Keeping battery-powered electronics in good shape is an arcane art. Do you keep them on the charger, so they’re always at 100 percent when needed, or do you constantly charge cycle them to prevent the batteries from degrading? Well, luckily for you, someone smarter than both of us has figured out the methods for your EV.
Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained has put together not one, but two videos on keeping batteries in good shape in electric cars. Whether your car runs on lithium iron phosphate or nickel manganese cobalt chemistry, there’s a guide to keep your car as pristine as possible.
For lithium iron phosphate cars, you should charge up fully at least once per month. Long term storage should be handled at a reduced charge percentage, and longevity is best preserved when operating at lower charge capacities. Essentially, Fenske boils down the recommendation to this: Charge your car fully, but only do so when you need to — and never run the battery all the way down to zero.
Fenske’s nickel manganese cobalt video, while older, is just as helpful. Owners of NMC cars shouldn’t store their cars at full charge, but shouldn’t run their batteries too low too often — more, smaller charges rather than fewer, bigger ones. In fact, hitting a full charge at all isn’t recommended unless you really, really need it.
Determining the battery chemistry of your car may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it’s often findable with a bit of digging. The differences, though, explain why there’s so much variation in people’s recommendations: Different batteries like different treatment.