MoDolph
Established Member
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2021
- Messages
- 432
- Reaction score
- 768
- Points
- 206
- Location
- Warrington
- Driving
- MG4 Trophy LR
People always seem to go a bit overboard on both sides of the debate, either worrying too much, or feeling under attack for simply wanting to charge how they like.
Manufacturers don't help by giving conflicting advice. However, they do have to strike a balance between telling the truth and making the cars appear rubbish to the average person. You only have to look at how people view NMC as being worse than LFP because it is recommended to charge to 80% even though it still has at least the same range as LFP at 100% thanks to it's superior density, you then have 20% extra when you need it. Imagine if they said to try and keep it around 50% instead, the Daily Mail would be full of headlines saying if you charge your car above 50% it'll die after a year.
After owning a LEAF that degraded over 8 years from 100% to 78% I can tell you that it sucks. Yes it's different going from 80 miles to 60 miles than 250 to 200 but I think the feeling that the car is constantly getting worse will be similar. It was the same feeling as seeing stone chips or supermarket dings gradually ruining the cars appearance. More modern batteries should be better but I still think 85% after 10 years is likely. Since I'm planning on keeping the car for 10 years+ I want to do everything I can to reduce the degradation but not at the expense of convenience.
I have free charging at work so I try not to charge at the weekend. I like to keep at least 40% in the car as that is how much I might need to reach family in an emergency. We do ~5 miles a day with regular 60 mile trips at the weekend. My routine is to charge on a Monday to 50%, run it down to 45% and charge on Wednesday back to 50%. On a Friday I will charge to 60% unless I know we are planning a big trip in which case I will charge to whatever we need. Repeat.
The aim is to keep the average SOC as close to 50% as possible and try to keep the depth of discharge as small as possible centred around 50%. So 60%-40%, 70%-30% etc.
Here is my charge log for May:
How much difference will it make? I don't know but it is the best I can do. It'll be interesting in a few years to see if there is any difference between cars treated differently, I don't think it will be very large it's just my personality to try to min max everything.
Manufacturers don't help by giving conflicting advice. However, they do have to strike a balance between telling the truth and making the cars appear rubbish to the average person. You only have to look at how people view NMC as being worse than LFP because it is recommended to charge to 80% even though it still has at least the same range as LFP at 100% thanks to it's superior density, you then have 20% extra when you need it. Imagine if they said to try and keep it around 50% instead, the Daily Mail would be full of headlines saying if you charge your car above 50% it'll die after a year.
After owning a LEAF that degraded over 8 years from 100% to 78% I can tell you that it sucks. Yes it's different going from 80 miles to 60 miles than 250 to 200 but I think the feeling that the car is constantly getting worse will be similar. It was the same feeling as seeing stone chips or supermarket dings gradually ruining the cars appearance. More modern batteries should be better but I still think 85% after 10 years is likely. Since I'm planning on keeping the car for 10 years+ I want to do everything I can to reduce the degradation but not at the expense of convenience.
I have free charging at work so I try not to charge at the weekend. I like to keep at least 40% in the car as that is how much I might need to reach family in an emergency. We do ~5 miles a day with regular 60 mile trips at the weekend. My routine is to charge on a Monday to 50%, run it down to 45% and charge on Wednesday back to 50%. On a Friday I will charge to 60% unless I know we are planning a big trip in which case I will charge to whatever we need. Repeat.
The aim is to keep the average SOC as close to 50% as possible and try to keep the depth of discharge as small as possible centred around 50%. So 60%-40%, 70%-30% etc.
Here is my charge log for May:
How much difference will it make? I don't know but it is the best I can do. It'll be interesting in a few years to see if there is any difference between cars treated differently, I don't think it will be very large it's just my personality to try to min max everything.
