"Best practice EV charging for longer battery life" - video

[Scandinavian]

For some real-world data, I've been charging at home at 35-40 Amps for the three years and 33,000 mi I've had my Turbo S. Charging pretty much every day to 85%. Very rarely charged to 100% (maybe a dozen times), and only 20 or so 'fast charges' at Electrify America over that time.

I had two bad cells identified and both modules replaced a couple months ago. My battery SOH is 92.6% as measured by the specialized battery technician they flew in from Atlanta - so I believe this is a good number. If you take out the 2/33 modules that are effectively 100%, that gives 92.1% SOH of the other cells. I think this supports the method of daily at-home charging to 85%.

As you may recall, I also had two modules replaced in my battery in September. I have not been able to get a proper reading by a Porsche specialist or the center where the battery was repaired as yet. I have observed a similar pattern at lower SoC (50%) as you have shown, where the new modules have a higher cell voltage than the older ones. Not very significant as yet but will check when I can get a Low SoC. My SoH is still over 99% which can not be correct. Mileage is 36,370 miles (58,550 km).

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[ciaranob]

Here is a video with Dr Jeff Dahn. Probably one of the most knowledgable person of battery technology. It is a long video, but well worth watching.

Excellent video and pretty much validates the observations and original intent of the Baseline Soh thread i.e. my selfish obsession on trying to quantify how fast the impact of sustained high ambient temps degrade my HV battery.

Biggest take away for me though is on his recommendations re more rapid DOD's and a max. SoC for those of us you do mostly city driving - clearly very different than the boilerplate recommendations Porsche provides that covers all end members.

Now I'm trying to weigh the effects of staying as is and a higher probability of going below 80% before my 3 years are up vs using his recommendations to 'recover' or at least diminish the rate of degradation ... hmm!

 

[andb]

Haven't seen the video, what's the best charging pattern?

 

[Tooney]

@Scandinavian Thanks for sharing an excellent video.
Summary of his recommendations:

His summary starts at 41-minute mark. But it is well worth watching the entire video.
After watching the video, questions in my mind:
--For typical Taycan owner and use case, will following Dr. Dahn's charging recommendations have any noticeable effect on battery performance, compared to sticking with Porsche's charging recommendations?
--What kind of HV battery does Taycan have: Ni content, single crystal positives, etc.?

Dr. Dahn's advice seems to agree with that of the YouTuber in post #1 above.

 

[whitex]

How relevant are the findings from this video to charging Taycans? Having driving Teslas for a decade, and participating in Tesla community forums, the effect of charging to 90% daily seems not applicable to Tesla batteries. I’ve had 4 Model S (two at the time), charged them all to 90% every day, and daw very minimal battery degradation on all 4. The one I owned the longest was 8 years old, with low single digit degradation (I don’t remember exactly, 3% or 4% since new) with the vast majority of the degradation happening in the fist year anyways.

Bottom line for me, I charge the Taycan to 85% as per manufacturer recommendation and don’t worry about it. Even though I don’t drive much daily, keeping a car at 50% SoC has its drawbacks. For example recently my wife needed to do an unplanned 150 miles of driving during the day. Unfortunately we did not plug her car in the day before and her etron only had about 50% charge left, which meant she had to plan a DC charging stop. It worked out ok, no waits or broken chargers and plug and charge worked, but it added an unnecessary stress to an already stressful situation (which caused the unplanned driving).

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

How relevant are the findings from this video to charging Taycans? Having driving Teslas for a decade, and participating in Tesla community forums, the effect of charging to 90% daily seems not applicable to Tesla batteries. I’ve had 4 Model S (two at the time), charged them all to 90% every day, and daw very minimal battery degradation on all 4. The one I owned the longest was 8 years old, with low single digit degradation (I don’t remember exactly, 3% or 4% since new) with the vast majority of the degradation happening in the fist year anyways.

Bottom line for me, I charge the Taycan to 85% as per manufacturer recommendation and don’t worry about it. Even though I don’t drive much daily, keeping a car at 50% SoC has its drawbacks. For example recently my wife needed to do an unplanned 150 miles of driving during the day. Unfortunately we did not plug her car in the day before and her etron only had about 50% charge left, which meant she had to plan a DC charging stop. It worked out ok, no waits or broken chargers and plug and charge worked, but it added an unnecessary stress to an already stressful situation (which caused the unplanned driving).

I have to agree completely. Having a car every day that has 85% charge gives me a 'full tank of gas' car every day, without having to worry about finding a charging station if I need to drive a couple hours on an unexpected trip. As my earlier post shows, 85% charging every day gives me over 92% SOH of the battery after over 3 years and 33K miles. I don't think you could get much better actual data on the Taycan. I do make an effort to minimize fast charging, and charging to 100% - I believe this is the consensus.

 

[SteveDC]

I have to agree completely. Having a car every day that has 85% charge gives me a 'full tank of gas' car every day, without having to worry about finding a charging station if I need to drive a couple hours on an unexpected trip. As my earlier post shows, 85% charging every day gives me over 92% SOH of the battery after over 3 years and 33K miles. I don't think you could get much better actual data on the Taycan. I do make an effort to minimize fast charging, and charging to 100% - I believe this is the consensus.

Your experience driving the Turbo S is interesting, but it’s just anecdotal. I will be guided by the scientific information we received from this video, and I’m glad I received it When new, peer reviewed information comes out we can use that. (I’m assuming the speaker has published.) My circumstances allow me to follow his rules of thumb. Yours may not.

I do have an unrelated question, though. In what day to day situations do you actually used all the power and thrust of your Turbo S vehicle? I ruled out the turbo models, because I just couldn’t see a situation where I would actually use the power they provide. I wasn’t going to track my car, as I have a few times with my little Ferrari. It would be like buying a fine whisky and never opening it.

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

Your experience driving the Turbo S is interesting, but it’s just anecdotal. I will be guided by the scientific information we received from this video, and I’m glad I received it When new, peer reviewed information comes out we can use that. (I’m assuming the speaker has published.) My circumstances allow me to follow his rules of thumb. Yours may not.

I do have an unrelated question, though. In what day to day situations do you actually used all the power and thrust of your Turbo S vehicle? I ruled out the turbo models, because I just couldn’t see a situation where I would actually use the power they provide. I wasn’t going to track my car, as I have a few times with my little Ferrari. It would be like buying a fine whisky and never opening it.

It is anecdotal, but unlike the video, it is specific to the Taycan Turbo S. I think the main point in the video and my post that people should be aware of is that multiple small charges are better than infrequent large charges. I've seen enough data and had my own experience to believe this is the case.

In answer to your question, I rarely use all the power of the Turbo S. I get my kicks on the racetrack, not public roads. It is a lot of fun to occasionally just leave all the traffic way, way behind, whether it's on a crowded stretch of highway, or at a stoplight. In 'normal, everyday driving', the additional power of the Turbo S is completely unnecessary. However, if you stick with this line of thinking, you could easily make the argument that any Porsche is completely unnecessary.

 

[freeforall]

--What kind of HV battery does Taycan have: Ni content, single crystal positives, etc.?

Good question, and the answer will help understand whether we should worry much about Depth Of Discharge.

Anyone knows the answer by any chance?

 

[n3ophyte]

Good question, and the answer will help understand whether we should worry much about Depth Of Discharge.

Anyone knows the answer by any chance?

The Taycan battery cells are NCM712 according to
https://www.batterydesign.net/lg-e66a/

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