Constant Extended Charging

[davidroth]

Is Extended Charging bad for the battery? We like to know we have the extra range, so we usually keep the extended charge set for on. We're on a 3 year lease, so is any damage short or long term if any?

 

[BSki]

Dont you get a warning when you select extended range?

Yes, you will cause the battery to degrade faster than if using normal charge.

If the battery is at 100% and the temperature goes up, it will damage the battery.

Check the manuals for more information about extended charge.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Anything that deviates from a cold, 50% charged lithium battery is "bad".

Obviously, 100% charge (extended) is worse than an 80% charge (normal).

In aviation lore, "high, hot and humid" can make life more challenging for a pilot. You can forget the humid part, and just remember the HIGH SOC% and a HOT Battery are bad.

 

[davidroth]

I guess my concern was if I was going to see drastic effects on battery life and range within the 3 year lease that I have. Not that I want to pass on a bad battery to some future owner of the car.... but was more curious if our extended charge use would damage the battery to the point of replacement within a short amount of time and greatly affect "range" In the short time (3 weeks) since we've had our car, we're getting around a 120 mile range.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I guess my concern was if I was going to see drastic effects on battery life and range within the 3 year lease that I have. Not that I want to pass on a bad battery to some future owner of the car.... but was more curious if our extended charge use would damage the battery to the point of replacement within a short amount of time and greatly affect "range" In the short time (3 weeks) since we've had our car, we're getting around a 120 mile range.

Presumably you mean that the GOM on the dash is displaying 120 miles. If you're leasing, honestly, just use the car. If you need 100% "extended", use it. If you don't, don't.

 

[mark_rivers19]

I guess my concern was if I was going to see drastic effects on battery life and range within the 3 year lease that I have. Not that I want to pass on a bad battery to some future owner of the car.... but was more curious if our extended charge use would damage the battery to the point of replacement within a short amount of time and greatly affect "range" In the short time (3 weeks) since we've had our car, we're getting around a 120 mile range.

Whether you purchased it or you leased it.. the warranty is 8 years/100,000 miles.
if you need the extended charge, GO for it.
and the battery is from TESLA.. why is that important?

Right now, TESLA is strongly considering swapping batteries VS the super chargers they have at selected locations.
They claim swapping a battery is faster than filling up a gas tank.
So you drive in with a depleted battery, and they will replace it with a fully charged one.
if this becomes mainstream, this will probably trickle down to our RAV 4 EVs.

 

[Dsinned]

Another factor is how OFTEN you recharge using extended (even standard) charging. Once a week is much worse than every day with respect to battery degradation. Nobody has yet determined how much degradation will occur in 3 years under ANY charging conditions. Nevertheless, the battery warranty is what it is . . . 8 years or 100,000 miles, and I don't think there is any owner/leasee liability for failing to follow the standard charging recommendation.

"If" a battery degrades significantly in only 3 years, I wonder what Toyota will do with the car upon a lease termination?

 

[Joyride]

Reviving this thread to ask a similar question...

I've recently started a new job in the San Diego area and am commuting from Costa Mesa each day (about 80 miles door to door) until school lets out in June. There is a very conveniently located ChargePoint station about a five minute walk from where I'm working, so I'm able to charge up each day very conveniently.

Getting there on a standard charge is absolutely no problem, but the ChargePoint station I'm using charges $0.75/hr for the first four hours, then $3.00 an hour after that. When I do an extended charge at home, then have the charging station do a standard charge, I end up paying between $5 and $6, whereas when I do a standard charge at home, then a standard at the charging station, it's about $8 - $9 each day.

I know we're not talking about a lot of money each day, but compared to my home charger, $3.00 an hour is highway robbery, and I'd like to avoid as much of that as I can, which means that I'd end up doing an extended charge each night before driving to SD. Of course, $5/day is a pittance compared to needing to replace the battery early.

So.... Now that these cars have been in the wild for a few years, does anyone have any real-world experience with doing Extended Charging over a long period of time?

Thanks,
-Chris

 

[4EVEREV]

I charged my LEAF to 100% every time for 3 years but I never left it there at 100%, never had any degradation worth even mentioning, no range loss at all. The biggest factor is leaving the car at 100% and also leaving it there when hot. Others in hot climates that never charged past 80% have 10-20% loss in 1-2 years. Charging to 100% is not exactly bad it's more about temp and how long it sits there.

 

[4EVEREV]

I guess my concern was if I was going to see drastic effects on battery life and range within the 3 year lease that I have. Not that I want to pass on a bad battery to some future owner of the car.... but was more curious if our extended charge use would damage the battery to the point of replacement within a short amount of time and greatly affect "range" In the short time (3 weeks) since we've had our car, we're getting around a 120 mile range.

Whether you purchased it or you leased it.. the warranty is 8 years/100,000 miles.
if you need the extended charge, GO for it.
and the battery is from TESLA.. why is that important?

Right now, TESLA is strongly considering swapping batteries VS the super chargers they have at selected locations.
They claim swapping a battery is faster than filling up a gas tank.
So you drive in with a depleted battery, and they will replace it with a fully charged one.
if this becomes mainstream, this will probably trickle down to our RAV 4 EVs.

There is no capacity warranty and you will never see Tesla offering pack swaps for your car ever. Nothing is going to trickle down to the RAV.

 

[4EVEREV]

Another factor is how OFTEN you recharge using extended (even standard) charging. Once a week is much worse than every day with respect to battery degradation. Nobody has yet determined how much degradation will occur in 3 years under ANY charging conditions. Nevertheless, the battery warranty is what it is . . . 8 years or 100,000 miles, and I don't think there is any owner/leasee liability for failing to follow the standard charging recommendation.

"If" a battery degrades significantly in only 3 years, I wonder what Toyota will do with the car upon a lease termination?

Trash it or auction it if the dealer does not want it. There is NO liability to owners on the lease for degradation no matter how they charge and I don't see why people are mentioning the warranty as it applies to defects and cell issues not a guarantee of capacity, it's irrelevant to charging.

 

[smkettner]

I would try to work the other side.... ask the owner why the price hike on the Chargepoint.
Or locate a new place to charge. Otherwise If you plan to keep the RAV I would stick with 80% on a regular basis.

 

[TonyWilliams]

There is not going to be any issue with charging every day to 100% and then driving the car. None.

It would be silly not to.

All the issues with the Nissan LEAF really don't apply to the RAV4. The battery is cooled while charging and driving, plus the cells can take a LOT more heat than a LEAF cell (which has no cooling whatsoever). Finally, it really doesn't get hot enough on the California coastal areas to even think about the heat issues.

There is no "long term" data, since the car is less than three years old. The best data is that there are no RAV4 batteries that have been reported with abnormal significant degradation.

Just drive your car fully charged everyday.

 

[user 340]

Another factor is how OFTEN you recharge using extended (even standard) charging. Once a week is much worse than every day with respect to battery degradation.

Why is charging once a week much worse than every day?

I drive my car about 100 miles a week, over about 3 or 4 days. I keep the SOC between 30% and 80%, charging once or twice a week. Is it better to do a full charge every day and keep the car at 80 - 100% SOC as much as possible?

 

[miimura]

Another factor is how OFTEN you recharge using extended (even standard) charging. Once a week is much worse than every day with respect to battery degradation.

Why is charging once a week much worse than every day?

I drive my car about 100 miles a week, over about 3 or 4 days. I keep the SOC between 30% and 80%, charging once or twice a week. Is it better to do a full charge every day and keep the car at 80 - 100% SOC as much as possible?

That depends on what you call 100%. My car has spent most of its life between 12 and 16 bars on the gauge. 16 bars is not 100% SOC. I just charge to Standard every day, even if I'm only down 1 or 2 bars. Personally, I only use Extended Charge when I'm planning to drive more than 70 miles. I try to leave it less than 4 hours at Full Extended Charge. Sometimes that means that I charge to Standard overnight and then on a Sat or Sun morning I go back out to the garage and start the Extended charge. On a Model S you can do it remotely. With the RAV, you have to turn the car on and off to enable the Extended Charge mode (and Charge Immediately in this case)

 

[TonyWilliams]

The fuel gauge is wonky.

Let's all stipulate that "100%" or "Extended" mean the same thing, and that has nothing to do with 16 bars.

80% is the same as a "normal" charge. Of note is that a normal charge increases in SOC% as the battery degrades, starting at 83% and continuing until a normal and extended charge are exact the same, between 96% and 99% SOC.

Both normal /80% and extended/100% will show 16 bars.

 

[user 340]

Another factor is how OFTEN you recharge using extended (even standard) charging. Once a week is much worse than every day with respect to battery degradation.

Why is charging once a week much worse than every day?

I drive my car about 100 miles a week, over about 3 or 4 days. I keep the SOC between 30% and 80%, charging once or twice a week. Is it better to do a full charge every day and keep the car at 80 - 100% SOC as much as possible?

That depends on what you call 100%. My car has spent most of its life between 12 and 16 bars on the gauge. 16 bars is not 100% SOC. I just charge to Standard every day, even if I'm only down 1 or 2 bars.

Is this preferred to keeping the charge level around 10 bars? I usually keep mine between 6 and 14 bars, charging once or twice per week (almost always a standard "80%" charge). I consider "20 bars" to be 100% SOC.

 

[miimura]

Is this preferred to keeping the charge level around 10 bars? I usually keep mine between 6 and 14 bars, charging once or twice per week (almost always a standard "80%" charge). I consider "20 bars" to be 100% SOC.

I suspect that after 10 years of driving 200 miles per week there will be little to no difference between a car that charges three times a week to one that charges seven times a week.

 

[smkettner]

There is no "long term" data, since the car is less than three years old. The best data is that there are no RAV4 batteries that have been reported with abnormal significant degradation.

Is there no data from other Tesla vehicles? Or is the RAV battery that different?
Roadster battery seems to have done well but have never seen anything to compare consistent 100% vs 80% charging.

 

[evdrive]

Joyride, just charge your car to full capacity each day. I do and I don't have to worry about running out of a charge all the time. I have charged to 100% 3 to 7 times a week for a year and have noticed 0 range reduction. I never leave it sitting more than a night or a few hours in the day full charged.

Drive your car the way you want to and or need to and don't stress about it. YOLO. If this car only went 80 miles on a charge like many people use it, it would be not much more useful than the leaf.