How Not To Destroy Your Electric Car's Battery? (Video)
Today, a lot of electric vehicles are now coming with LFP – Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. These batteries have a lot of advantages over the NMC – Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) batteries. Now, if you are an owner of an electric vehicle which is offered with an LFP battery, then today we have something extremely important for you. The following are the tips and tricks which will help you in increasing the life of the battery in your electric vehicle. So, without wasting any time, let's jump right into the topic.
Things you should do to increase the battery life of your EV
The first and most important thing that you need to do to increase the longevity of your LFP battery-powered electric car is to charge it to 100 percent at least once a month. Regularly fully charging the battery helps in recalibrating the battery management system (BMS). So, in this way, you can measure charge levels more accurately.
Now, it may seem wrong, but you should not keep the charge level of your battery near 75–100 percent all the time. This is because scientific research on LFP batteries has found that batteries near their upper limits accelerate degradation. So, instead, what you should do is try to operate your vehicle in the lower-to-mid range of 20–70 percent when possible.
Next up is the way to take care of your car's or two-wheeler's battery if you are not going to use it for a longer duration of time. During such periods of non-usage, you should keep the battery of your vehicle around 50 percent. The scientific answer is that it minimizes lithium consumption and reduces chemical stress within the battery.
Also, this has been told many times, but the LFP batteries in modern EVs do not require being constantly plugged into a charger. If you do this, it can cause unnecessary cycling near full charge. Instead, plug in when your battery is low or before long trips. Lastly, you also have to avoid getting your EV’s battery to full depletion. This is because fully depleting an LFP battery can cause irreversible damage or trigger fail-safes that require a service visit.
Jeff Dahn’s Study on LFP Batteries
Jeff Dahn is a prominent battery researcher who is closely affiliated with Tesla. In his research, he has found that different charge windows affect LFP battery longevity. His study has highlighted that operating LFP batteries within 0–25% or 0–60% charge windows results in significantly lower degradation.
It has also been found from Dahn’s study that the most damaging pattern was frequent cycling between 75% and 100%. This was the case even when total energy throughput was controlled. Additionally, high temperatures such as 40°C–55°C were used in the study, and these temperatures highlighted worst-case stress conditions that simulate accelerated aging.
Why Are These Tips Important for You?
Now, you may be wondering why these tips are important for you. Well, the answer to this is that we all know how expensive electric batteries are. So, if you do not take care of these batteries in your EVs, your vehicle can see a major loss in range and eventually need a full battery replacement, which will cost a lot of money.
So, instead of ignoring and charging the batteries in an incorrect manner, you can make sure that you follow all of these measures, and they will surely increase the battery life of your EV. Remember to avoid daily full charging of your LFP battery EV unless necessary. Also, prefer fewer but fuller charging sessions over many short top-ups.