How often to charge to 100%?

[Upstate]

When the trip will require it, I charge to 100%.

For daily use, it's 90%. I note that I am charging at home, which is not a superfast DC charging system.

When using public chargers (superfast), I usually stop around 80 - 85%. Going beyond that adds significant amounts of time to the public charging experience. That's less convenient and, well, be considerate of other drivers who may need the charging station.

Note that winter range plummets, like by nearly 50%! So in winter, it's almost always a 100% charge at home.

Also, I usually keep the vehicle plugged in. No harm if it is not charging, and if it needs it, it's there. Also, for warming up in cooler weather and cooling down in warmer weather, I get to use house current instead of vehicle charge. That extends the range a bit more too.

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[Red_Lightning]

Note that charging to 100% and then using the vehicle in a day or two is not bad for the battery.

Your statement is false. A higher state of charge for our NMC batteries WILL degrade the battery. It is physics.

Also, don't quote "battery health". It is a proprietary marketing term that Ford made up as a pacifier for people who don't understand lithium ion batteries. The number you want is percent degradation, and it is non-trivial to measure.

Obviously time is factor as is ambient temperature. For people like me in Arizona, it is a much bigger problem than for someone up north.

The relevance of that battery degradation depends on your use case. For someone on a lease with no intention of keeping the vehicle, the extra degradation is meaningless. For me, I plan on keeping my Lightning for more than 10 years. Therefore, I charge the truck daily for my regular commute with the gentlest cycle possible while keeping a buffer for extra driving or an unexpected charging issue.

 

[windydrew]

I charge mine to 100% every day and use a fast charger daily and have 85k miles on my truck with no noticeable change in range. Pretty sure my SOH was 98% last I checked. Ford did a great job with these batteries.

 

[mr.Magoo]

Your statement is false. A higher state of charge for our NMC batteries WILL degrade the battery. It is physics.

Sometimes these discussions have a tendency of venturing into the extreme.

There's probably a middle ground between your battery losing all it's capacity or going up in a plume of smoke and being completely harmless, but our discussions rarely reflect this.

While we know "storing" a battery at a high SoC is bad (in the lab /accelerated tests anyway) we really dont know how bad it is to leave it for a day or two.
We make the conclusion that if it's bad long term it must be bad short term and while it isn't incorrect per se, it isn't the entire truth.

It's like alcohol, just because you go on a weekend bender with your buddies, it doesn't mean you'll die of liver failure at 40, but keep it up every single weekend from the age of 21 and you just might.

 

[wescravinshocker]

Just wondering if it's good for the battery to charge to 100% every once and awhile. I've had the truck since August of last year and it was 100% when I picked it up. I did a max charge for one mid range trip and that's about it.

I normally charge to 80%.

I charge to 100% every other week at home. When I go up North, and need the range, I DC Charge to 90%, once or twice per month.

 

[Literider150]

Unless there’s a good reason not to have it on the charger, it’s always on the charger. I have a default max charge level of 90%. I’ll charge to 100% at least once every couple of months and every time I need to go on a long trip, which also seems to be at least once every couple of months. So at least once a month the truck is charged to 100%.

Note that charging to 100% and then using the vehicle in a day or two is not bad for the battery. Storing (for many months) at 100% can be detrimental. And charging to 100% on a DCFC is really slow (relative to 0% to 80% on the DCFC) so people recommend you don’t do that.

All of that means people conflate all of these things into an idea that ever charging to 100% is bad for the battery. It’s not. Charge to 100% whenever you need it and sometimes even if you don’t need it and will be using the vehicle in the next week or so.

I wouldn't think that Ford would have the AC default charge limit of 100% if it is bad for it. If I want to only charge to 80% I have to set a temporary limit each time I charge at home. But that isn't necessarily true. They might just expect you to change that every time.

 

[RickLightning]

100% is 131/143=91.6%....

 

[bc1]

100% is 131/143=91.6%....

I believe that's correct for the 131 kwh battery. It is already setup for 90/91% as I believe full charge is in the 143/144 kwh range with the rest in reserve. I'll let the resident battery experts explain this further. The 122 kwh battery is really higher than than as I recall.

 

[RickLightning]

I believe that's correct for the 131 kwh battery. It is already setup for 90/91% as I believe full charge is in the 143/144 kwh range with the rest in reserve. I'll let the resident battery experts explain this further. The 122 kwh battery is really higher than than as I recall.

I never saw a published full capacity of the smaller Flash battery.

 

[bc1]

I never saw a published full capacity of the smaller Flash battery.

I forget if it has one less cell or what the deal was and I'm thinking the cells are around 9 kwh or so. Guess we need everybody to chew on Ford's reserve capacity and how it affects charging.

 

[Literider150]

The owners manual recommends 90%.

If you set a charge location you can set the charge limit for that location. That way you dont have to set a limit every time.

Oh thanks for that. I didn't realize that. I mostly charge at home so I was referring to my AC charging. I suppose that setting has to be done in the truck, not on the app?

 

[Henry Ford]

I recommend charging to 100% before you actually need it. There is battery module failure that has no indications except that it the SOC immediately goes to about 87% after start. If you never charge higher than 87% you will never detect the failure.

I charge to 85% or 90% daily depending on the season. I discovered a bad battery module as we were pulling out of the driveway for a camping trip. The good news is if you experience this failure you aren't stranded. We did our camping trip with a slightly modified charging plan.

 

[Literider150]

My Lightning is my 5th EV in 15 years. I always charge to 100% when I plug in regardless of what anyone says and I plug in twice a week on average despite daily driving. None of vehicles ever experienced degraded battery performance...

I appreciate this so much; and I believe you. Of course I want to believe you. But I've been an EV owner for 4 years now - my first one was an EV6 Wind AWD. It seems like this idea of over charging and experiencing noticable degradation is not new, but, at least on YouTube Premium there is definitely many videos on it. And it seems now some are saying to keep your charge between 40 to 70% ideally! People aren't going to do that if they use their vehicle regularly; and I can't believe these EVs would have gone so mainstream over the last decade if they were THAT fragile.

 

[Literider150]

Your statement is false. A higher state of charge for our NMC batteries WILL degrade the battery. It is physics.

Also, don't quote "battery health". It is a proprietary marketing term that Ford made up as a pacifier for people who don't understand lithium ion batteries. The number you want is percent degradation, and it is non-trivial to measure.

Obviously time is factor as is ambient temperature. For people like me in Arizona, it is a much bigger problem than for someone up north.

The relevance of that battery degradation depends on your use case. For someone on a lease with no intention of keeping the vehicle, the extra degradation is meaningless. For me, I plan on keeping my Lightning for more than 10 years. Therefore, I charge the truck daily for my regular commute with the gentlest cycle possible while keeping a buffer for extra driving or an unexpected charging issue.
[
So by gentle as possible you are referring to level one A/C charging?

 

[jobofly79]

I charge to 100% 3-5 times per month. My office is a little over 3 hours away from where I live and have to go there a few times per month. I am at 29,000 miles and still showing 100% battery state of health.

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