[mnx5er]

Originally Posted by admranger

How long are you keeping the car? It has a long battery warranty. Just ram it full in the winter. Having grown up in a suburb of MLPS, I know the cold. No way I'm only charging to 80% in the winter if I lived up there. Even with the milder winters it's not happening.

If it weren't for my severe snow allergy, I might consider moving back there.

Thanks! Good news is we will be leaving here in the next couple of years for good. I won’t miss it.

[x5mad]

I saw a very informative video with lots of data about charging to x% and degradation data. Unfortunately I can’t recall the source.

I’m planning to keep the car for a while. So will follow what they found. Which is keeping the battery around 50% will give the longest life.

During the week my wife drives the car to work and does the school run. She only uses 6% of the battery. So during the week we set the limit to 55% and charge daily via very slow AC.

Weekend if going anywhere we will charge to whatever is needed such that we arrive home with at least 20%.

This works very well for us and there is no need to DCFC.

You’ve probably seen multiple sources tell you to charge to around 40-60% for long term storage. So it makes sense the battery is happiest at 50%.

For us it’s easy as we don’t travel far but may not be practical for others.

I will post the video if I can find it again.

[ggalanis]

Originally Posted by mnx5er

Kia did not have the recommendation when I bought the EV6. BMW publishes it in their manual and in iDrive. It was nowhere to be found on the sticker or BMW marketing. I hardly even see reviewers discussing it.

Kia has the following text buried in their manual:
"If the HV battery is only charged to 80%,
and you minimize the number of DC fast
charging, you can keep the HV battery
performance in optimal condition. (vs
charging the HV battery to 100% an/or
charging every drive cycle.)"

The Kia team should have advised you especially if that was your first EV.

Marketing material would not mention this... that's normal. Same with car reviews.

Originally Posted by mnx5er

Salespeople won’t talk about it. It would hurt sales.

They do talk about it. Mine did. The only thing worse than losing a sale is losing a lifetime of follow up sales due to expectations being set incorrectly and pissing off your customer.

I would guess that they assumed you knew about this since you already had an EV. Just like your salesman on a gas BMW wouldn't think to point out that you need to use Super grade fuel if you already had a vehicle that had that requirement... but if you are coming from a car that uses regular, they should point it out because you should not discover later on that your fuel costs will be 20% higher than expected (or whatever the difference in price is).

Determining the right information to tell your customer is not the easiest thing to do. Many get it wrong. Many customers think they know everything and get annoyed when they are being explained the basics so salespeople need to walk a thin line between telling you too little and too much.

Originally Posted by mnx5er

I do not disagree with you that EVs are a paradigm shift in how I should think of a car. But I didn’t walk into this blindly, even my charger installer didn’t mention it and he had done 100s of installs.

The guy installing your charger is the last guy I would expect to tell you about the charging recommendations of your car, unless you had a super deep discussion with them while they worked on your install and happened to bring up the subject.

In the end, you should follow the recommendation if possible and if it makes no real difference to you (like if your daily needs are 20% of the battery, going from 80->60->80 daily is better for the battery than 100->80->100). If/when you need to use more of the battery, just do it. If that happens to be most of the time, then so be it. Ideally, your daily/regular needs should be catered for with 80% of the winter range. When that is not the case, IMHO, the car you are looking at is not the right one for you.

[NomoTesla]

Originally Posted by mnx5er

Kia did not have the recommendation when I bought the EV6. BMW publishes it in their manual and in iDrive. It was nowhere to be found on the sticker or BMW marketing. I hardly even see reviewers discussing it.

Salespeople won’t talk about it. It would hurt sales.

I do not disagree with you that EVs are a paradigm shift in how I should think of a car. But I didn’t walk into this blindly, even my charger installer didn’t mention it and he had done 100s of installs.

Charging curve is basic information in the EV world and available everywhere you look on the internet. If it was a concern for you, you should have made an effort to investigate it. You can't point the finger at others claiming nobody told you. It's on you to figure that out and all the information is just a single google search away.

You are not helpless.

[SGiXers]

I charge to 100% every time. I usually prolong the charging time overnight by limiting the input to 10amps which give me about 7kwh charging. So far so good. I believe the buffer is built in sufficiently and using AC charging( less than 11kwh) will not harm the battery even in long term. I'm in tropical Singapore. No winters just warm, hot, wet or dry days. Have some faith in the design. Just dont DC charge to 100% all the time.

[mnx5er]

Originally Posted by ggalanis

Kia has the following text buried in their manual:
"If the HV battery is only charged to 80%,
and you minimize the number of DC fast
charging, you can keep the HV battery
performance in optimal condition. (vs
charging the HV battery to 100% an/or
charging every drive cycle.)"

The Kia team should have advised you especially if that was your first EV.

Marketing material would not mention this... that's normal. Same with car reviews.


They do talk about it. Mine did. The only thing worse than losing a sale is losing a lifetime of follow up sales due to expectations being set incorrectly and pissing off your customer.

I would guess that they assumed you knew about this since you already had an EV. Just like your salesman on a gas BMW wouldn't think to point out that you need to use Super grade fuel if you already had a vehicle that had that requirement... but if you are coming from a car that uses regular, they should point it out because you should not discover later on that your fuel costs will be 20% higher than expected (or whatever the difference in price is).

Determining the right information to tell your customer is not the easiest thing to do. Many get it wrong. Many customers think they know everything and get annoyed when they are being explained the basics so salespeople need to walk a thin line between telling you too little and too much.


The guy installing your charger is the last guy I would expect to tell you about the charging recommendations of your car, unless you had a super deep discussion with them while they worked on your install and happened to bring up the subject.

In the end, you should follow the recommendation if possible and if it makes no real difference to you (like if your daily needs are 20% of the battery, going from 80->60->80 daily is better for the battery than 100->80->100). If/when you need to use more of the battery, just do it. If that happens to be most of the time, then so be it. Ideally, your daily/regular needs should be catered for with 80% of the winter range. When that is not the case, IMHO, the car you are looking at is not the right one for you.

None of that is in the 2022 EV6 manual. That is the model I had. The 2022 manual talks about charging cycles as an issue. That used to be the issue with L-ION batteries and more of a focus than the 80/20 concept.

The BMW dealers I talked to did not know I had a previous EV, never mentioned it to them. I traded in an X5.

Every EV sales person I have talked to (outside of Tesla) has been clueless about EVs. Before you suggest it, I shopped at three major BMW dealerships.

[drbluedevil]

Originally Posted by mnx5er

Thanks! Good news is we will be leaving here in the next couple of years for good. I won’t miss it.

I worked in Duluth for a year. Now I'm in Texas. It was beautiful in the summer, but 100% I'll never return.

Also, regarding charging, consider the loss of energy efficiency in your charging habits. If you need 100%, then so be it...these things are designed to actually be used. But my understanding is that starting around 80% SoC, it becomes much more difficult to charge against the gradient and requires more energy to get those last few percent in. Also, it's more inefficient to discharge at the low end, so you get more thermal loss (and lower useful energy) discharging from 10% to 0% than you do at higher SoC. None of this matters to you if you actually need as much charge as the battery can hold, but just food for thought.

[mnx5er]

Originally Posted by NomoTesla

Charging curve is basic information in the EV world and available everywhere you look on the internet. If it was a concern for you, you should have made an effort to investigate it. You can't point the finger at others claiming nobody told you. It's on you to figure that out and all the information is just a single google search away.

You are not helpless.

Of course you fully understand how I research cars. That is a silly assumption. I have known lithium ion batteries well for a long time. Charging cycles was the main concern forever along with battery memory. The technology changes and even EVs have different types of batteries.

Apple just introduced an 80% limiter for charging in iOS. I already noted my 2022 EV6 didn't even talk about 80%.

I'm guessing if my wife bought an EV (she isn't into the details of cars) she would get roasted for being stupid.

That is all backwards. For EVs to go from enthusiast to regular folks, this stuff needs better education. It is a very expensive consumer product with all new technology.

I really could care less if people blame me for buying the wrong car, I've traded way too many cars to car what others think. I'll stand by the issues with EVs in Minnesota and the need for better education.

[Paladin1]

Originally Posted by Zinedine

I have my departure time set for 7am.
But the car charges to the charging target as fast as it can depending on what kW its getting.
I have never seen it adjust charging time so it can reach the charging target and the set departure time.

Am I missing something? maybe some option needs to be enabled?

While I do agree with everyone saying not to keep the battery below 20% or above 80% over an extended period, it would be good to know what everyone means by an extended period. An hour or 2?
10+ hours? or are we talking days?

Days, or even weeks, set on 100% to "trickle charge" plugged into the EVSE. Understanding that there is a top buffer, so even though the GOM says 100%, it's really something less. That both protects the battery and extends the usable capacity life. All Li-ion batteries lose capacity faster kept at maximum charge state, but again we've discovered that original estimates for the life of the batteries was substantially low-balled - BMW's 30% loss over 8 years "guarantee" is almost certainly significantly inflated. I'd guess 10-20% based on equivalent batteries and Tesla's experience.

In short, it's OK to charge to 100% whenever you need to. Better for the battery not to leave it there, and L2 charging is better than DC charging, but you likely won't increase the capacity over the 8 year stretch beyond a few percentage points being more conservative. Important if you intend to squeeze every percent out of the battery at the end of its warranty, but likely not significant in real world use.

Dropping the percent to zero every day, or continually DC fast charging to the max, will possibly get to BMW's estimate of a 30% loss (particularly frequent discharging to zero - Li-ion batteries hate that). But most likely normal use, conservative charging but actually using the battery, will see BMW iXs at 100k miles just like Tesla, with plenty of juice at the end.

[ggalanis]

Originally Posted by mnx5er

None of that is in the 2022 EV6 manual. That is the model I had. The 2022 manual talks about charging cycles as an issue. That used to be the issue with L-ION batteries and more of a focus than the 80/20 concept.

Well I find it in the 2022 manual. I didn't decide to make it up. That's where i quoted it from. See here: https://www.kia.com/content/dam/kwcm...anual-my22.pdf

Originally Posted by mnx5er

The BMW dealers I talked to did not know I had a previous EV, never mentioned it to them. I traded in an X5.

Ok. Fair. I find it weird that they wouldn't have asked you or that it wouldn't have come up at all but hey, I wasn't there.
*EDIT* when I say "weird", this is not a jab at you, but at the sales staff who I feel would normally have asked

Originally Posted by mnx5er

Every EV sales person I have talked to (outside of Tesla) has been clueless about EVs. Before you suggest it, I shopped at three major BMW dealerships.

That is obviously not good and that feedback should be given to those dealers and to BMWNA if not already done.

Cheers!

[JoeNC]

I’ve been doing 20 to 90. Only charge at home and it takes about 7-10 days for us to use that charge. Don’t see a scenario where I’d ever need to charge outside of home.

[freshxdough]

I really think you’re taking the whole 20/80 thing a little too seriously. If it was that seriously meant to only be 20/80, then that would be your 0-100%. 20/80 is recommended for ‘best’ battery health. Same with your smartphone and laptop but nobody ever takes care of those batteries like they should until it comes to their EV apparently.

[Pictor]

I had a gas car that redlined at 7500 and it's peak power curve wasn't until about 4500 rpm. When I let people drive that car they would shift at about 3000 rpm and it killed me.

There are some things about a vehicle that you either care about and take the time to learn or you treat the car like an appliance. Charging to 100% will not cause total failure of the battery. If you need the 100% charge then go for it. You paid for the car. If you don't need the 100% charge then don't and charge it up to 80% or 90% or even 60% if that's what you need to get you through the day. Next time consider an EV with a cheap and low power density LFP battery.

[KRS_SN]

The 20-80 only benefits BMW.
Approved used programs mean these cars will do the circuit for years.
Keeping the battery safe by 20-80 means bmw doesn't need to replace them at cost to them before year 8. After year 8 it's not BMW's responsibility anymore.

[sor]

I think your numbers are sandbagged quite a bit. The battery will warm up if you’re doing a long distance drive. For reference I took a trip to Wyoming in my iX, with ski rack on top, negative temperature at times, and was still getting over 200 miles of range at 80%.

During regular cold season with 20-40°F and ski rack, winter tires working against me, taking ski trips up in the mountains I was still seeing 250ish at 80%.

130 is what I’d get with my old e-tron in the dead of winter. The iX is much better than that. *maybe* if you have negative temps in a storm and a 50mph headwind to fight you may get this low, but I’d suggest not doing long trips traveling in storms regardless.

Charge to 100% if you’re taking a trip. It’s no big deal.

[Latham80]

A lot of discussion in here about how use habits may mean that the 80% rule isn’t necessary or that it isn’t as bad as it seems. However, to OP’s original point, car manufacturers are advertising a range number and then at time of sale telling consumers that they don’t actually recommend that number. That is a problem, especially for the vast majority of consumers who are not going to spend time on a car enthusiast forum to understand the different situations.

For ICE vehicles marketed in the US, the FTC mandates manufactures state highway/city/combined driving MPG estimates. You’d see numbers like 35 highway/28 city, or 32 combined. This is to protect consumers who don’t understand how driving habits can impact their efficiency and therefore the cost of ownership. There is 0 reason that EVs shouldn’t be held to the same standards when it comes to battery charge.

You can argue the minutiae of charging or driving habits, but the fact of the matter is that charging over 80% can impact the longevity of the battery and therefor value of car. From a monetary standpoint, there is little difference between this and the MPG estimates. Manufacturers should be required to advertise two range numbers, max range, and recommended range. Anything less is anti consumer and essentially allows for false advertising. With that said, this isn’t a BMW specific problem.

[sor]

Originally Posted by Latham80

A lot of discussion in here about how use habits may mean that the 80% rule isn’t necessary or that it isn’t as bad as it seems. However, to OP’s original point, car manufacturers are advertising a range number and then at time of sale telling consumers that they don’t actually recommend that number. That is a problem, especially for the vast majority of consumers who are not going to spend time on a car enthusiast forum to understand the different situations.

For ICE vehicles marketed in the US, the FTC mandates manufactures state highway/city/combined driving MPG estimates. You’d see numbers like 35 highway/28 city, or 32 combined. This is to protect consumers who don’t understand how driving habits can impact their efficiency and therefore the cost of ownership. There is 0 reason that EVs shouldn’t be held to the same standards when it comes to battery charge.

You can argue the minutiae of charging or driving habits, but the fact of the matter is that charging over 80% can impact the longevity of the battery and therefor value of car. From a monetary standpoint, there is little difference between this and the MPG estimates. Manufacturers should be required to advertise two range numbers, max range, and recommended range. Anything less is anti consumer and essentially allows for false advertising. With that said, this isn’t a BMW specific problem.

It’s a fair point, published range numbers are a mess. Not quite sure how to fix that, we would need more than two numbers, 80% and 100% isn’t enough. Driving habits and weather play a huge part, as well as who made your car.

In fact, the EPA numbers as it stands are supposed to be 70% of the real range of the car. They derate the range they actually got to account for random things that could go wrong. And for most of the year, iX owners have routinely reported getting ranges of 375 miles or more at a full charge.

This explains why I’m sitting at 300 miles range in my garage right now at 80% charge and have no doubt I could get that based on my previous road trips. The car is only rated for 274 EPA. When we hit winter again I’ll be back down to 250 or 240 at 80% charge, but that’s including the added drag of a ski rack, cold weather, bad conditions.

On the other hand, we have some other manufacturers I won’t name who routinely test in real world as 10-20% lower than their EPA.

I think it’s hard to accuse them of false advertisement when 1) its so hard to nail down an actual guaranteed range, 2) the EPA number for the iX is actually lower than what most of us get in normal weather, sometimes even at 80% charge 3) other manufacturers are giving much less than EPA in real world.

As a side note, It sounds to me like people are actually *afraid* to charge to 100%, don’t be. Do it whenever you need to. The car isn’t going to blow up or fall apart. Most people run to the gas station and top off their car right before a road trip, but don’t go fill their car to full every morning. Same idea.

[ggalanis]

Originally Posted by sor

It’s a fair point, published range numbers are a mess. Not quite sure how to fix that, we would need more than two numbers, 80% and 100% isn’t enough. Driving habits and weather play a huge part, as well as who made your car.

In fact, the EPA numbers as it stands are supposed to be 70% of the real range of the car. They derate the range they actually got to account for random things that could go wrong. And for most of the year, iX owners have routinely reported getting ranges of 375 miles or more at a full charge.

This explains why I’m sitting at 300 miles range in my garage right now at 80% charge and have no doubt I could get that based on my previous road trips. The car is only rated for 274 EPA. When we hit winter again I’ll be back down to 250 or 240 at 80% charge, but that’s including the added drag of a ski rack, cold weather, bad conditions.

On the other hand, we have some other manufacturers I won’t name who routinely test in real world as 10-20% lower than their EPA.

I think it’s hard to accuse them of false advertisement when 1) its so hard to nail down an actual guaranteed range, 2) the EPA number for the iX is actually lower than what most of us get in normal weather, sometimes even at 80% charge 3) other manufacturers are giving much less than EPA in real world.

As a side note, It sounds to me like people are actually *afraid* to charge to 100%, don’t be. Do it whenever you need to. The car isn’t going to blow up or fall apart. Most people run to the gas station and top off their car right before a road trip, but don’t go fill their car to full every morning. Same idea.

On an old thread, i had posted this:

Originally Posted by ggalanis

For EVs, it would be nice if companies gave a table with highway range as a function of speed and temps; the two main factors that affect it. They could pick a standard value for both (75mph/20C) to use for the official simple value for quick comparison, but this table would be so much better. Instead we have a useless range number, you can find the drag coefficient that can maybe give you a hint at how much worse it will get with speed (but of course they don't give you the frontal area to which the coefficient is applied to, cause that would be too useful) and you are left guessing.

IMHO, This table would be the most useful way for them to represent the highway range of a vehicle. You can look at the speed you usually cruise at and the temp, and quickly be able to have a good estimate.

[NomoTesla]

Originally Posted by sor

It’s a fair point, published range numbers are a mess. Not quite sure how to fix that, we would need more than two numbers, 80% and 100% isn’t enough. Driving habits and weather play a huge part, as well as who made your car.

In fact, the EPA numbers as it stands are supposed to be 70% of the real range of the car. They derate the range they actually got to account for random things that could go wrong. And for most of the year, iX owners have routinely reported getting ranges of 375 miles or more at a full charge.

This explains why I’m sitting at 300 miles range in my garage right now at 80% charge and have no doubt I could get that based on my previous road trips. The car is only rated for 274 EPA. When we hit winter again I’ll be back down to 250 or 240 at 80% charge, but that’s including the added drag of a ski rack, cold weather, bad conditions.

On the other hand, we have some other manufacturers I won’t name who routinely test in real world as 10-20% lower than their EPA.

I think it’s hard to accuse them of false advertisement when 1) its so hard to nail down an actual guaranteed range, 2) the EPA number for the iX is actually lower than what most of us get in normal weather, sometimes even at 80% charge 3) other manufacturers are giving much less than EPA in real world.

As a side note, It sounds to me like people are actually *afraid* to charge to 100%, don’t be. Do it whenever you need to. The car isn’t going to blow up or fall apart. Most people run to the gas station and top off their car right before a road trip, but don’t go fill their car to full every morning. Same idea.

Add to this that there are two EPA test cycles: 5-cycle and 2-cycle. BMW uses the 2-cycle test which consists of one city and one freeway. The two are then averaged using a formula, and then derated as you said. Tesla, on the other hand, uses the EPA 5-cycle. This allows a vehicle to excel in test cycles other than city and freeway, giving a higher number than is actually achievable in the real world.

The other thing folks are missing is that you do not need to charge your car to 100% regularly. This isn't a gasoline car where you load up on gas once a week or whatever. You should only be charging for the miles you drive. What is the point of charging to 100% if you aren't going to drive that amount? Folks need to change their thinking on this. If you only need to drive 100 miles it makes no sense to charge to 100% where my car will deliver in excess of 375 miles. This is the basic rule of EV charging.

Also, DC charging should only be used on road trips or if you have no other option. EVs make sense when you charge at home, overnight, while you're sleeping and at inexpensive residential rates. AC charging is also easier on the battery than DC charging.

Change your thinking from ICE age and you'll be happy.

[sor]

Originally Posted by ggalanis

IMHO, This table would be the most useful way for them to represent the highway range of a vehicle. You can look at the speed you usually cruise at and the temp, and quickly be able to have a good estimate.

Yes I’d love to have a multi-dimensional pivot table available to configure various ways and see what the performance looks like.

I think a good majority of the population just want a simple number and anything more is too complicated, let alone a table with more than two variables, so I understand why the EPA just lops off 30%. Especially when random things like wind can have more impact than even temperature or speed.

[sor]

Originally Posted by NomoTesla

This isn't a gasoline car where you load up on gas once a week or whatever. You should only be charging for the miles you drive.

From another angle it makes sense to treat them like gas cars. I get what you mean, with gas you fill the car completely every time you stop at the station. But you also don’t fill your car every day, and you mostly only care about having a full tank right before a big trip.

If people topped off their EV to 100% once a week or two and spent their day to day at 80%, 60%, 40% charge like they do with gas cars, that would be fine. The issue is more that we plug in and fill up every night, and the battery day to day never dips below say 90%. it’s more wear on your car to do that 365 times a year.

[bmwix1]

Regardless of how you charge or discharge the battery, it doesn't degrade the battery that too much theoretically. The unmanaged heat during the chemical reaction will cause permanent damage. So the longer your charge cycle is, the likelihood of excessive heat to be generated during charging is high. Battery management system can only do so many things at once. It won't dispatch the heat as if cooling overclocked CPU with liquid nitrogen. So in reality, charge and discharge in small cycles are better to enlong battery life. If you really have to charge to 100% for a long trip, go ahead. But try your best not to drain the battery to 0%. I would personally set the target at 95% in this scenario, so even BMW software shits up, there is still some room for margin of errors. Of course, I will AC charge when the battery is drop below 15% during a long trip if no DC charging station can be found for a long stretch as the last resort.