Daily Charging Limit Percentage - what's yours set to?

[Deleted member 22838]

I know Ford recommends 90% daily charging, is that the level most people use or not?

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[AZT9]

85% for my everyday commute (200miles) to work.
92,000 miles and 95%SOH so far

 

[chriserx]

I know Ford recommends 90% daily charging, is that the level most people use or not?

Thursday-Monday 80%
Tuesday-Wednesday 100%
As far as actual need it'd be 25% on my work days and between 60 and 80 on my off days.

 

[RickLightning]

Many threads on this. There will be 16 responses with 21 answers, most of them worthless opinions...

The only reason to charge above 90% is if you need the range. There is zero need to charge less, since it is 82% of the actual battery.

You will see "I only charge every 5 days" answers which also aren't worth much. Five charges of 10% each use 50% of a charge cycle, as does one charge of 50%. Being plugged in all thrmtime allows the truck to use house current to warm the battery if below freezing (short bursts), and use departure times and remote starts without depleting the battery.

 

[Brons2]

At home - 90%
At the office - 100%, because I want to keep my charging spot all day, and since I charge L1 at home, I want a deep charge if I'm taking the 60 mile round trip to the office. I don't take the truck to the office very often, once or twice a month tops. Most days I ride the commuter train.

Today I am at the office with the truck and I'm at 78% at a 4.3KW charging rate, arrived in the parking garage at 72%, it shows on FordPass that it will be done at 3:22, but from experience it usually goes until after 4.

 

[bmw325_num99]

I know Ford recommends 90% daily charging, is that the level most people use or not?

I use 80% almost all of the time. If I am gearing up for a trip that will./might otherwise run me out of battery, I will up it to 100% for a few hours before I leave.

 

[The Weatherman]

90% at home daily (when driven).

Plugged in all the time during the coldest/hottest times of the year. (This allows the truck to maintain the battery temperature as determined by the BSM.)

 

[Deleted member 22838]

90% at home daily (when driven).

Plugged in all the time during the coldest/hottest times of the year. (This allows the truck to maintain the battery temperature as determined by the BSM.)

Going to go with 90% too thank you.

 

[Heliian]

Daily 85%

100% for trips

 

[EVO]

I know Ford recommends 90% daily charging, is that the level most people use or not?

85%

 

[Timeless Epoch]

I work from home and there are weeks were I only drive my truck a few days out of the week. As we know, sitting at higher SOC during higher temperatures is harder on the battery.

Therefore I have adopted the following strategy (southern OH):

Peak Summer: 60%
Peak Winter: 90%
Everything Else: 80%

Road trips and longer excursions, I charge as needed.

 

[Adventureboy]

Daily to 85%. DCFC to 80% a few times per month. L2 charge to 100% about once per month. Truck is 3 years old with 45,000mi and SOH is 99%.

 

[irunalot]

I let my Lightning drain all the way to 10-15% and time it so I'm home when it reaches the low state. Then charge it all the way to 90% unless I'm planning a trip north. If northbound, I charge it to 100% so I'm not white knuckles when I arrive at the cottage. I'll then repeat the strategy - let it drain while I'm tooling around town. When I'm ready for the trip south, it's charged to 100%.

 

[Henry Ford]

I charge to 85% except when I need more. There is a downside to this though.

If you experience a battery module failure without a DTC or IPC message you will only discover it when you NEED the extra range. This happened to me last summer when I attempted to charge to 100% the night before a camping trip and was only able to get to 87%.

If you never charge above 85% you risk masking a module failure. I recommend charging to 100% occasionally for this reason.

 

[Calvin H-C]

Many threads on this. There will be 16 responses with 21 answers, most of them worthless opinions...

Just speculation for the most part, partly from something one may have read somewhere sometime.

Here's a bit more speculation on my part, but based on eight years and 176,000+ km of experience with a Ford Focus Electric...

Charging to 100%: with the FFE, that's one's only option, unless you manually unplug, or if charging is incomplete when the "value charging" window ends.

Given the average range in a full charge (160 km), the mileage on the vehicle, and the fact that the average charge would start at about 50%, that means my battery has likely endured at least 2500 charging cycles to 100%. I'm still getting pretty much the same range as when the car was new, so it doesn't appear charging to 100% is doing anything detrimental.

When one charges to 100%, the battery control module will perform cell balancing at the end. I suspect this is likely good for the long term health of the battery. Though we have the Lightning set to charge to 90% at home, we will have it go to 100% once per month or so for this reason.

Running to very low SOC: back in the days of NiCad batteries, there was a significance of "battery memory" where if one regularly ran down to say 50%, then after awhile, the battery would run out at that point instead of still having half its capacity remaining. I understand that lithium ion technologies have substantially, if not completely eliminated this effect, but I have a gut feeling that there may be a tiny effect still. I wouldn't recommend on planning to get that low, but occasionally breaking a personal rule like never running it down below 10% (or your personal minimum) shouldn't cause a problem, and may be beneficial.

DC Fast Charging: I've heard some say this causes life-shortening stress on the battery sounding like the way everything that crashes on The Simpsons bursts into flames.

Modern battery technology is designed to take it, but it strikes me that too much could be an issue. By the same token, I suspect it is good for the battery to occasionally get a high power kick in the ass. Use fast charging for road trips and the occasional emergency and do most of your charging on an AC EVSE.

I will note that the high power of DC Fast charging might have more of an effect on your battery's contactors than it's cells. All that power passing through them in the reverse direction. I just had to replace a contactor on one of my FFE battery packs (the FFE has two), and though I don't fast charge very often, and the fastest charge it's ever received was 53 kW, the thought of this on the contactors did cross my mind.

Despite all I've said above, don't forget that your mileage may vary.

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