PLEASE NOTE: This information is intended for EV owners who only drive a short distance each day and then plug in each night. The data presented only applies to ternary type lithium batteries (e.g. NMC), not Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFPO). If that isn't your situation then don't waste your time watching or posting irrelevant comments. Also note that a "DST Cycle" referred to in the Battery University study means one discharge and recharge to the levels specified in the test (e.g 75% - 65% SOC). However the industry term "cycle", when used to predict battery life, means one transition from fully charged to fully discharged and back to fully charged. So there would be 10 X 75% - 65% events before one charge "cycle" is clocked against the battery's lifetime cycle count. While the science may seem complex the key message is simple: - You don't need to change your lifestyle or stress about your battery - You can keep driving as you do currently and plugging in each night so your car is always ready at the start of the day - If you simply lower the maximum State of Charge (SOC) from 90% to something more appropriate, like 60% this can enhance the longevity of your battery. This is because the battery spends less time standing with a high SOC. Lastly, I am not telling anyone what they should do, just presenting the science. In the end it's your car and your choice how you charge your EV. Have a great day ! 🙂

I own my model P85 for 10 years already. Not a sign of battery degradation because I never charge above 80 %. When I don't use my car for a while it stays on 50%. Then when I am going for a trip I charge the power I need for this particulary trip. Sometimes I supercharge up to 80% to heat the battery to get a temperature to remove condensation and water out of the battery pack. Corrosion in the electronics also damages it. Still super satisfied with my Tesla after 100.000 miles.

I think the math is a little off here. Since let's say your commute is the 10% you're talking about. If you would do the 100-25% charge, you can drive for 7,5 days before charging (so 7,5*1000/365=20 years), while with the orange line you need to charge daily. So if you look at it that way the light blue and pink are the best modes 5*3000/365=40 years or 3*5000 which is the same. 40 years seems very unrealistic to me, since you will have so degradation over time itself (storage). So all in all I don't think the factory 80-25 is all that bad. Maybe 75-25 or 75-40 might be bit better. I now charged up to 80% so I think I'll set it to 75 instead. My commute takes a bit more of the batter though, about 15%.

In our training from GM for the Bolt EUV we have been told to recommend to customers that they use the moto ABC: Always-Be-Charging. Their explanation was that the car will manage the battery temperature while the car is parked. One fellow on KZfaq has a short video showing his Bolt expelling excess heat during a very hot day. His car wasn't running, just plugged in. So while not charging everyday may be a good idea that would be only when the outside temperature is neither too hot or too cold. At least where GMs are concerned. Charging to a lower level most of the time seems to be a good idea that most agree on. My cell phone has a battery management setting that you can switch on and it limits the charge to 85%. This is meant to increase battery life (Samsung phone). I drive a Bolt EUV and have set my maximum charge at 80%. I may lower that to 75%. I also use slow charging as it seems to be recommended by most. Thanks for the video. I found it most useful. In addition, the comments left by some viewers also contributed to my battery education.

A lithium-ion battery is happy between 25% and 80% SOC. However the BMS needs to know the extremes as well so do go to them occasionally. It is okay to charge to 100% but it is bad not to use this first 10-20% shortly after: like if a battery being under stress while fully charged: the shorter we leave it in that condition, the better. So please just charge to 100% the night before occasional long distance trips.

Also important to remember that most manufacturers don’t allow you to use the entire battery. So 100% is not really 100% and 75% is not really 75%

The magenta (75%-45%) most closely represents my usage cycle and I charge twice a week which = 43 years (I'll be 106 years old) btw - the warranty is 80% and I had a starting capacity of 331 miles so at 90% I still have 300 miles of range & (80% = 270 miles) which is still quite usable

I put over 250,000 miles on 4 plug-in hybrids over the last 10 years. They had a built-in battery buffer of 20%, so that "100%" charged/full was actually only charging up 80% of the battery. The result was that none of the PHEVs showed ANY visible loss of range during the time that I had them. Granted, because 20% of the battery capacity was not shown to the driver, they could have lost up to 20% of their capacity without it being seen. But they also could have actually lost minimal battery capacity over the years of daily driving and charging (L2) use.

This is good advice. Keeping the EV battery balanced is the best for longevity. I got a 14 year old Prius and can monitor the battery charge level. Toyota seems to keep the battery between 45 and 60% charged. It is still running well on the original battery.

Spot on! We LOVE having plenty of fuel in the tank with an ICE car. We also LOVE having plenty of charge in the battery for an EV, but for the majority of us that’s complete overkill. HOWEVER keeping the max charge below 65% to 70% is always going to be much better for the battery …. and even more so in hot climates. If you must fill it, don’t leave it there for long, drive immediately. If you arrive home near empty, charge it to at least 20% immediately.

You omitted the fact that part of this 'precautions' are already done by the BMS auromatically. If you charge to 100%, this is not really 100%, as the battery physically has 8% or so more capacity, which is 'fenced off' by programming in the BMS. Similar at the low end...

A significant variable to degradation is also depth of discharge (DOD). Avoiding large depth of discharge prevents expansion and contraction of the electrodes which leads to cracking. A DOD 10% to 20% has a little impact on battery degradation above 20% has increasing impact. 20% of discharge provides very little degradation above 10%, but provides twice the mileage driven. Therefore the ideal charging range is in fact 40 to 60%, pushing this to 30 to 70% may be ideal for most peoples practical usage with the additional small degradation being worth the increased usability.

I was charging to 80% and then only charging when less than 50%. Since, on my daily commute, I always came in right at about 50%, I am going to only charge up to 70% and see how it goes. I am also intrigued by potentially charging at a lower rate too. I can recharge in two hours, but I have 8 hours to do it in over night so am giving that a try too. Thanks for the food for thought.

Excellent points, Mark.....thanks for doing the hard work to investigate the subject. I would add though that it is important to prriodically charge to 100% SOC, in order for the battery management system in most cars to perform cell balancing. Perhaps adopting a routine that the first day of each month, you charge to 100% using level 1 or 2 charge point, and return to your regular routine for the rest of the month, would preserve battery maintenance and maximize service life. Thanks again for doing this.

Thank you. It kind of fits what I knew about batteries (storage % voltage for batteries waiting to be shipped and sold by battery companies is 65%). Until now I was charging my car at 80% every day (Model Y 2023, Long Range). Now, I will charge my car to 60%, use 3% to get to work, it will stay on parking at work and lose 2% more during the day (sentry mode usage-security), then lose another 3% on its way back, then it will be at 52% and stay that way until the charging start 3 hours later. Friday, I will charge to 80% in case of a longer driving during the weekend.

Think of it like your own stomach. Don’t wait too long before you eat (get too empty). When you eat don’t eat too much. Basically, be diligent and mindful about it.

I've been looking into this question for a week now and finally came across some actual data! Thanks!

This is the most useful information I ve got about optimum state of charge . Sincere thanks from a fresh Astra E owner

Thanks for sharing this. My daily commute is 30kms through motorway which means I don't really need to worry about battery range. I can also recharge less often, keeping within ideal state of charge.

I have an LFP standard range Tesla, I saw a study where a lab did 90-100% cycles and got about 10,000 cycles out of LFP (probably at 20 C). And that happens to be about my daily usage so most days I do a 10% depth of discharge with maybe a few times a month I go down to 70-80%. Interesting that colder is better. Good thing it doesn't get too hot here in NZ Good advice for NMC batteries. But, if you have LFP you may not need to worry as much, just top it up regularly. The rest of the car will probably fall apart first. LFPs have a flatter voltage curve and my understanding is that 100% allows the battery monitoring system to re-calibrate as it is hard to track the percentage on a flatter voltage curve.

Been basing my model 3 LR off the 75%-25% line, and the battery is doing well, the car is at about 110,000 miles in 4 years. Just plug it in every night, and every morning it's at 75%, much less than is needed for a typical day.

Thanks for this interesting video. My Megane e-Tech EV60 is always charged at 80% and when the percentage is down to 60,50 or 40%, I charge at home with 7 kWh (32A). After one year, Renault told me the battery is of 98% capacity. Now, after hearing what you told, I’ll switch fom 80 to 75%.

All wonderful theory. But.. a vehicles BMS handles a lot of this. Cars are now coming with 7 year unlimited km warranties, incl battery, so this might suggest the manufacturer has thought about what end users may or may not do. Limiting yourself so religiously to using such a small % of a battery is very counter to the whole driving experience and can become an obsession. There are so many variables indicated that affect battery longevity that you zero control over. Here in Australia, days and weeks go by where temps well exceed these "lab tests," and I would guess the same is true in European winter based climates where it goes below zero. The alternative to all of this science and maths, etc, is to enjoy the car you drive in the climate conditions that prevail for you and use common sense and manufacturers recommendations given they cover your warranty 😀

Very valuable information. I have owned a model Y for almost 3 years and have been reviewing charging advice videos. This is the best one I’ve seen by far. Thank you.

Really interesting... thanks for your research and clear summary. My charging routine was to use the 80-20% range but after this, i’m going to follow your recommandation. Apart of course when i’m doing à road trip. Then i slowly charge to 100% during the night befor departure, and using my obd connector, capture the capacity of the battery so that i can follow up battery degradation. ( i have a mustang mach e with edtended battery)

Great video. I feel you nailed in your sum up and what you are personally doing with the 40 - 60% cycle, a pity that study didn't include that or even 45 - 55%. I think this rule of thumb would also be great for someone who can only charge by fast charger, if they are also an urban dweller whose commute is short, then they could do this just once or twice a week for probably only ten minutes a time and end up way better off than those who fast charge huge depth all the time. Also I'd be very interested to see the results if it was dialled back even more to say 20 - 40%, the battery is charging very quickly at this stage because it is under virtually no stress. Could be even better than that mid range. Just an amateur thinking out loud here :)

Were we live and work, lots of people travel over 100 miles per day. So my Leaf, uses 75 to 80% per day. Current at 48000 miles. And the car came with extra warranty on the battery.

Thank you, Mark. An excellent piece of reporting with a clear conclusion which is easy to implement. I will start this immediately.

@marksjustimagine I understand and agree with the logic of not charging to 100% or discharging to near zero, however, one major flaw in the approach is that charging more regularly (daily) from 35 % to 75% SOC (40% for say 160 km) would require twice as many charging sessions as one charging cycle from 10% to 90% (80% for 320 km)

Remember as total charge drops the cycle capacity also shrinks. They should normalize their data to full cycle discharges. So a cycle from 75%-25% is only half a full depth of discharge cycle.

Im late to your post but I just bought a long range model Y and the data is solid. I too drive low km which is 20 miles per day or 32km. I think 60% is ideal at slow charge and no supercharge but I like to share another wrinkle I add. Which is a 80% charge 3-4 times a month. And also a 100% charge once to every other month. There’s variables we can’t account for and need to break rules time to time.

I usually consume 10% per day, I charge every day at 230V 10A (i dont have three phases) to 70%. Every morning I have 70% battery and potential 300km - but I need 10-50km every day :-)

A cycle is 0-100%. Charging 10% daily is only 1/10th of a cycle

of the factors that a user can control, deep discharges are the number one thing to limit or avoid all together. after that charging the battery to 100% is next. to understand this, think of inflating a balloon. it is easy at first, but takes more and more pressure as it gets near capacity. this stresses a battery as it does a balloon, which is why most chargers slow down the charge rate above 80%. 3rd is charge intensity (rapid charging, supercharging etc). your battery much prefers to drink from a garden hose, not a fire hose. try to keep these intense sessions short - 15 minutes if you do it frequently. 30 minutes on trips as necessary. leading to the 4th - charge duration. it is much better to have daily short charges (top offs) than weekly 5 hour sessions. the longer the battery charges, the hotter it gets and heat is your enemy. as mentioned, 50 or 60% is a pretty ideal state for a battery, so average drivers are fine charging to 60% every day, even if they only used 5 or 10%. the 40-60% range suggested should be fine as well. for those that drive a lot every day and need more juice, use the 80%-20% rule. this wont give you uber long 20 yr battery life, but 10+ years isnt unreasonable. also, don't freak out if you go on a few road trips each year - charge it up to the top and go. it's still a car meant to go places conveniently, and stopping every 20% to charge makes a long trip miserable. it wont seriously shorten longevity unless you start doing it often. The Toyota Prius has a controller that keeps it's battery in the 80%-20% range, and there are hundreds of 20 year old cars out there with original NiMH battery packs, which are no where near as durable as the Lithium cells used today.

This is good information. I drive my Ioniq 5 about 40 km daily and charge level 2 free at work several times weekly. I think it is reasonable to lower my end charging a bit, dropping from 80% to 70% with a goal to keep the battery between 40-70% state of charge. My understanding is that the Ioniq 5 needs to be above 40% state of charge to recharge the 12 volt battery. Thanks for posting this.

So to maximize the longevity of your battery only charge your battery up as much as you need between each charge cycle and charge more frequently smaller charging cycles. Also keep your vehicle in covered and environmentally controlled storage when not in use. Also it appears that 40% is the sweet spot so cycling between 30%-50% would appear to be better than cycling between 40%-60%.

Great video. Thank you so much for your work on this. Leaving a comment to show my appreciation, and also to express that for a very technical subject, this video gives a perfect explanation and context of how to optimize your EV's battery life. Cheer my friend. Thanks again!

I have been slowly transitioning my home to all electric. It was built with normal natural gas service for appliances. I first installed solar and a Power Wall. Then I installed a heat pump. I am in the process of adding a heat pump water heater and induction stove. I had intended on getting a Tesla Model 3 but the size wasn’t acceptable. By the time the Model Y came out I became aware of Aptera and I like their BEV solution much more than any other focusing on efficiency instead of electrifying a conventional vehicle. I am in California on the central coast so we have mild weather making it much easier. Good luck with your transition.

You need to normalize the data for amount of battery used. For instance the 75-25 cycle gets you 5x the driving distance of 75-65 yet it lasts more than 1/5 of the cycles. So based on this chart a 75-25 cycle seems to be the best option. Just don’t charge it every day. I’d take a look at you median daily drive and make sure that you battery covers probably 3-4 times that distance at minimum. Then plug it in only when you get to 25% and then charge to 70 or 75%. There is also time degradation which is why you don’t want an overly massive pack unless you do frequent long trips. Basically the first gen electrics with 100miles or so range are probably the sweet spot for most people.

I’ve just ordered a Skoda Enyaq. This is very interesting information. I won’t do a great mileage, so I’ll only charge once a week at home. But I’ll probably set the maximum charge to 75% and then charge back up at 40%. Good video and well explained.

Graph at 12:00 : it appears that Yellow is better than purple - but its not. The purple covers a 30% cycle min/max- 3 times more power than the yellow (10% cycle min-max), so I need only charge up a third of the number of times. In fact purple has half the number of cycles at 90% capacity retention, so is providing 50% more mileage. Purple looks optimum on this basis so one should aim for keeping charge in the 45% to 75% range, but dropping to 25% is not a disaster as the blue line shows only a minor degradation hit.

Very interesting. I only use my model Y once a month and this is the first video I've seen about how to maximize your battery life; other than the usual recommendation of keeping it between 20 and 80%.

Very helpful - just wanted to say thank you for finding and highlighting this research

Interesting my BYD has a 60KWhr LiFePO blade battery configured 126S1P. The recommendation is to charge it to 100% once per week. Our daily driving during the week uses about 60%. Consequently we slow charge it (AC3KW) each Sunday (mainly using solar panels) to 100%. We only fast charge on trips, typically at the 50KW rate. Under fast charging, charging efficiency and rates decrease markedly over 85%, with a good deal of energy lost as heat. So when fast charging we normally stop at 80-90%, particularly if the weather is warm. The BMS rolls the fast charge back anyway over 90%. On trips we mainly operate between 15% and 90% for an effective range of 300km between top ups. On routes we mostly drive, this works well. So far we have not detected any battery degradation.

i charge my tesla only to 50% usually thats where it sits 90% of the time if ive got longer distances i charge it a little more just before hand. i havent needed to be outside of 40-60% in the past 6 months

Excellent video! Extremely useful for those of us contemplating the purchase of our first BEV; gives us an idea of how to charge for maximum battery life. Many thanks!

This was an excellent review of battery life and charging practices. Well done. I just bought my EV and was very stressed about the state of charging since I drive 65 miles a day and do not have access to a fast charger close to home. Thank you for sharing this useful information. 😅

Great video! Exactly the information i was looking for. The doubt about what is the best practice to keep my Tesla battery healthy for longer was turning in my head for a while 👍

There is no way to equate the number of cycles to the life of the battery without considering the frequency of charging. It mathematically incorrect to state that 2000 DST cycles is equivalent in years when you cycle 100-25% versus 75-65% because the frequency of the cycle is vastly different. You would cycle far fewer times at 100-25% as compared to 75-65%. I believe what is more important to the life of the battery is to operate between a range of say 70-20%. That is, try to minimize charging to 100% and draining it below 20%. But, thanks for presenting the data.

I know my iPhone batteries have a lifespan more than double the length of everyone else in my home. And usually longer runtime each charge. Everyone else plugs their phone in overnight daily so it’s “fully charged” each day. I never plug in until after I get the 20% warning and whenever I am able, try to unplug between 80-90%. The info in this video seems to concur.

There are two ways to measure cycle life. One, is to count the number of times the car is driven, and the number of times it is plugged in to recharge. The other way, is to measure throughput. That is the total number of amp hours the battery puts out over its lifetime, divided by its rated amp-hour capacity. (sometimes referred to as "equivalent cycles") I do believe this would be the most relevant, because that translates to the total miles the battery lasts in an electric vehicle, before it needs to be replaced. In many cases, the best margins would be between 30% to 70% states of charge. Most manufacturers recommend 30 to 80%, to use the middle 50% of total capacity on a day-to-day basis. Occasional charges to 100% aren't too detrimental, as long as the car is driven immediately after the full charge, and is done only on the occasional long trip where you really need all the capacity the battery has to offer. You don't want to charge to 100%, then leave it at that state of charge for a full day. I was looking at the cycle life graph of a Trojan golf cart battery, (liquid filled deep cycle lead acid)and calculated the total equivalent cycles, and it didn't make any difference whether the battery was discharged 80% down to a 20% state of charge, or, if it was drawn down 20% to an 80% state of charge. The total ampere hours available over its lifespan was the same! (keep in mind, Lead Acid batteries REQUIRE charging to 100%, to avoid sulfation)

With the information, I got that the best range is obtained with 75%/25% or 75%/45%, with this formula (.75−.25)×360×3000 My car has an autonomy of 360km, and at the 75/25 range it gives about 3000 cycles, that means 540,000km, and the same amount of km on the 75/45. If using 75/65, the km reduces to less than 400,000, and with 85/25 to less than 500,000, so the best is 75/25

Great info! Thanks 4 taking the time 2 make this video. God Bless!

My 2021 Standard Range MG5 is now 56,000 into its life. Probably around 90% of charging is on my home charger at 7kW. I always fully charge it to 100% daily. SOH as confirmed on its recent service is 99%. It still returns an average of 4.2 miles / kWh and the range is the same as when it was purchased new. MG have certainly got an excellent BMS and Thermal Control System in the car.

I travel for work and leave my car at the airport for 3 or 4 days in a row every week….so I have to account for phantom drain. I’ve stopped using sentry mode on my Tesla since it consumes about 10% per day 😯. Without sentry mode it only consumes about 1% per day.

When these tests were performed were they using an actual car and the cars BMS, or were they just testing battery packs or even just cells in a lab setting? Seems the the manufacturers BMS would have a pretty large influence on the batteries and their lifespans, regardless of how much or how little you were charging. EDIT: Just looked at the article - they were testing batteries for handheld devices, not batteries for automotive use. Not sure these guidlines can be carried over directly.

Great eye opener.. Thank you for uploading this video.

My understanding is that fast charging is far more deleterious to EV batteries than the trickle charging you would typically do at home. But yes, I don't see the need of fully charging your EV at home every day if you aren't draining the battery significantly during the day. Probably every second or third day would make more sense, and makes for one less thing to think about. After all, you don't top up your petrol car every day when it falls to an 7/8 or 3/4 tank, typically you would wait till you have an 1/8 or 1/4 full tank.

I think the government should make a law that forces new EV buyers to watch this video before buying an E.V Lots of Uber drivers buy Tesla thinking they're saving money on gas. Then, after a year, their battery is not charging anymore. They used supercharger two times a day, every day.

I plan to buy a 2024 Model 3, which will be my first EV. The information in this video is extremely helpful and easy to understand. I sometimes read comments from people who feel EV's are too complex, but really, they're far simpler than the ICE vehicles I've owned. EV's just have their own unique maintenance requirements, and far less of them 😊

That is the number of discharges before the battery gets to 70% of capacity, not to a destroyed battery. Isn’t that what it says? Battery Management System will take care of everything.

Cutoffvoltage at tesla is at 3.3v so 0% charge is actually more or less 10-15%

Very interesting. I have a 2019 Nissan Leaf SL Plus that I have had for 4 years as of 1 December 2023. I have attempted to follow the 20-80% battery charging rule, and usually charge my vehicle with Level 2 home charger. As of this date, I have had no problems with the vehicle, and other than tire rotation the vehicle has had no maintenance. My dashboard battery capacity indicator shows maximum bars. Leaf Spy applications indicates that I have approximately 92% of battery capacity as of this date. I am very pleased with this vehicle and would recommend a Nissan Leaf to anyone that needs a vehicle for urban driving.

Hi mate… thanks very much for that very enlightening information. I’m very interested in this content, please put up more, I have just subscribed ! In fact I’m just about to purchase an EV that has the LFP batt chemistry and I would love to hear you present a similar set of recommendations for that type of battery. Once again. Thank you so much 🙏

The question should be how much will the cost of the battery will be 5-10 years from now to replace. Might only cost a few thousands to replace a battery at the rate of how fast the cost is dropping. Also, by then there will be more fast charger available like gas stations. So do u want to pay a little extra for less inconvenience?

I purchased a new 2013 Chevy Volt. The battery size is 16.5 KW. It automatically had a built in buffer for high & low charge cycles. No confusion, no questions, just plug it in and walk away. That is the way all EV's should be. Plug it in and don't worry about it. The manufacturer should set the parameters. They set the warranty.

I would always want my car charged as much as possible in case of an emergency and i needed to travel a far distance or possible power outage. Why inconvenience yourself if you have a home charger. It’s just a plug. If the car can’t handle that without destroying it, it’s not fit for purpose in my opinion.

If I were to do what that chart said, I think I’d extend my battery only 4 more years. I only charge once a week, which is a 100-25% discharge cycle. 1000/52weeks = 19 years. My bigger concern is the temperature being in a hot area. Daytime temps get up to 40C regularly. Now, I could absolutely reduce my max charge and get a longer life but I think I can stick with the 100% for now. Maybe I’ll drop it down to 80 when it gets realllllly hot

I guess the least I can do is share my experience. I own a 2021 MG ZS EV with a 44.5 kwh NMC battery from CATL (out of which 2.5 kwh are reserved as buffer). There is no way to limit its charge other than to manually unplug it, which I can't always do, and most of the time it charged to 100% but I never let it stay at that high SOC for long. My commute is 80km daily and 170km once a week. The car has 75000km and so far I don't see any reduction in its range. Ambient temperatures are 25-35c with 2-3 months where its ~10c. I don't know the state of health as I don't have the tools to check it. I believe the best use of these studies as well as some others is for programming the BMS, which has significantly improved the longevity of batteries.

Thanks for putting this explanation together. It's easy to follow and is well supported by evidence.

You forget to factor in the top and bottom lock (about 4kWh on a large Tesla battery). I.e. when you charge to 100% it's only about 96% in reality. I've done research on this also, my conclusions are similar but factoring this in I charge daily to 80%. People are getting 420,000 miles on 2017 Tesla Model S batteries before failure, so you shouldn't worry too much. Newer batteries will likely last longer, they seem to be lasting longer every year. I wouldn't be surprised to see a million miles out of a 2024 Tesla LFP battery. 😊

Great advice. I plan to drop my daily change down a bit more. I dont drive much each day. When I go on trips I do work the battery a bit harder, buts thats only a few times a year. Even on trips I try and keep 85%-25% range more for peace of mind on the low end and charging times on the high end. Super changers tend to slow a lot after 80%, My only concern is the Im guessing the change % on the Tesla display is prob not exactly battery %. That may not matter as I think the main issue is stay kinda in the middle unless you need the range.

Thank you so much for putting this information out there.

I was also told about every 3 months or so I should let the battery go low 10% or lower then charge back up to 100% just to keep the cells all active .Most of the time I have been charging from 50% to 80% I can easy change to 30% to 60% . Thank you.

Very interesting, I have set mine for daily drive to 65% charge and discharge will land around 40% as I use about 25% on my daily commute. No degradation yet after 3.5k miles.

I don’t buy this theory tbh. I owned a Zoe which I needed to charge from 5% to 100% at least twice a week for three years and the battery is still at 100%. I think people underestimate the work put into the development to avoid this.

Very informative, thank you, I just bought a new ev on a lease so battery life is not too much of an issue, but i would like to buy a used ev after my 2 year lease, I do 15 miles per day so looking forward to a very long lasting battery when I buy one, the lease gives me time to decide which vehicle to buy and weigh up the pros and cons of Ev ownership 🙂

I think it's worth pointing out that charging from 65% to 75% (10% band width) everyday vs charging 25%-75% every 5 days (50% band width) would seem to stretch the usable life of the battery to around 40% more than 65%-75% daily. - measured in years. Is my math correct? 3000 cycles stretched out to every 5 days would equal about 41.1 years vs 9000 cycles every day that would equal around 24.7 years.

State of charge % and depth of discharge don't exist in a vacuum, both time and temperature are significant contributing factors.

Excellent video, thank you for doing this. I however had a clarification. I was wondering if we should charge from 75-65% SOC, as that seemed to prolong the battery life the most based on the last chart you showed. Although I might have missed an explanation of why you thought the 60-40% was a better charging pattern. Thanks in advance for the clarification.

A minicab driver had 200 miles range in the morning in the Evening miles dropped to 34 miles only (Full Charge) , service Center was 33 miles away😏 coincidence? , it was a Tesla Model 3 it had 120,000 miles, the car was 2 years old, Tesla charge him $9800 dollars, could someone have pressed a remote switch and force him to pay almost 10k 🙄🤑🤑🤑 how does a battery goes from 200 miles range to 34 🤨 in a couple hours 😮

i still have the 2011 first gen nissan leaf with 70% capacity left, i only slow level one charge up to 80% daily commute and about town for errands.

Very helpful. I think that everybody can get its own lessons. I lowered my limit from 80% to 75% which would mean that my car would sit most of the day in the 55-65% SOC range. I also delayed my scheduled charge in the am so that I drive it only about half an hour from reaching 75%. This seems to fit my driving pattern the best and hope I will be a happy owner for a long time (MY LR).

The only point I would add is that these cycles would have been done sequentially in a short timeframe so does not factor in calendar degradation. You may have a DoD of 10% meaning technically your battery will be at 90% after 20 years but calendar degradation would have also reduced your capacity possible at a rate of 1% or more a year. If you combine calendar degradation with cyclic degradation you will could actually find yourself under 70% capacity after the 20 years.

Ternary Lithium Batteries (NCM and NCA) should normally be operated around the 50% capacity level. An example of this is when your daily round trip only requires you to charge the battery up to 60% when you leave home, and the battery drops to 40% when you return. So the battery is only cycling around the 50% of full capacity. If you keep doing this regularly, then your battery degradation will be practically immeasurable for a very long time.

I don't have an EV but setting the max charge cutoff point at 90% and start charging only when battery drops below 50% should be a great compromise as the 2 biggest battery killers are heat of which more is generated when a charging battery is reaching full capacity and frequency of charge/discharge cycles. It works for my laptop battery which is now 5 years old and still has excellent battery health.

it is not only a battery concern, but actually charge efficiency. when you go above 95% you may have alow charge effieiciency such as

Very nice chart to examine and think about. Its funny but I find plugging in to charge at home just enough of a bother to not want to do it so often and wish my Kia got 400 miles of range instead of 275 or less in the Winter. Since I really don't want to get caught too low on one of my slightly longer trips and have to use an expensive and notoriously undependable fast charger I regularly home charge to 90 % to have more usable range. And just to remind myself to charge I usually plug back in at 50%. I wish they had tested a few more variables so I could see more closely what my 90 - 50 % system is doing. Thanks.

Thanks for the video. I have used the Battery University's advice with my Lead acid batteries. They have so lasted over 10 years.

If battery is preconditioned it does not damage from fast charging. There are charts online that compare battery degradation of Teslas that are often supercharged and others that are rarely supercharged. The degradation is almost identical.

True, some people think that SuC supercharging will kill your batteries but that is just not true. We have several Model S cars and have mostly charged at SuC 10 years almost every day ( we drive 160 km every day back and forth and 350.000 km now drive on each still only lost 10% of original capacity. The secret is use or loose. Drive every day and charge 10-70% when required.

Thank you for your hard work and very clear presentation! Thanks also to your source.

Essentially as batteries are constructed now.. we need charging stations everywhere to increase the health of batteries.

There are several mechanisms that degrade a Lithium Ion battery and reducing the maximum charge will reduce one of the mechanisms but these batteries will, in any case, degrade over time and/or if exposed to significantly elevated temperatures. I have not seen studies showing just how much degradation will occur due to ageing alone but the ideal charging regime would be one that maximises available charge capacity without significantly increasing the degradation that will occur anyway due to ageing.

This is for batteries you can fully control. My Zoe is only at 93% when I charge it to 100%. So I don't need to worry. I charge to 100% , once a month, so the battery knows what 100% is. Basically before a long drive.

Thank you for doing the research/hard work for me. This has helped me greatly. We have a 2023 LR Model Y and use just under 40% total charge each workday. We have been following the recommended 80% charge each night, only going above for long trips. I will now change our daily habits to ‘bracket 50’. 70% max overnight…car will rest at work at @50% during day, having us just over 30% when we get home. This seems to be the closest scenario to the purple/orange line on the ‘stress test’ table for us. Again, awesome work and many thanks for your research.

One thing, and probably the most important thing that wasn't covered is the total distance each different charging cycle would give you before it goes down to that red line you drew. How many kilometres of driving it reaches it. What you'll find is that there's very little difference. The difference is that with one car you're doing let's say 150,000 kms in 23 years but in the other car you're doing the 15,000 kms in 3 years. The thing that would make the biggest difference in the battery life is whenever possible, don't use those fast charges, unless of course you have to. It's like giving someone an X amount of free fuel. For someone who only drives 20 kms a day it will last then ten times longer than someone who travels 200 kms a day.

Time at max or min charge, is equally important as the charge level. In other words, don't leave your battery charged at a higher charge level or a lower charge level for a long period of time.

they say ev batteries donn't degrade but don't full charge it, dont fully discharge it, keep it above 40 percent but under 80. Dont park outside, dont fast charge too much. meanwhile ice cars, oil change and we are good.

Thank you for the work you did here.