Regularly ending charge early

[EricBayArea]

Most weekdays I'm driving the LEAF about 10-20 miles per day. Therefore, I have been setting my charge timer to end at 80% @ 9:30am with an estimated departure of 7:45am. This way when I unplug I have about 8 bars. Since my commute is 5 miles each way plus errands, I figured this will help the battery to not sit at higher SOC levels. I typically recharge when I hit 2 or 3 bars left (counting the red bars).

Any thoughts or issues about this related to battery longevity? (I do not have a GID meter.)

P.S. I still charge to 80% on occasion - mostly weekends or for specific trips. I haven't charged to 100% in over a month.

 

[RegGuheert]

Any thoughts or issues about this related to battery longevity? (I do not have a GID meter.)

It sounds like a good idea to me!

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Eric; guessing you have TOU. i would set it to charge 2 hours a day as much as you think you might need it during the best rate period. guessing you would only need to charge 3-4 days a week.

if you can manage it. i would recommend keeping your SOC between 30-70%. that is what i did 90% for over a year until my driving needs got greater.

sure there were times when i needed a full charge and that was ok and much better than buying gas for the Prius

 

[EricBayArea]

Eric; guessing you have TOU. i would set it to charge 2 hours a day as much as you think you might need it during the best rate period. guessing you would only need to charge 3-4 days a week.

if you can manage it. i would recommend keeping your SOC between 30-70%. that is what i did 90% for over a year until my driving needs got greater.

Yes, I am on TOU. My off-peak (lowest rate) goes until 7:00am and then it is partial peak (medium rate) from 7am-12pm. So I have been seeing 45min or partial peak. I think I may use your idea of charging for 3hrs on days when the SOC is at 3 or 4 bars remaining. This way I don't charge it up too high but I can stay at off-peak rates.

 

[ColumbiaRiverGorge]

Next question, which is better for my battery? QC only 3 k/Wh (cool, 6. temp. Bars) to get home? Or run down to LBW and/or VLBW to get home. QC is currently free.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Most weekdays I'm driving the LEAF about 10-20 miles per day. Therefore, I have been setting my charge timer to end at 80% @ 9:30am with an estimated departure of 7:45am. This way when I unplug I have about 8 bars. Since my commute is 5 miles each way plus errands, I figured this will help the battery to not sit at higher SOC levels. I typically recharge when I hit 2 or 3 bars left (counting the red bars).

Any thoughts or issues about this related to battery longevity? (I do not have a GID meter.)

P.S. I still charge to 80% on occasion - mostly weekends or for specific trips. I haven't charged to 100% in over a month.

I do much the same thing when I need 60-70%: Set the 80% end timer for after I plan to leave that day of the week. The idea is to keep the battery in the middle range.

If I want more than 80% I let the car finish the 80% charge then add 45 minutes or so, using the timer override before I plan to leave.

For short trips I have the other timer set at 80% for 11 AM to 12:30 PM, for the rest of the days of the week, to add about three bars during the middle of the day when the sun is shining on my solar panels. Three bars is about what it takes to make my shortest routine trip.

Since I am the only person who drives the car I always know when and where I plan to take it, so my charging scheme has proved very easy for me to remember. It would be different if it were a multi-user car.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Next question, which is better for my battery? QC only 3 k/Wh (cool, 6. temp. Bars) to get home? Or run down to LBW and/or VLBW to get home. QC is currently free.

good question and i think the key thing is not getting the pack hot. for me; i dont trust QC to be as nice as some portray it to be. its scary to me to see people QC'ing with 9 or 10 TBs because it appears to take forever to dissipate that heat.

there is a reason why the TB intervals get much smaller above 7. they realistically should be yellow instead of white which provides way too much comfort in my mind. because of that; whenever possible (which is most of the time) i never charge above 65% SOC on QC which is ok since its about that point where the rate of charge slows way down.

but despite my dread over possible issues with QC'ing and long term battery health; i feel that this is the hurdle holding EVs back. i have been in a situation where i needed to do 4 QCs in a day because i was unprepared and had several errands to run and was able to do it without spending a lot of time watching the car charge. each session was 8-12 minutes and two of them were during a HUGE time crunch but worked perfectly. had to stop for food anyway (with 5 YO, you eat when he is hungry or risk going insane) so instead of trip thru drive thru, we parked, plugged in, walked in, got food and walked out. unplugged and went.

total time; just over 9 minutes including 8 minutes of charging. the drive thru probably had 3-4 cars in line so that would have been maybe 5 minutes so not a whole lot of difference but really brings home the point that if i can pick up 5-10 minutes of charging at the grocery store or drug store or whatever, i could literally drive all day without any range issues.

total mileage driven that day; 138 which is funny because its not the most i have driven in a day having driven over 150 miles a few times including Monday of this week but was prepared. the day above i woke up with an SOC of less than 40% thinking i was not going more than 30 miles and could grab a enough juice at home to not have to worry about it.

 

[EricBayArea]

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't think it would pose any issues but I wanted to check no less.

Temperatures at night get down to 5 battery bars for me in the summer and 6 during the day. I've never seen a 7, even the one time I QC'ed. Winter time I've seen 3 or 4 bars, so we'll see.