Daily charging?

[Mooeymoose]

I don’t have a far daily drive, maybe 25 miles on average. I only charge to 70%. Now should I let the car drain to closer to 20% before charging or is it ok to charge every day? If I do this the charge daily the car will go from maybe 55% to 70% every day.
Suggestions ?

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[MrMusAddict]

I've heard and practiced draining it and more deeply charging can help the BMS (battery management system) optimize battery health.

Alternatively I think you can achieve the same health maintenance by full charging and nearly full draining like once a month.

I would wait for others to corroborate what I've said though just in case I've misunderstood something.

Don't listen to me ?, my advice doesn't apply to Rivians

 

[EVTrukHog]

I don’t have a far daily drive, maybe 25 miles on average. I only charge to 70%. Now should I let the car drain to closer to 20% before charging or is it ok to charge every day? If I do this the charge daily the car will go from maybe 55% to 70% every day.
Suggestions ?

FWIW, my daily situation is very similar to yours... I typically plug in every night for a scheduled 10PM - 6AM charging session to top off at 70% SOC. This usually entails a charge from about 62% to 70% every night. In my opinion, everyone is over thinking the battery charging strategy... at the end of the day I do not believe it to have a material impact on the life/health of your battery as long as your not hitting the SoC extremes on a regular basis. Just charge it and drive it.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

I have always left my EVs plugged in when not in use. It maintains the charge and conditions the battery on wall power. In your situation that is what i would do... charge it to 70%.... maybe even 50-60% but then you risk not having enough if something comes up and you need to drive far.

 

[R1Thor]

ABC:

Always
Be
Charging

I never don't charge my truck. It's right on the wall. We all have an 8 year, 175k mile battery warranty. Don't overthink it.

If Rivian wanted us to do something *very specific* to maintain battery integrity and longevity, they could add logic to the software and give us further instructions. The fact that they're relatively agnostic on how we should charge our vehicles (aside from the "70% is daily" recommendation), really tells me they're not seeing huge swings in performance with differential use-cases (rates/charging %s/frequencies/discharges). And they have a pretty impressive lab testing these cases on their battery tech (through simulated climates and environments as well as states of charge up and down), in addition to acquiring more and more data from every user who has an R1.

Do what you feel is best for you. But honestly, even the best studies out there still don't 100% know yet. I think the safest assumptions we can make that do have a bit of real-world backing is: don't run your battery to 0%, and don't DC Fast charge it to 100% when it's really hot outside if you don't need to.

Everything in the middle may have a spectrum of good/bad, but the differentials are likely negligible, unless you're trying to get 25 years out of your battery without seeing more than 20% degradation in that time. Then, you're going to need to hire some data scientists to help you out.

 

[Mooeymoose]

Sounds good. Thank you.

 

[Sevn86]

Mine as of recent is always charging even during work hours. 137 mile daily commute so when I arrive at work, I plug in my mobile charger to a 50amp plug. When I get home it’s plugged into the Rivian wall charger. Charge to 80% daily.

 

[mkg3]

I've heard and practiced draining it and more deeply charging can help the BMS (battery management system) optimize battery health.

Alternatively I think you can achieve the same health maintenance by full charging and nearly full draining like once a month.

I would wait for others to corroborate what I've said though just in case I've misunderstood something.

DO NOT DO THIS.

Li-ion batteries can be charged routinely without draining down. In fact, draining down actually is not good for the cells.

The old fashion notion of drain completely once a month or down low so that the battery don't develop memory is only true for NMHi cells.

Li-ion wants to live in around 80~20% range. It doesn't like to sit fully charged and not be used so if you do charge to 100%, do it just before a road trip or something like it.

There is no harm to charge everyday, as long as you don't charge it fully all the time. If it was LFP, then there is no issue charging to 100% everyday.

 

[Craigins]

Exactly what mkg3 said. I tend to let my truck sit between the 40-60% charge range. as close to 50% as I can get it. But my round trip to work is only 8 miles so I don't have any issue with that.

 

[moosetags]

We have been charging Opal to 70% which is about a 200 mile range. She is driven daily but not very far. We have been letting her drain to about 40%. We charge her get back up to 70% and unplug. Recently, we have been charging her about every five days.

Brian

 

[WorldComposting]

As others said don't overthink it and don't sit to long at the extremities!
I keep mine charged to 80% most of the time except for before long trips that night I'll charge to 100%. Coming back from a trip I typically only charge up enough to make it hope with between 8-15%.
What matters more is that the vehicle fits your life don't change yourself for no real gain!

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'm slightly worried about physical damage to the connector from repeated connects/disconnects. Have seen a few threads about this. I plug in about every three days and charge to 85% overnight. Probably everyone else would disagree with me, but it's what works best for my driving pattern and lifestyle, LOL. ?

 

[defcon888]

We charge to 80% unless we go on a long trip and then we go to 100% and then while on the trip....90%. I have a 145 mile commute (1 way) to work 1 day a week. I charge to 90% and arrive at work with about 140 miles left. I plug into the L2 chargers we have at work and charge to 80% and make it home without issue. We rarely get below 20%.

 

[COdogman]

I use L1 charging in my condo garage so I plug in each night and have it set to 80%. I have about a 40 mile roundtrip commute 3-4 days per week plus just general running around.

I'm also a believer in "ABC" whenever possible. I just figure the truck knows what to do with its battery if I leave it plugged in. That battery will probably outlive me regardless of how I charge

 

[R1Thor]

I'm slightly worried about physical damage to the connector from repeated connects/disconnects. Have seen a few threads about this. I plug in about every three days and charge to 85% overnight. Probably everyone else would disagree with me, but it's what works best for my driving pattern and lifestyle, LOL. ?

Don't worry about this.

So long as you're not wantonly aggressive with it, it'll be fine.

I used to work for a Fortune 500 connector company. The connectors on the end of ANY electronic, data cable, or within any board-mounted assemblies aren't being manufactured by the same company building the rest of the electronics. Because the connector components themselves are inherently, immensely complicated and require very specific considerations.

("What the hell is this guy getting at" you wonder... rightfully so)

That connector, I guarantee you, especially for the use case, environments, and voltages its required to perform to, has been mated and demated (not just nominally, but off-axis and off angle) hundreds of thousands of times to prove it can manage that workload. There will also be considerations for mating force, demating force, wipe (it's what cleans any oxidation from contacts as they're mating), heat cycling, heat-sinking, and more. It required advanced lifecycle testing, likely in an environmental chamber running inexcess of 100% RH with an acid or salt bath for hundreds of hours, then re-mated and retested the same.

Will there be field failures? Absolutely, it's a six-sigma bell curve, but those will NOT be the norm. For 99.9% of the applications and use-cases, your charger cable and connector will be perfectly fine. In the off-chance that there was a .01% manufacturing defect, ideally you'll find it in the first year and warranty will replace it. If it's more regular than that, the industry will require a recall.

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