If you want to keep your EV’s battery alive and kicking for hundreds of thousands of miles, there are a few tips and tricks to making that happen. Just like your gas-powered car, you can’t flagrantly ignore the rules of longevity. Storing your EV at 100 percent charge for a lengthy period of time in the middle of the hot summer is the electric equivalent of getting in your gas guzzler on a cold winter morning and flooring the throttle to warm it up. Give your car’s battery pack a little kindness, and it should pay you back by staying strong for years to come. According to Engineering Explained, our fellow mega nerd Jason Fenske, these are the three rules you should follow.
Rule Number One: Don’t store your EV at 100 percent state of charge, and especially don’t do this if the weather is going to be hot. Lithium-ion batteries will lose capacity and degrade over time, that’s just a fact of life. But that capacity loss increases dramatically if you’re storing the battery fully charged for lengthy periods of time, and even worse as the mercury in the thermometer rises. Before you go out of town, make sure to run your EV down to 30 percent or less; it’s just better for it. Like a can of Stabil in your gas tank, I guess.
Rule Number Two: Don’t run your battery all the way out before recharging it, if you can help it. “A bunch of small charges is much better [for the health of your battery] than infrequent full-depth charges,” says Fenske. Keeping your battery in the same 20-percent SOC range every day is much better for the car than waiting to charge from zero to 100 at the end of the week. Try to keep your battery from dipping below 25 percent, if you can. Obviously this isn’t always practical, but it’s a good practice if you can manage it.
Rule Number Three: Don’t routinely charge all the way to 100 percent. For road trips or lengthy travel days where you need the extra charge, topping up your electrons can’t really be avoided. But for daily use, it’s best to keep your battery’s upper limit under 80 percent to make it last as long as possible. That last bit of charging after the battery hits its plateau is creating gas formation inside your battery, which degrades the battery over time.
If you do these things, you’ll have a happy and healthy battery for many, many years to come. Happy driving!