Frequent small charges versus infrequent full charges

congrats and welcome!

lithium batteries do better if you keep the charge low. so i would just keep it at 4 miles, plus whatever safety amount you're comfortable with. something like 8-10 miles should be fine.

you'll have to set an off time, or monitor it.

 

Welcome! I mostly concur with @bisco. The OM discourages keeping the battery full for long periods of time.

What I would do is figure out what time you would need to start charging in order to have maybe 10 miles of charge at the time you leave for work and program the scheduler to start charging at that time.

A possible inconvenience would be if you discover that you need to drive farther than usual, you'll need to alter the charge schedule or else get up early enough to make it do a "charge now" and get done in time.

 

I was also wondering the same thing as my daily commute is around 3 miles. I usually charge it up at free charging locations when I am out and about or at least get a few more miles charged up. I hardly ever have the battery fully charged since I dont plug in at home to charge over night.

 

My daily commute is a little over 3 miles also. I do charge at home on my L2 system, but not every day, and only if I'm down to less than 7 miles remaining or if we will be driving the car on a longer errand.

This is the third year I've owned the Prime, and my SOC just keeps getting higher every season. I have not noticed any degradation whatsoever in the range, but I don't do minuscule charges either since there isn't any need with my commuting distance, and wouldn't worry even if I charged more often. I know that some day in the future the traction batteries won't perform as when they were new. Three years in, and no problem whatsoever.

 

Could you explain what you mean by this? Is your full charge amount getting more than before, or are you getting more SOC remaining now after driving the same distance than before? Just trying to understand what you meant by saying "SOC just keeps getting higher".

 

My State Of Charges this third summer with the car were ridiculously high (upper 30's) compared with the first two summers, while driving no differently. It is winter here now and after charging from 3 miles or from even 15, the SOC is still in the 30's. It is if not only has there been no battery degradation but an increase. The car is left outside - no garage, and don't keep it plugged in.

It will drop sometime this month for sure. The past couple winters I'd charge and it might have read 23 miles of charge, and I would have got far less than that in actual EV driving.

 

Oh, I see, you are talking about GOM (Guess-O-Meter) estimated EV range in miles. SOC is, as you said, the State Of Charge of the battery. It always shows 100% when EV range is full and 0% when EV range is gone, doesn't it?

AFAIK, GOM estimated miles has very little to do with battery degradation level. Of course, with SOC 100%, the GOM miles is the longest, but that is always true even if the battery is degraded. And longer GOM miles does not necessarily mean there are more battery charge or battery is not degraded. It just means the way you have been driving and conditions of the driving such as temperature and/or terrain is causing the car to estimate the EV range longer. My car is currently showing 48.1 miles on GOM with 100% SOC. This is the longest GOM EV range I have attained in the last 2.5 years, much longer than the first summertime number. But this does not mean my PRIME has more SOC on a full charge. I still use 6.5kWh from the wall per charge.

 

OK, my bad on the terminology, but it is reading and acting not nearly as low as last year or the year before, just as yours is now doing. I'm not driving it any differently. Very pleased how my Prime has been aging - way better than I seem to be doing lately.