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It's too early for me to recommend it, but I only charge to 50%, in an attempt to get the most out of the battery in the long term. I'll save 100% charges for long trips, as many do. In addition, I only charge at Level 1, which is gentle on cells. Both suit my WFH use case of low daily mileage. It could probably work for many people, since the Americans drive an average of only 40 miles a day.

We know that EVs last longest when kept in the midrange of their battery capacity. I came across some studies that showed that keeping a lithium-ion pack at a 40-50% SoC resulted in less capacity fade than keeping it much higher. Keeping my battery at 50% is well within the ideal range and should slow aging.

Concerns about features or power at 50% seem unfounded. In fact, regenerative braking works better when there is headroom in the battery. GM’s own documentation points out that “regenerative braking is limited above 80%”. That means if the battery is too full, the car can’t capture as much braking energy. Similarly, normal driving performance (acceleration, power output, etc.) is unchanged by the charging limit as long as the SoC stays within normal bounds. So I should suffer no performance penalty at 50% - I'm simply trading unused range for extra battery life.

Curious to hear from others employing similar strategies.

References:
 
It's too early for me to recommend it, but I only charge to 50%, in an attempt to get the most out of the battery in the long term. I'll save 100% charges for long trips, as many do. In addition, I only charge at Level 1, which is gentle on cells. Both suit my WFH use case of low daily mileage. It could probably work for many people, since the Americans drive an average of only 40 miles a day.

We know that EVs last longest when kept in the midrange of their battery capacity. I came across some studies that showed that keeping a lithium-ion pack at a 40-50% SoC resulted in less capacity fade than keeping it much higher. Keeping my battery at 50% is well within the ideal range and should slow aging.

Concerns about features or power at 50% seem unfounded. In fact, regenerative braking works better when there is headroom in the battery. GM’s own documentation points out that “regenerative braking is limited above 80%”. That means if the battery is too full, the car can’t capture as much braking energy. Similarly, normal driving performance (acceleration, power output, etc.) is unchanged by the charging limit as long as the SoC stays within normal bounds. So I should suffer no performance penalty at 50% - I'm simply trading unused range for extra battery life.

Curious to hear from others employing similar strategies.

References:
It's too early for me to recommend it, but I only charge to 50%, in an attempt to get the most out of the battery in the long term. I'll save 100% charges for long trips, as many do. In addition, I only charge at Level 1, which is gentle on cells. Both suit my WFH use case of low daily mileage. It could probably work for many people, since the Americans drive an average of only 40 miles a day.

We know that EVs last longest when kept in the midrange of their battery capacity. I came across some studies that showed that keeping a lithium-ion pack at a 40-50% SoC resulted in less capacity fade than keeping it much higher. Keeping my battery at 50% is well within the ideal range and should slow aging.

Concerns about features or power at 50% seem unfounded. In fact, regenerative braking works better when there is headroom in the battery. GM’s own documentation points out that “regenerative braking is limited above 80%”. That means if the battery is too full, the car can’t capture as much braking energy. Similarly, normal driving performance (acceleration, power output, etc.) is unchanged by the charging limit as long as the SoC stays within normal bounds. So I should suffer no performance penalty at 50% - I'm simply trading unused range for extra battery life.

Curious to hear from others employing similar strategies.

References:
All well and good, and backed by scientific research, but there's also studies of real EVs in use, that those who DCFC all the time to 100% no less, don't suffer appreciably more battery degradation than from calendar degradation (from the passage of time).

Also Level 1 and Level 2 charging does not heat up the battery significantly - in fact your OPD does more "charging" than level 1 & 2 normally, but I get what you are saying. If you don' t need L2 why go through the trouble and expense of installing it.

The one thing that I learn from Dr. Jeff Dahl (Li-Ion battery specialist) that is significant is not to deep charge your battery, shallow charging is less detrimental to the battery chemistry. Don't go from 80% to 20% before charging back to 80%. Charge every day using a smaller swing; i.e. 40% to 60%, 60% to 80%, not 30% to 80%.

All this being said, the prediction now based on real EVs out there is that the battery degradation will be significant well past around 300k miles, well past the life of the rest of the vehicle, so I wouldn't fret any of this.
 
All well and good, and backed by scientific research, but there's also studies of real EVs in use, that those who DCFC all the time to 100% no less, don't suffer appreciably more battery degradation than from calendar degradation (from the passage of time).

Also Level 1 and Level 2 charging does not heat up the battery significantly - in fact your OPD does more "charging" than level 1 & 2 normally, but I get what you are saying. If you don' t need L2 why go through the trouble and expense of installing it.

The only thing that I learn from Dr. Jeff Dahl (Li-Ion battery specialist) that is significant is not to deep charge your battery, shallow charging is less detrimental to the battery chemistry. Don't go from 80% to 20% before charging back to 80%. Charge every day using a smaller swing; i.e. 40% to 60%, 60% to 80%, not 30% to 80%.
Thanks for the comments, @Fred_Savage!
 
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