From storage to charging, here’s how to increase range, electric car battery life, and more.
Whether you’re an anti-EV lobby or an electric car enthusiast, there are plenty of myths surrounding electric cars. While concerns have been dispelled from some of them, like how long your battery might last if you’re caught in a snowstorm, there are still many headlines and misconceptions, much of it related to battery charging and operation, and electric car battery life. Although technology has come a long way since the advent of the electric car.
With the rapid development of battery technology, it pays to keep up with current trends and requirements when it comes to getting the most out of your electric vehicle. Knowing that battery life and range are critical aspects of car ownership, you want to make sure the cars you buy stay healthy for years to come. This requires proper care of it, and knowing the charging habits of your electric vehicle and its battery.
1. Avoid extreme temperatures to extend the life of the electric car battery
An electric car battery relies on chemical bonds and interactions between the elements inside it. Modern lithium-ion batteries have greatly improved the range of temperatures in which they can operate, but ideally, you want to avoid everything that impacts the range and life of an electric car battery. This relates to both extreme heat and extreme cold, as both have the potential to reduce long-term battery life at a rapid rate.
On hot summer days, park your car in the shade or under a cover. Likewise, don’t park your car outside in the middle of a snowstorm where you can help it. Your best bet is to park the car, and whether you park it in or out of the garage, trying to keep the car out of the worst of the cold will help extend the life of your electric car’s battery.
When you can’t manage it, plug the charger into the car and start charging it, and that will ease the problems, because the battery’s thermal management systems will do things for you, keeping the battery at the right temperature.
2. Reduce the acceleration from 0-60 to the maximum to extend the life of the electric car battery
The biggest trick in the modern electric gig is the acceleration. It affects the battery life of an electric car. With instant torque at any speed, even passenger electric vehicles and most electric cars are able to outrun sports cars powered by a V8 engine at 60 mph. But frequent energy ejection is not good for the battery, and strong energy ejection is similar to the process of emulsifying and suctioning the energy of an electric car battery.
Modern management systems can mitigate most of the damage, but if you are controlling the launch at every traffic light and discharging the battery at a rapid rate, it will affect battery life and reduce its range prematurely. We’re not the fun police, though, and the occasional pull-ups are good, but there’s a reason the tartan super sedan next door takes nearly 10 minutes to prepare itself for launch in less than 10 seconds which the electric car’s battery doesn’t like.
3. Use a slow charger as often as you can to extend the life of the electric car battery
Just like electric car batteries don’t like to be drained quickly, they don’t like to be recharged too quickly either. Modern electric cars are touted as more convenient than ever because of their fast charging capabilities, but just because you can’t always do that. Drinking Red Bull can give you a boost now, but drinking it three times a day for a week in a row instead of sleeping isn’t right and will ruin you. The same applies to electric car batteries.
Unless you need a partial quick boost during a long road trip or because you unexpectedly need to go more miles per day than planned, slow charging at home extends battery life, puts less stress on battery cells and ensures from not doing so. So that cells do not burn prematurely. The bottom line is that fast charging is okay sometimes, but it’s not the best thing to get used to and practice consistently.
4. Do not charge the electric car battery to 100%
It seems counter-intuitive to say that charging a battery to 100% is a charge, right? A fully charged battery can’t be bad, right? Well, the answer is yes and no. A full battery is great when you’re planning a long-haul trip, as often that full boost can add 20% to your total balance, but frequent charging to capacity puts a strain on chemical bonds, weakening them over time.
Draining the battery completely and recharging it from scratch is even worse, significantly damaging cells, so while charging to 100% isn’t a bad thing, running the battery fully is likely to reduce battery life. The ideal range to maintain the battery is to charge it from 20-80%. Over time, this is likely to change as battery and charging management systems develop.
So try slow charging for the last few to avoid unnecessary damage, but for now, keeping the battery in the middle of 60% of the charging state will extend its life considerably. And many electric vehicles can be set to stop charging in a Specific State of Charge (SOC). This is a useful battery conservation tool that can be used for cars that spend much of their life parked and are only driven once or twice a week. For more on the electric car battery, see our article on how to choose a charger for your electric car .
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