Aftermarket charge to 80%, opinions wanted!

[DaveinOlyWA]

TBH; Having 80% on the 24 kwh was understandable but was more needed on the 30 kwh. But 40 kwh and up? Need custom charge settings. I wouldn't do 80% setting. I can do better manually. Need AT LEAST 2 other settings. How about 65%? That would still be well more than double what I would normally.

[Titanium48]

If a single fuel bar can be illuminated or flashed as an indicator, it might make sense to have 100%, 92%, 83%, 75% and 67% charge settings that could be toggled through.

[LeftieBiker]

If a single fuel bar can be illuminated or flashed as an indicator, it might make sense to have 100%, 92%, 83%, 75% and 67% charge settings that could be toggled through.

That would work, although replacing 67% with ~60% would be desirable.

[Titanium48]

Or you could just use the next bar down for a 58% setting. I'm not sure why you would want to charge a car that gets used regularly to less than 2/3 though. You are significantly reducing your margin for unexpected trips, and there isn't much additional improvement to battery life to be made, is there?

[LeftieBiker]

Or you could just use the next bar down for a 58% setting. I'm not sure why you would want to charge a car that gets used regularly to less than 2/3 though. You are significantly reducing your margin for unexpected trips, and there isn't much additional improvement to battery life to be made, is there?

Lithium batteries are happier in the middle SOC range than the upper. I typically charge my 40kwh Leaf to 60-80%, but don't recharge again until it's below 50%. 70 miles of range available is what I had with my previous Leaf at 100% charge.

[DaveinOlyWA]

Or you could just use the next bar down for a 58% setting. I'm not sure why you would want to charge a car that gets used regularly to less than 2/3 though. You are significantly reducing your margin for unexpected trips, and there isn't much additional improvement to battery life to be made, is there?

Actually VERY shallow cycling does prove to work better. The vaunted Prius pack was diff chemistry but mechanics are similar. That pack cycled from 40 to 80% as much as several dozen times a day.

Li voltage is different so it prefers 50%. So 40-60% is good. I tend to run between 25 to 70%. Is it limiting? I don't really see that. The range covers my entire commute for my 4 day work week. Roughly 110 miles. In fact, I just did this this week, starting at 71% and ending at 22% during colder than normal weather so I even used heat. It worked. For the most part, I am only QCing twice a week.

Now it will change when my free charging runs out but not dramatically so. I plan to likely charge to around 65% for the start of the work week then plug in for 85 minutes every morning. I should end the week around 40%.

This allows plenty of cushion for random side trips if needed. I look at the 25% lower end of my SOC range as all buffer. That's another 65-70 miles added to whatever my SOC happens to be. For longer trips than that, they would be known in advance.

Having looked at unexpected trips I have done and there are several but in town stuff. Picking up kid from school, etc. Small stuff. Seatac is the only destination that comes to mind having had to pick someone up last minute twice this past Summer but they now have DCFC in the cellphone lot so I only need the 52 miles of range it takes to get there. I am more than covered.

[Titanium48]

I can see how the lower settings could be more useful on the 40 and 62 kWh cars. I couldn't see using anything below about 75% on a 24 or 30 kWh car though, unless I wasn't going to be driving it for a week or more.

[DaveinOlyWA]

I can see how the lower settings could be more useful on the 40 and 62 kWh cars. I couldn't see using anything below about 75% on a 24 or 30 kWh car though, unless I wasn't going to be driving it for a week or more.

Well, I guess you just justified something.

[Titanium48]

I suppose if implementing multiple charge level settings and clear indications is not significantly more difficult than just an 80% setting it would make sense to have settings down to 50%.

[Dala]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback! And yeah, this is mainly for the 30/40/62kWh upgrades, that you really want to protect your battery after investing in a costly battery upgrade. This should be especially beneficial for the 40kWh pack that charges to 4.20V per cell, which is quite high SOC (compared to 4.13V on 24kWh packs).

For the initial version, I'll add 4 different charge settings, (75, 84, 92, 100). I personally feel that if you go lower than this you'll risk limiting your use of the car.

I'll try to use the cruise control cancel button, and this menu is accessed by holding it for longer than 1second. Then depending on how long you hold the button, you'll set the max charge %.
I'll use the capacity bars to temporarily show the max charging %, I'll post a video when I have it working.

Thanks for all the feedback and great ideas!