Newbie EV questions

[Kuiper__Belt]

As I “patiently“ wait for my cyberbeast, I figured I might as well ask best practices questions about owning an EV. I also invite other newbies to post their questions here as well if they want.

My first question is should I plug it in every single night when I get home from work charging to 80%-85% or should I wait till I get around 20%-25% before I plug it in?
I hope to make the batteries last as as long as possible. I know that I can charge it to 100% a few times a year if I’m going on a long trip the next morning and it’s best to not get below 10% if possible. But wasn’t sure about daily charging.

Sponsored

 

[Sjohnson20]

I just plug when I get low maybe down to 20%. I just do it when I need to. I wouldn’t worry too much.

 

[Crissa]

This is entirely up to you!

With my Zero, I only plug in if I'm going somewhere tomorrow and need enough charge to either go fast enough or get back. Or if I don't have enough power to get to town ...just in case I need to. But it only contains about 80 miles of range altogether. I still basically only charge it once a week.

With a long range EV like a Tesla... Well, you can set it to charge up to 80% (I think that's default) every night and not see any battery degradation.

Also! You can set it to only change at certain hours (in case you have time-of-use electricity costs like I do) even if you do plug it in.

Lastly, you can set a departure time, and your Tesla can set itself to be all 100% just at the moment you're ready to go. It can also pre-heat and defrost (or cool) the cabin to be ready for you.

So it's entirely up to what you're comfortable with. A Tesla has enough range to be very flexible.

...Now if you're on a road vacation, or have a short-range EV, the decision matrix inverts. Always Be Charging is the mantra: Basically, if you can charge where you're at, or you can choose your stops - stop where you can charge. That way charging happens while you're off doing your things, and you don't have to worry about specific charging stops later ^-^

-Crissa

 

[Stuck4ger]

If I’m not going to the office (free charging there) then it’s plugged in whenever it’s at home with a limit set to 80%. It’s always ready to go and if I am leaving on a big trip then I’ll set it 100% the night before. There’s no reason to overthink it and it’s very liberating to never worry about charging it for daily driving.

 

[Kuiper__Belt]

This is entirely up to you!

With my Zero, I only plug in if I'm going somewhere tomorrow and need enough charge to either go fast enough or get back. Or if I don't have enough power to get to town ...just in case I need to. But it only contains about 80 miles of range altogether. I still basically only charge it once a week.

With a long range EV like a Tesla... Well, you can set it to charge up to 80% (I think that's default) every night and not see any battery degradation.

Also! You can set it to only change at certain hours (in case you have time-of-use electricity costs like I do) even if you do plug it in.

Lastly, you can set a departure time, and your Tesla can set itself to be all 100% just at the moment you're ready to go. It can also pre-heat and defrost (or cool) the cabin to be ready for you.

So it's entirely up to what you're comfortable with. A Tesla has enough range to be very flexible.

...Now if you're on a road vacation, or have a short-range EV, the decision matrix inverts. Always Be Charging is the mantra: Basically, if you can charge where you're at, or you can choose your stops - stop where you can charge. That way charging happens while you're off doing your things, and you don't have to worry about specific charging stops later ^-^

-Crissa

@Crissa thank you so much for the detailed information! That's awesome! I'm supper excited to learn all about owning an EV and to ,hopefully, convince my family to not believe everything they see on the internet and mainstream media about EVs. Wish me luck! I asked my step dad if he would take me to pick up my truck whenever it comes in b/c I'm secretly going to make him to test-drive a model Y lol. I know once he does he's going to want to get one. He seemed intrigued by it when I showed him pictures and the new price.

Again thank you and everyone in this community that takes time out of their day to educate and help us noobs out! I love that I have become a part of this community, sorta... I still need my CT to be a full member!

 

[Kuiper__Belt]

This is entirely up to you!

With my Zero, I only plug in if I'm going somewhere tomorrow and need enough charge to either go fast enough or get back. Or if I don't have enough power to get to town ...just in case I need to. But it only contains about 80 miles of range altogether. I still basically only charge it once a week.

With a long range EV like a Tesla... Well, you can set it to charge up to 80% (I think that's default) every night and not see any battery degradation.

Also! You can set it to only change at certain hours (in case you have time-of-use electricity costs like I do) even if you do plug it in.

Lastly, you can set a departure time, and your Tesla can set itself to be all 100% just at the moment you're ready to go. It can also pre-heat and defrost (or cool) the cabin to be ready for you.

So it's entirely up to what you're comfortable with. A Tesla has enough range to be very flexible.

...Now if you're on a road vacation, or have a short-range EV, the decision matrix inverts. Always Be Charging is the mantra: Basically, if you can charge where you're at, or you can choose your stops - stop where you can charge. That way charging happens while you're off doing your things, and you don't have to worry about specific charging stops later ^-^

-Crissa

@Crissa PS i had to google the Zero. I'm guessing its the Ark Zero? that's pretty sweet! looks like a fun car to zip around in and I'm seeing its around $8k! That's insane! you have to share pictures!

 

[Crissa]

@Crissa PS i had to google the Zero. I'm guessing its the Ark Zero? that's pretty sweet! looks like a fun car to zip around in and I'm seeing its around $8k! That's insane! you have to share pictures!

Zero Motorcycle, made in Scotts Valley, California.

-Crissa

 

[Kuiper__Belt]

Zero Motorcycle, made in Scotts Valley, California.

-Crissa

Oooohhh lol now i know why that sounds familiar! I was wondering how you imported the "Ark Zero" lol

That looks even more fun!

 

[Kuiper__Belt]

Well I just checked my vin for the first time today... No dice... Now I wait till Friday.

 

[Crissa]

Oooohhh lol now i know why that sounds familiar! I was wondering how you imported the "Ark Zero" lol

That looks even more fun!

Well, quadricycles are easier to import, since they're not cars in the US. But you can't really use them hardly anywhere.

But yeah! I've had it for almost five years, and it turns eleven soon, too. It's really cool to be able to show people that EVs aren't just short-term purchases ^-^

Well I just checked my vin for the first time today... No dice... Now I wait till Friday.

Well, they're making Cyberbeasts alot slower than the AWDs, for reasons we don't know.

Some have waited four months! But they were also told in advance it would be maybe six so... Keep heart!

-Crissa

 

[AlmostHuman]

Have a 2020 Model X Performance with 54,000 miles on it. Primarily charge at home though we have taken a number of road trips, one 6,000 miles with the second longest over 4,000 miles. Both of those we used Superchargers, often charging to 90+%. When we don't have a longer trip planned it often sits in the garage around 60% always connected to the Wall Connector. No reason to not have it plugged in, it allows you to do things like start a charge from your app, precondition the cabin without using battery, and set a schedule charge for the next day if you have a big trip planned but you already got in bed for the night and just don't feel like going to the garage the lowest state of charge you can set is 50%, so if you want to keep it lower you have to leave it unplugged or plug it in and then stop the charge session. It will sit plugged in after that at whatever the current state of charge is until you start it again or the schedule time hits, if that is set.

Personally I only charge up to 90%+ if we are going to take a trip. In our X it shows that 90% is for daily driving however I feel like 80% is better for the battery health long term. I'd say the % you keep it at on the daily really depends on your normal usage, like others have said. If you can get away with keeping it at 60-70% without stressing about your daily commute it could help long term with battery health. I did read somewhere at one point that it is good to do a full change run it down to below 20% around once a year. Helps the BMS get a better understanding of the battery health. I'm not sure how much truth is in that but it is something that stuck in my head and I try to do once a year.

When we do have a multi-day trip planned I will schedule it to change up to 100% and time it so it is completed within 10-30 minutes of when we want to leave so it is not sitting at 100% for long. That may be over kill but in my head I don't want it sitting at 100% over night, don't see the point.

There have been a number of studies at this point that show Supercharging does not degrade the battery as much as once thought. So in that regard I wouldn't worry at all about using DC fast charging when you need it.

Running TeslaMate I am able to see battery health on the X. Showing a loss of 9.3% with all of our usage over the lifetime of the ride. Around 25,000 miles I just stopped worrying about the battery degradation and simply charged up more when we needed to use it.

Have a reservation for the range extender. After that gets install the Cybertruck will rarely get changed up past 50% for what I need daily.

Overall I wouldn't stress much about it. Enjoy the truck when you get it, keep it plugged when you can!

 

[Sirfun]

This is entirely up to you!

With my Zero, I only plug in if I'm going somewhere tomorrow and need enough charge to either go fast enough or get back. Or if I don't have enough power to get to town ...just in case I need to. But it only contains about 80 miles of range altogether. I still basically only charge it once a week.

With a long range EV like a Tesla... Well, you can set it to charge up to 80% (I think that's default) every night and not see any battery degradation.

Also! You can set it to only change at certain hours (in case you have time-of-use electricity costs like I do) even if you do plug it in.

Lastly, you can set a departure time, and your Tesla can set itself to be all 100% just at the moment you're ready to go. It can also pre-heat and defrost (or cool) the cabin to be ready for you.

So it's entirely up to what you're comfortable with. A Tesla has enough range to be very flexible.

...Now if you're on a road vacation, or have a short-range EV, the decision matrix inverts. Always Be Charging is the mantra: Basically, if you can charge where you're at, or you can choose your stops - stop where you can charge. That way charging happens while you're off doing your things, and you don't have to worry about specific charging stops later ^-^

-Crissa

I'm not on this forum much anymore, because I decided to not buy a Cybertruck, and bought a Model Y Long Range in January. Anyway, this is a very good explanation by Crissa. I am retired and don't drive much daily, however I park on my driveway and leave Sentry mode on, and have the car set to not allow itself to get over 100 degrees. So the average loss per day is about 4% of the battery. I have my charger cable under the garage door and left hanging over my gate so whenever I come home I just plug it in and have the car set to start charging after hours, when the rates go down. Since I don't drive much daily, I just have it charge to 55%, which shows 180 miles of range in the morning. In the last 2 months, I've only charged beyond that to 100% 2 times for planned roadtrips that were under 250 miles each and haven't had to supercharge any. So, basically my battery stays between 30%-55% daily, which is what the batteries really like. It's super easy for me, it takes about 5 seconds to plug and unplug the car, and never have to think about charging. In June, I'm planning to take a longer trip up to Monterey to watch the IndyCar race at Laguna Seca. Then I'll have to do a couple of supercharge stops. But love my Tesla. Maybe in a couple of years when the Cybertruck Hoopla settles down, with the prices back down, I'll get mine.

 

[mbrockus]

I have been daily charging since 2017 with the various Tesla's I've owned. Doesn't make my process the only right way but that's what I do. I've never worried about my battery going bad. I can argue that any side trips or errands I have to do before going home from work are just a go do it and not have to consider battery status. Congrats on your upcoming delivery.. Hope it's soon.

 

[fhteagle]

I hope to make the batteries last as as long as possible.

There's 3 parts to optimizing this:

- BMS calibration + cell balancing: it does help the BMS to do it's job well to see high and low SOC with no loads on the car (sentry mode, climate, etc off) for an hour or two every once in awhile. I try to get it above 91% or below 20% and leave the car sit for 1-3 hours 4-6 times a year. In the case of the high SOC side of that procedure, I do this right before I'm about to leave on a long enough drive to get it back down to the 50-60% range that same day.

- Cycle life: the smaller the cycles, the less wear on the batteries. This means plug in as often as you can. A big cycle every once in awhile isn't a big deal though, so don't feel like you have to find a supercharger for every 10% drive, but doing smaller cycles daily is better than bigger cycles weekly.

- Calendar aging: increases with time x SOC x heat. Therefore, "store" (yes parking overnight is a form of storage in this case) your car as low of an SOC as you can and still have a reserve for an unexpected drive, and/or set up automated or scheduled charging to complete right before you leave. This also has a bonus in cold climates where the heat of charging decreases the amount of preconditioning heating that has to be done before leaving.

There's a huge thread over on Tesla Motors Club where a user named AAKEE has scraped a pile of research into one thread. Look up videos interviewing Jeff Dahn too of you want to nerd out more.

 

[Speedr]

Had my previous Model S (2017) for 6+ years with almost 60,000 miles on it, always charged it to 80% every night, and only lost 3% of range over all that time. In other words, there's no penalty for charging to 80% everyday!!

Waking up everyday with a "full tank" and having the piece of mind of always having more than enough range is priceless!

Sponsored