01-08-2022, 03:41 AM | #1 |
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BMW iX charging – questions & tips
I took delivery of an iX 40 three days ago and so far, I’m very happy with the car! It is my first fully electric car after owning a couple of PHEVs, with the latest being a X3 30e. It feels that is a bit of a new world that opens with all the options when it comes to batteries and charging.
With the PHEVs I just always plugged it in at home and at work and charged to 100%. I did not think so much about it. But with full EVs you hear a lot of recommendations, e.g. that you should not daily charge the car up to 100%, rather 80%, to extend battery life. I think the car had a recommendation in the menus about that. As I guess there are more and more people taking deliveries of iX’s and assumably there are quite many of us that this represents the first EV where you have to adapt into a new way of living with the car. So I thought it would be great have a thread to share tips, discuss and understand how other people live with their IXs and EV cars in terms of charging, batteries etc. I at least have put the charging target to 80% now and plan to charge up to 100% only ahead of longer journeys. What do you other IX/EV owners do? Let it charge to 80-90% or to full 100%? As for now, I do not charge it either every time, only when I get below, say 45%. I however plan to charge the car at work and at home regularly but I guess regular charging is recommended and does not hurt the batteries that much, as long as you do not do 100% every time? Last edited by NordicX3; 01-08-2022 at 04:11 AM.. |
01-09-2022, 03:09 AM | #2 |
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Would be very interested to know this - we are mostly charging at home (with 11kW charger) due to lack of DC superchargers in our area & have been letting it go up to 100%. The default setting with the car was to go to 100% - strange they would have this if it's not recommended at all.
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01-09-2022, 08:54 AM | #3 | |
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01-10-2022, 10:34 AM | #4 |
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BMW is definitely not charging the battery to top capacity when the gauge indicates 100%. That much is 100% certain from Bjorn Nyland's video where he still gets significant regen when the gauge is at 98/99/100%. If you're new to EV's, you can't get regen when the battery is nearing it's top limit as there's no place to put the electricity!
So this indicates that BMW is maintaining a decent top buffer. Likely both for this as well as to cover degradation over time. Back to the original question, the general rule of thumb is that these types of batteries are happiest / experience their longest life when they spend a much time as possible close to 50% SOC. So try to start gauging your charging / usage habits in order to keep the car swinging on either side of that point. Once you get a feel for how much electricity you use on a daily or weekly basis, and how often you charge, you can start to fine tune those parameters. I wouldn't charge the vehicle over 90% consistently unless you are planning on taking the car for a good trip within a few hours. You'll find that it's likely not necessary anyway. This is regardless of what your manufacturer recommends. Having a larger top buffer will mean you can keep it a bit higher on average, but I'd still try to keep it toward the middle of the SOC range as possible. And that might change! For example: I used to drive 95-130 miles / day. As a result, I'd charge my Tesla to 75% to 85% pretty much every night and arrive home somewhere in the 20-40% range. The reason is I wanted to have some reserve because I'd often take field trips to projects from my office, so my drive was unpredictable, and I'd go into parts of town where DC fast charging was not available. Now, I drive 8 miles each way to work plus lunch and running the kids around after work. So my daily total is usually less than 40 miles. As a result, I now only charge up to 70% on Sunday and that'll generally last me until Thursday or so depending on how cold it is. I may even drop that to 65% in the summer. This is not the same as with a PHEV, where there is much more of a buffer on top and below, because of the transient nature of when the battery is and isn't used. In those cars it's ok to charge to "100%" because the top buffer is much greater than in a BEV. |
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01-10-2022, 11:14 AM | #5 | |
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But based on what you saying is that is the number of charging also taking down the battery life? Or is it still better to charge up to, say 65-70% every day rather than 80-85% every other day? Maybe a stupid question but a bit curious about what to prioritize etc. |
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01-10-2022, 01:19 PM | #6 | |
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And in all honesty, unless you keep the vehicle greater than 5 years, with the amount of buffer this battery has, you're not likely to see much degradation in range. Sitting at 100% and excessive DC Fast charging is what's hard on the batteries. |
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01-10-2022, 02:22 PM | #7 | |
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01-10-2022, 05:20 PM | #8 |
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Yes, it’s not good for the battery to be consistently charged to the full capacity. I’ve owned a Tesla for a few years now and have set my max daily charge to 90%…. It was 80% until Tesla updated their recommendations. I expect the same will be true for any other BEV. When I charge at a DCFC, I’m only charging to 80-90% as it usually takes as long to go from 20-80% as it does to go 80-100%
Cheers!
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01-17-2022, 11:13 AM | #9 | |
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If you are purchasing the car and want to keep it for a long time, without specifics instructions from BMW limiting the daily charge is the safe thing to do. It's interesting to see how the battery management differs between manufacturers. Looking at the charging curve on the iX and other EVs, I'm a bit spoiled by my e-tron that charges to 100% at almost full speed. I expect to trade in the e-tron for maybe an iX or a Macan EV in a year or two so I'm scoping all of this out. |
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01-17-2022, 11:40 AM | #10 | |
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Also, so many mis-leading stats on charging. quoting 0-100% is completely useless as you'd never do that in real life. And charging is also dictated by pack temperature, and whether the car has pre-conditioned, etc. Yesterday in my Tesla, I had been shopping an hour and a half and the pack was likely cold. I then drove 5 minutes to a charger and even though the car was pre-conditioning, and I arrived at a little under 40% SOC, the most I got was 70 kW, which is about than half I've seen at that speed. But usually when I DCFC, it's after driving for a few hours where the battery has been discharging and it's nice and warm. |
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01-17-2022, 07:59 PM | #11 |
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For optimum service life of the pack, BMW recommends setting a maximum charging target of 80%, according to the U.S. owner's manual (highlight mine).
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01-21-2022, 09:57 AM | #12 |
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The default setting in my iX 50 was 100%. I haven't changed it.
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01-21-2022, 10:13 AM | #13 |
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I would actually change to 80% unless you really need the fully charged battery for range. They come with the 100% pre set. However, BMW recommends 80% and there is actually a counter in the car for 100% charges that can be viewed in the workshop diagnostics.
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01-24-2022, 01:40 PM | #14 |
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01-25-2022, 10:21 AM | #15 |
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Note, Tesla does advise to charge to 100% at least every 2 or 3 months. This to calibrate the batteries. I would indeed stick to 80 to 90% for daily use.
Also, on DC charging, I have seen people charging their Tesla with supercharging only and not having more degradation than others.. after 4 or 5 years. But yes, AC is preferred I think. |
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01-27-2022, 05:15 AM | #16 |
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My iX 50 has a max range of 630 km. At 0C (32F) the display says 400-450 at 100% charge. But heating the car takes a lot of range so maybe as low as 300 km range if I do a lot of shorter trips in a day. That means a rang of 240 km if I would only charge it to 80%. There is a big difference between 630 and 240 km. Ok, if I do a lot of shorter trips I could probably charge a couple of times during the day and thankfully it is not winter all year long.
This leads to my next question. What is best? To top it up to 80% every day or to charge it once or twice a week but at that time charge it to 100%? I'm really glad I didn't get the iX 40 with a range of 400 km.
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01-27-2022, 07:51 AM | #17 | |
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For the batteries, it's not the act of charging to 100% that's the issue. It's sitting at 100%. If you need to use 100%, you are advised to do that only right before you're going to drive the car off and drop the state of charge right away. If you are charging at home, that means that you're likely letting the car sit at 100%, which is not good. On trips when I left my house and needed 95% or 100% charge, I'd set the timer so it would start charging in the middle of the night and finish no more than an hour before I left. On my Tesla, I used to charge to 80 or 85% every morning before my commute, and come home with about 25-35% depending on my day. If I found that the weather was improving to where I was coming home with 40%, I'd drop down from 85 to 80%, and then to 70%, only charging higher if I knew I had a longer day. This did not result in any significant degredation. Now that I have a much shorter commute, I charge to 70% every few days and run it down to about 20 before charging up again. . |
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08-29-2023, 03:44 PM | #18 |
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Just searched up this thread as I saw this video and thought it a nice addition to the discussion.
https://youtu.be/r1BBNJDnkTQ?si=2rFk7grRPITelOkd
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08-29-2023, 04:11 PM | #19 |
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I keep it between 20-80% most of the time. Occasionally to 100% just before I plan a longer road trip just to rebalance the cells and knowing the car won't be sitting at 100%. I will also drive it down to 5% occasionally but I won't let it sit there. Essentially I try and keep the battery in the "middle" when parked overnight or for a few days unless I need the range.
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08-30-2023, 12:08 PM | #20 |
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Most modern Li-ion chemistry batteries (EV batteries included) have some top buffer - generally in the range of 5-10%. Meaning when the charge indicator says "100%," the actual usable battery capacity is something on the order of 90-95%, then a logic circuit will cut off charging when it reaches that level. This protects the battery from continually charging and remaining at 100% capacity, which reduces the long-term capacity of the battery. All batteries will still lose capacity over time (the ability to hold a charge), but more slowly than if actually charged continually to 100%.
The iX battery appears to have about a 5% buffer, and BMW warrants no more than a 30% loss in capacity over 8 years, which is average industry standard. These cars have been on the market less than 5 years, so no real field test to confirm actual loss, but that period will be shortened by 1) continually letting the battery fall below 20% charge, 2) continually charging to an indicated 100%, 3) frequent DC fast charging, 4) operating or storing in very cold or very hot conditions long-term, and 5) allowing the battery to completely discharge to 0% (there's also a low-end buffer to prevent this, but a Li-ion battery can actually be run to 0% by discharging to 0% on the indicator and then letting it sit for a prolonged period, when natural power-drain will take it to true zero when it is then generally unrecoverable). How much that or how quickly that capacity is reduced is just speculation right now without long term data, but BMW recommends routine charging to 80% and I would follow their recommendation for the maximum battery capacity over the life of the battery. |
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09-04-2023, 07:12 AM | #21 |
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Paladin1 what do you think about charging battery to 100% once every 3 or 4 months (as someone mentioned above)?
I don't need 100% charge at all, course don't drive long distances, but may be it makes sense to do it in such an interval in order to "train" the battery. |
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09-04-2023, 08:31 AM | #22 |
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Unlike NiMH or NiCd battery chemistry, Li-ion batteries (including EV batteries) don't require periodic "forming" (reconditioning by discharging to a low level and charging to an indicated 100% - otherwise they experience a voltage reduction sometimes mislabeled a "memory" effect). The only EV manufacturer to my knowledge that recommended a frequent periodic 100% charge is Tesla with their LFP batteries, and even they don't recommend it with their NCA battery packs.
Li-ion batteries don't have "memory" and don't need any type of calibration. And BMW engineering parameters don't mention any such requirement. To be clear, charging infrequently (as in every few months) to 100% likely won't do anything to affect the longevity of the battery, or it's ability to hold a charge (compared to not doing it), but is unnecessary unless you need a max charge for travel. Charging routinely to 100% (daily, even weekly) may not significantly affect it, but again we don't have enough years or mileage on these batteries to say one way or the other. And the manufacturer, who presumably has done some testing, recommends against it, which follows industry experience with other types of Li-ion chemistry. |
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