Top up battery daily?

[Kipp]

I drive roughly twenty miles round trip to work daily. My question is should I charge once every two weeks or top the battery back up to 80% every eveNing when I get home? I’ve searched the net, and opinions are all over the place on this it seems. I would prefer to plug it in nightly to condition battery and have cabin cooled when I get in the following morning. Is nightly charging detrimental to the battery and its longevity? Thanks in advance for your insights.

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[Grease Lightning]

I drive roughly twenty miles round trip to work daily. My question is should I charge once every two weeks or top the battery back up to 80% every eveNing when I get home? I’ve searched the net, and opinions are all over the place on this it seems. I would prefer to plug it in nightly to condition battery and have cabin cooled when I get in the following morning. Is nightly charging detrimental to the battery and its longevity? Thanks in advance for your insights.

Charge nightly, or most nightly. You never know when you need the battery in an emergencies and deeper charges “hurt” the battery more than shorter charge sessions, in theory.

 

[tnugentfl]

Charge to 70% daily, the HV pack will last a very long time.

 

[Grumpy2]

Some organizations talk about energy throughput rather than battery max cycles. Here are two plots supporting the statement above, shallower cycles centered on 50% is ideal, but may not work for everyone. Note how soon impact of those 100-25% cycles can be documented. Other plots can be found showing higher temperatures and/or higher current charging creates plots with quicker degradation.

 

[SteuLight]

So according to the graph above, if I start my car at 100% each day, drive it until I'm at 25% battery, and then recharge it back up to 100% overnight (i.e., one cycle each day), then after 10 years, my battery health will be at 80%.

Given that would be about 200 miles a day, during that same period I will have driven over 700,000 miles. I don't think battery health will be my biggest concern.

 

[tnugentfl]

So according to the graph above, if I start my car at 100% each day, drive it until I'm at 25% battery, and then recharge it back up to 100% overnight (i.e., one cycle each day), then after 10 years, my battery health will be at 80%.

Given that would be about 200 miles a day, during that same period I will have driven over 700,000 miles. I don't think battery health will be my biggest concern.

All of the battery experts are clear. A lower SOC and short frequent, lower speed charging is best for pack longevity, by a mile.

 

[SteuLight]

All of the battery experts are clear. A lower SOC and short frequent, lower speed charging is best for pack longevity, by a mile.

Oh, I agree, and I charge my truck accordingly.

I just think that we often worry so much about battery health, when in the end it probably won't matter that much. I could be wrong though!

 

[Ffxdude]

I drive roughly twenty miles round trip to work daily. My question is should I charge once every two weeks or top the battery back up to 80% every eveNing when I get home? I’ve searched the net, and opinions are all over the place on this it seems. I would prefer to plug it in nightly to condition battery and have cabin cooled when I get in the following morning. Is nightly charging detrimental to the battery and its longevity? Thanks in advance for your insights.

My daily use is about 45-50 mi round trip. I set the charge to 80% and plug in anytime I’m home and the truck is not in use. I subscribe to the ABC model - always be charging, to have the frequent but small charges.

 

[Daragh]

I keep mine between 50-70% which equates to me charging every second or third day on average. I really wish Ford would implement hysteretic charging in the app, this is where you set a lower and an upper charge threshold, the truck won't charge unless you hit the lower threshold and will keep charging until you hit the upper threshold.

Right now I do this manually, once my truck charges to 70% I go into the app and change charge level back to 50%, this way I can still plug my truck in to the charger and have preconditioning and cabin cooling available when plugged in. Once I see it down near or below 50% I go back into the app and change the charge level to 70%, easily done, but software can easily do this in a heartbeat!

Doing smaller charge periods at lower charge levels is best for the battery. but there is a reason Ford guarantees the battery to be greater than 80% after 100,000 or 8 years because the reality is they except very few if any batteries to be near this level, so do what makes you feel most comfortable, outliers aside I don't believe the battery degradation should be a concern for anybody.

 

[Grumpy2]

Ford guarantees the battery to be greater than 80% after 100,000 or 8 years

Ford has a less than 70% limit, in tests the common End of Life is 80%.

 

[JRT]

If you want the cool cabin and comfort you paid for, charge it daily. This is an endless debate and as noted above probably won't be the biggest issue long term with these trucks. If you really want to feel ok, then set 80% as charge limit in the app.

 

[Zprime29]

We have a local battery expert on the forums, who agrees with the battery experts at the universities. Charge as often as you can, as minimally as you can. I bumped my max from 85% to 70% and charge every day. Part of the reason I bumped it down is also due to the hot weather, being closer to 50% SOC while parked in the sun at work I'm hoping will help, if even a little. I charge to a higher SOC during monsoon though, so I have more reserve in case of outages.

 

[invertedspear]

So according to the graph above, if I start my car at 100% each day, drive it until I'm at 25% battery, and then recharge it back up to 100% overnight (i.e., one cycle each day), then after 10 years, my battery health will be at 80%.

This is not one cycle each day. This is .75 cycles. A cycle is a measurements of the times you've charged and discharged the equivalent of the max capacity of the battery. So, 0-100 = one cycle but so does 30-80 twice count as a single cycle.

 

[Grease Lightning]

I really wish Ford would implement hysteretic charging in the app,

I prescribe to the ABC concept but to your wish, I which Ford would amend the departure settings to also control the SOC needed.

For me I would love to have the ability to set a schedule for S-W that allowed me to keep my lower SOC that is all I really need (70% display) during the week then on Wednesday and Thursday nights I could have it schedule to approach 85-90% for weekend adventures during the summer.

That would be a true wet dream

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