you’ll probably want to play around to save yourself time and maybe push the limits a bit. It’s totally different compared to gas because you can reliably go to less than 10 miles of range and not have the vehicle crap out unexpectedly.

in general the method I use to manually estimate range is (SOC expressed as percentage ie 0.50 x 123 (bat size) to get kWh remaining and then multiply that by some estimated efficiency (like 2.1 mi/kwh) to get my projected range. This works well if you know the route and your efficiency along the route which apps like Tessie and TezLab are useful for cataloging. I can then compare that to the distance to where I need to go to get a sense of whether it’s worth the risk to force the system to a different set of charging stops.

For longer trips I might charge to 97% (basically never to 100 since Tesla has no buffer that I know of) by the time I need to leave. Other manufacturers prevent you from charging to the actual 100% to prevent the damage that can occur when you leave the vehicle at a high state of charge. You can optimize for this by scheduling the charge to start at a certain time and also avoiding high state of charge on hot (>85+ F)) days.

Another key tool is the energy app in the vehicle. Taking a look at this during a drive will give you a sense of how the wind, weather, elevation, or driving style are affecting your projected range and you can see the live projection for your next destination.

Carrying around backup energy is pretty futile because charging from a portable battery is generally slow (>30 min or more if it’s a 120 V plug) and you get very little range. Lugging around 50 lb of energy that would only get you maybe 6 miles down the road generally isn’t worth the space that it takes up and the high cost unless you’re already using it for your camp setup or whatever. In general you’d be better off calling a tow truck. I have a few of these generators for camping with my gas off roaders and even if I had one I’m not sure it would help me get to the next charger faster than calling AAA.

Be sure to also check with the plugshare app as there are “bad” superchargers and when taking longer trips you may need to look ahead to avoid certain stations if they are slow, busy, broken, etc. There are also routes where superchargers do not exist so it helps to compare routes with a mapping app so you realize when the optimal route requires either an adapter or some added planning.

Thanks so much for the detailed help and advice!

 

[Kyril]

I’ve done a lot of cross country driving and seen the boomer at charging station phenomenon and you’re not alone ? and it’s not just boomers. I once saw a gen Z guy in a Harvard sweatshirt (and his wife or gf) with a rental EV very cluelessly trying to figure out whether to charge at a level 2 or level 3, downloading the app etc.

You’re better off seeking advice here before you head out into the wild blue yonder of charging but luckily with Tesla it’s pretty straightforward. You punch in your destination and get told what your arrival range will be and where and how long you need to charge along the way . No need to worry about charging above 80% as the main issue is optimizing for charge time and you will very rarely want to go above 80 because it is super slow once you hit about 70%. They call this the charge curve and when you’re out on the road you want to be charging from below 20% to about 70ish to optimize your time spent charging. Too much time charging above 70 will just lead to wasted time unless you aren’t in a hurry.

The navigation is pretty bad at optimizing and if you’re savvy you can skip a charge or get the timing down better. This is certainly not for amateurs ? but once you have a sense of the numbers game with EVs you’ll probably want to play around to save yourself time and maybe push the limits a bit. It’s totally different compared to gas because you can reliably go to less than 10 miles of range and not have the vehicle crap out unexpectedly.

in general the method I use to manually estimate range is (SOC expressed as percentage ie 0.50 x 123 (bat size) to get kWh remaining and then multiply that by some estimated efficiency (like 2.1 mi/kwh) to get my projected range. This works well if you know the route and your efficiency along the route which apps like Tessie and TezLab are useful for cataloging. I can then compare that to the distance to where I need to go to get a sense of whether it’s worth the risk to force the system to a different set of charging stops.

For longer trips I might charge to 97% (basically never to 100 since Tesla has no buffer that I know of) by the time I need to leave. Other manufacturers prevent you from charging to the actual 100% to prevent the damage that can occur when you leave the vehicle at a high state of charge. You can optimize for this by scheduling the charge to start at a certain time and also avoiding high state of charge on hot (>85+ F)) days.

Another key tool is the energy app in the vehicle. Taking a look at this during a drive will give you a sense of how the wind, weather, elevation, or driving style are affecting your projected range and you can see the live projection for your next destination.

Carrying around backup energy is pretty futile because charging from a portable battery is generally slow (>30 min or more if it’s a 120 V plug) and you get very little range. Lugging around 50 lb of energy that would only get you maybe 6 miles down the road generally isn’t worth the space that it takes up and the high cost unless you’re already using it for your camp setup or whatever. In general you’d be better off calling a tow truck. I have a few of these generators for camping with my gas off roaders and even if I had one I’m not sure it would help me get to the next charger faster than calling AAA.

Be sure to also check with the plugshare app as there are “bad” superchargers and when taking longer trips you may need to look ahead to avoid certain stations if they are slow, busy, broken, etc. There are also routes where superchargers do not exist so it helps to compare routes with a mapping app so you realize when the optimal route requires either an adapter or some added planning.

THANK YOU CARDAD!

 

[Sirfun]

Kyril, you have lots of good questions. I don't spend much time on this forum anymore because instead of paying double what I was told the price of my Cybertruck would be. I purchased a Model Y, last January. I had lots of questions and interest in charging and batteries also. By far, this video was the most helpful I've found.

 

[Kyril]

Kyril, you have lots of good questions. I don't spend much time on this forum anymore because instead of paying double what I was told the price of my Cybertruck would be. I purchased a Model Y, last January. I had lots of questions and interest in charging and batteries also. By far, this video was the most helpful I've found.

Thanks VERY MUCH!

 

[Crissa]

I don't see that it's covered, but an Ecoflow does have an adapter for Level 2 EV charging (although I don't have it), it cannot charge from a Supercharger.

Great for adding a few watts while you're camping, but... Unless you're carrying the solar panels, it only really helps if you've completely shut down the truck (no Sentry, thermal off, cap mode off, etc).

Lotsa good advice in this thread already.

-Crissa

PS:

Because it DOES degrade the battery quickly.

This is not true.

You'd have to basically charge to 100% end to end without cooling, in the heat of the Phoenix summer to see any practical difference.

 

[Kyril]

I don't see that it's covered, but an Ecoflow does have an adapter for Level 2 EV charging (although I don't have it), it cannot charge from a Supercharger.

Great for adding a few watts while you're camping, but... Unless you're carrying the solar panels, it only really helps if you've completely shut down the truck (no Sentry, thermal off, cap mode off, etc).

Lotsa good advice in this thread already.

-Crissa

PS:

This is not true.

You'd have to basically charge to 100% end to end without cooling, in the heat of the Phoenix summer to see any practical difference.

Ok... just to be sure, I think your saying that charging to 100% isn't bad for the battery as FlykidCT said?

 

[Crissa]

Ok... just to be sure, I think your saying that charging to 100% isn't bad for the battery as FlykidCT said?

Yeah. Unless you're operating under extreme temperatures, or are running like a taxicab, you're not going to see the difference a few extra charges to 100% make.

The degradation is mostly from sitting around at 100%. Time and temperature are the bigger threats.

Cars that are only charged at Superchargers but drive normal amount of miles don't see extra degradation. And that would at least 60 100% charges in a year... That's more than once a week.

As long as you're not doing it every day, it's not a big deal.

-Crissa

 

[Kyril]

Wow Crissa! Thanks for this. If you read the whole thread you would see how people have been all over the board on this. This subject seems like it would be one of the most basic and IMPORTANT topics for EV drivers to understand. But this thread proves there seems to be no 'gold standard' to go by??? Could you send a link(s) to where your info is found so I can do some more study? By the way, I live in Montana and its freezing weather here now, so based on what you said I shouldnt hesitate to go to 100 on a regular basis.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, all of these 'rules' apply differently to different chemistries, and many of the studies on cells are older, or older chemistries compared to what's going into cars. Tesla usually uses NCA but they've used others... and are always shifting them as technology moves along and factories catch up.

I follow several channels and communities, but I'd suggest

https://www.youtube.com/@transportevolved

They have videos on lots of EV topics.

Tesla's advice to set a top number like 80% is good to keep from over exercising the battery - but you have to remember the difference in scale between doing something 60 times a year and 300 times a year is actually kinda big..

-Crissa

 

[igs]

Man, thats good news! I was told that charging to 100% was actually bad for the battery life overall. I have solar panels on my house, so I pretty much can charg for free, so why wouldn't I keep it at 100% if I want to? thanks again!

Tesla recommends 15% - 50%

 

[JUSTICEQD]

...

You can use this site to help plan your trip around charging.
https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

Second this. I usually keep ABRP running on the phone during my trips as a second to what the car is showing. Not just planning.

 

[YDR37]

I'm trying to 'buy some insurance' in case I don't quite make it to a charging station. Looks like the Eco-Flow may be it? https://www.ecoflow.com/us/delta-pro-3-portable-power-station

Even if I never bought the solar panels, it looks like I can fill one up at a supercharger and take it with me as my emergency 'can of gas'. What say you?

Unfortunately, the energy density of (today's) batteries is nowhere near that of gasoline.

A standard "jerry can" holds 5.3 gallons of gas. It costs $60 at Harbor Freight, plus maybe $15 to fill, so $75 total. A 2024 F-150 with the 3.5L Ecoboost V6 gets around 24 mpg on the highway, so the jerry can provides around 125 miles of additional range. The jerry can takes up very little space in the bed, and no special installation is required, other than maybe a bungee cord or two to hold it in place.

The Cybertruck equivalent to the jerry can is the forthcoming "range extender", which is supposed to provide an additional 145 miles of range. Unfortunately, the RE costs around $16,000, takes up one-third of the bed, and needs to be installed at a service center.

So the "jerry can" option is practical for gas pickups, but not so much for electric pickups (as yet). Better to learn the ins and outs of ABRP and the Supercharger network.

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