How To Ruin Your Electric Car's Battery - NMC Edition!

Three Tips To Keep Your Electric Car's Battery From Degrading Too Fast

Electric cars are becoming increasingly popular, but a common concern remains for many owners - what about the battery? An electric car's battery is by far the most expensive part, so replacing it means a huge bill. The good news, however, is that there are many practices you can put into place to ensure your electric car's battery lasts for hundreds of thousands of miles.

This video seeks to not only understand what the best practices are for keeping your electric car's battery in good health, but also, the scientific reasons *why* these best practices are useful. We'll look at different causes of battery degradation, helpful tips for extending the life of your battery, and what scientific research says about he effects of various harmful parameters on battery health.

The video will answer the following questions:
1) Why do batteries lose capacity over time?
2) What percentage should you store your battery at?
3) Is it okay to charge your electric car to 100%?
4) How often should you recharge your electric car?

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[faeterov..]

Here in Chile, in my company, we have more than 800 electrical buses with around 250KWh of original capacity, bought almost yearly from 2016 to 2023. We currently don't see a significant (statistically) degradation in capacity (SoH) even after 300.000 KM, but we take precautions: we avoid charging to 100% wen in the higher side of the city to avoid loosing the possibility of recharging on the road, we do a full charge at least once a week, we rotate the buses from different routes, we don't start routes with less than 30% of charge to avoid running out of energy due to unexpected problems on the road. We have some cases of degradation of around 3%, but once again, on a fleet analysis, degradation = 0% statistically.

[technicallybetter]

With the high number of LFP batteries now being sold, it would be fantastic if you could make a similar video focused on LFP.

[RickyOI]

Watching these videos makes me way less fun at parties

[brady]

This video will be shared like crazy in the EV forums, among new owners. Well done

[theAVR]

See timestamps for points, reasoning and caveats:

1) 0:58 don't store your car at 100% battery for long periods

2) 4:30 Don't wait to charge your car (many short changes are preferable to fewer big charges)

3) 8:30 Don't regularly charge to 100%

[fabulousoffroaddesigns]

We have used Level 1 charging on all of our short distance EV's with great results. I just sold a 2013 Leaf SL with 92% battery health. It did have an 80% charge setting.

[theempowerer]

I just bought an ev and was looking for a video like this for a while. Thank you so much for all the quality content engineering explained.

[OctoberNight-rrny]

The real challenge will be getting the general consumer to actually follow these best practices. Even after decades of preaching we still can't get people to follow routine oil changes.

[tvrumahaku]

This should be a required syllabus for anyone who has an EV or buying an EV. Great video!

[aigtrader]

2014 Tesla model S… Just replaced my battery yesterday after 220, 000 miles... And based on this video I did pretty much everything wrong 🙂

[renebergqvist]

Fantastic. This is the first youtube presentation of Li-ion batteries that not only gets it right but also have real in depth explanation.
It is probably not that obvious for the viewer why the cracking is the a problem as you explained SEI formation early and didn't mention the cracking when the intercalation materials expand exposing the electrodes so they form new SEI and lose capacity.
A part 2 about charging speeds and temperature maybe even coupled with risk if lithium plating might also be interesting.
BTW I used these guiding 'rules' above for the first EV I had.
When I sold the Nissan Leaf 24 kWh (notorious for degradation), I still had SoH at 93% and 'all bars'.
(I know this is not precise but a guidance).

[usmcsaxoki]

Excellent video Jason!
My relation to this topic comes from 5 plus years of ownership of my 2018 Zero SR motorcycle which has a 14.4 KWh pack.
I have a little less than 18, 000 miles on the bike and have not had any issues nor noticed any battery degredation.
This makes sense since I've followed basically the rules you have on this video.
I store the bike at about 50% SOC during the winter months, I keep the SOC when riding between 40% and 80% normally, charge right away and only charge to 100% before taking longer rides. I think I just aquired this knowledge over time from different sources but this video was vindication for sure.

[Green_Tea_Coffee]

Excellent video, Jason. I appreciate that you don't take a side, but rather evaluate things from an engineer's perspective, looking at the advantages, disadvantages, and requirements of the topic at hand.

[brembodream]

Love your video🤩 I charge my Tesla MS75D to 80% and charge every day, just 50-60 to 80 around the town. When going on long roadtrips, up to 95 or 100% just before driving, and run the battery down to 10% usually. Greetings from Oslo Norway😊

[cleyfaye]

I don't have an EV, but I somewhat assumed they had "smart" controller that could automatically devise a good charging plan (with override if the user wants to make sure the battery is fully charged sometimes). While it's nice to make people aware about how to handle their batteries, it would probably be way more effective to have this built-in.

[AustinFerguson]

I charge 80-85% in the winter due to colder temps and use 30-40% of that daily (I drive 80-120 miles) and in the spring / summer / fall I charge to 65-70% and effectively get the same range but using 20-30% of my SOC, better efficiency.

My mid-range new had 64kwh Gross, 62.6kwh usable.. Today after 100k miles its got 58.6kwh usable / 61kwh gross. So 3kwh loss in 100k miles, and fun fact it lost 2kwh in the first 25, 000 miles than it did losing the remaining 1kwh in 75000 miles. So realistically this car will get well over 250-300, 000 miles before I hit the 85-90% degradation point. Overall its on point.

[witreks]

Thanks for the video. I recently tried to read up on these battery degrading effects but is seems like every google search is either very shallow or leads to full depth research papers focusing on very specific cases. Hard to get a decent overview so it's great you took the time to gather it up!

[jessepotter]

Thanks for putting this together, Jason. I've owned a Model 3 Performance for about 1.5 years now and have seen little to no degradation of the battery. I rarely charge to 100% (only on trips). My ideal capacity range has been 20%-80%. After watching this video, I will charge more frequently if below 80% and keep the cap there.

[DomanStuff]

Finally, a voice of reason. As for LiXXX chemistry (high density + high discharge rate), my years of experience say (basically from beginning of this chemistry):
1. Don't discharge to 0% and don't charge to 100%.
2. Use battery capacity between 20-80% (20-60% is preffered).
3. When in storage (max live, not used), charge/discharge to 50%, and keep it cool if available (5-10C).

[FutureSystem]

My 4.5 year old M3P has only around 5% degradation- it’s literally NEVER been to 100%, even on long trips. (I find 95% works better for long trips, and still gives me regen.)
Typically day to day, I use 40 to 70%, and ESPECIALLY in Summer I try to use 70% or less as absolute max except on a trip.