+1 for battery university, they're an excellent source. Does anyone have any other suggestions for similarly technically deep (while approachable) articles on any other facet consumer electronics?
My understanding from this article is that:
1. Charge the battery to as low a max percentage as possible (till about 65%)
2. Keep it as cool as possible (up to zero degrees C at least)
3. Use it as little as possible before recharging it (minimize charge-discharge bandwidth)
Aka, over-rate and over size the battery if you're building the device, and minimize extremes on any side of soc (state of charge).
Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?
(Of course, use the device as needed, these are just guidelines for the best perfomance.)
Degradation is driven by many things, but a big one is heat. Elevated temperatures during both charge and discharge is very bad for battery longevity. To manage this, almost all EVs use liquid cooling, with a cold plate directly contacting as many battery cells as they can to move heat out of the battery. This coolant is then cooled by a radiator, an AC chiller, or both.
The worst temperature abuse case is DC fast charging, aka Supercharging, where high current charging creates tons of heat due to resistive losses. This is why frequent fast charging causes faster battery degradation, but ordinary charging and driving does not, because the coolant loop is sized for the DC fast charge heat transfer requirements.
Besides removing heat, adding heat into the system is also desirable. Cold weather environments approaching freezing or below is also bad for battery longevity, and more importantly, terrible for range. Resistive heaters are super power hungry, and to heat the battery coolant loop requires power from the battery. This is why, conventionally, EVs are terrible in cold weather.
> Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?
And now, onto the magic trick.
Heat management is so important to both the driving range and the longevity of a vehicle that EVs have moved from traditional resistive heaters to heat pumps. These magical thermodynamic devices can move heat from anywhere, including drawing heat out of cold ambient air.
When you combine that with a valve design that allows the heat pump to access the battery coolant loop, the motor drivetrain coolant loop, the cabin coolant loop, the vehicle computer(s) coolant loops, and external ambient temperature, you can have a super efficient system that shuffles heat where it's "wasted" to where it's "needed".
I don't think this advice is useful. You're going to use your devices, so you won't control the temperature or, largely, the charge percentage.
I think good advice is to keep your devices as cool as you can (ie don't leave your cars in sunlight when there's shade), which you probably did anyway, and keep the battery between 20% and 80% as much as possible. If the battery is going to stay unused for a while, leave it at 3.8V (or close to it), or at 50%.
Batteries are ultimately consumables, so don't stress too much. Just care for them as much as convenient, and that's it.
> I think good advice is to keep your devices as cool as you can (ie don't leave your cars in sunlight when there's shade),
In some climates, such as where I live, the larger issue is the cold in the winter. From what I understand, Li-ion batteries don't like being charged below 0 C. And it is not uncommon for it to dip to -15 C or even -20 C here.
Really, from what I understand, batteries want to be kept above freezing but cool. So yeah, don't leave it in direct sunlight in the middle of summer. The more difficult problem is the winter (unless you happen to have a heated garage).
> You're going to use your devices, so you won't control the temperature or, largely, the charge percentage.
> I think good advice is to keep your devices as cool as you can (...), and keep the battery between 20% and 80% as much as possible.
Yeah that's kinda what I meant. Where it's easy or possible to do so (for eg lots of modern laptops & phones allow charge limits), it's better to follow these guidelines.
> Batteries are ultimately consumables, so don't stress too much. Just care for them as much as convenient, and that's it.
Yeah I agree (and that's what I meant by my last sentence), however, a lot of people (including eg my dad!) end up having battery issues while being unaware that they can do things to protect their hardware.
For example, my phone has enough capacity to last the whole day even at 60% of it's capacity. I've set it to stop charging at 80% (the lowest possible SOC) for this reason. On my laptop, I frequently reduce it to 60% as I use it plugged in.
> I don't think this advice is useful.
I'm afraid I don't get what's not helpful? We're probably talking across each other.
It came across to me as "keep your batteries always under 0 C", which obviously almost nobody can do, and it leads to a sense of "eh, I won't go to these lengths, might as well do nothing", which is counterproductive.
I see the same reaction with healthy eating, where people are so put off by extremely militant advice that they think "I can't eat only vegetables all day, fuck it, I'll eat these three cheeseburgers".
I agree with your second comment, the first one just could be misconstrued as very hard-to-follow advice.
That's backwards. At too low temperatures batteries start to take damage during discharge or (especially) charge, so 0C is the lowest temperature at which you should charge it. 5C would be better.
It's a concern mainly for e.g. offgrid batteries being used in the winter.
Light bulbs (including LEDs) are similar. If you use them at slightly lower then their maximum rating, things tend to last a LOT longer. The "Dubai lamp" uses this concept - oversized LEDs that are derated, and last a very long time (100k hours). You can do the same by buying oversized dimmable LEDs and simply turning down the brightness.
> Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?
Automotive EE here. EV aren’t ready for world wide use. That statement is constantly ignored by people in California who see zero issues with their new expensive fancy cars.
Shortest version… The heating and cooling systems of the battery are there to prevent damage. BUT… who powers the heating and cooling systems? The battery of course.
In a traditional or better yet a plugin hybrid, you can use the gas engine to control how much electric you are using in conditions that would be harmful to the battery. In EV vehicles you have no choice. The car won’t tell you “you can’t drive right now”.
The marketing of EVs was a mistake, and every mfg is paying for it. Ford taking a 2 billion write off this year on their EV line and canceling a lot of their vehicles.
They will be cool, but this generation makes a great second vehicle or town vehicle. Absolutely not an extreme weather highway vehicle.
Are you a technician or an engineer? And as a follow up, what part of the vehicle do you engineer?
Because this sounds a lot like a case of a dentist seeing a lot of cavities and making conclusions that teeth are "bad tech".
I live in a climate that's in yearly flux from -20 to +35 C and EVs have been normal here for a long time(7+ years) with no major issues. What parameters and therefore regions does your statement cover? I'm sure you can't run an EV in Syberia(RU), but people with petrol cars there have to run them even parked to avoid freezing during the winter so there will always be extremes.
As for the commercial equation: BYD and Tesla don't seem to be fitting that narrative. So this is not a matter of a marketing mistake - but an overall execution on the failed manufacturers.
Engineer. I started in core competency groups, worked on powertrain integration, and now, I’m a specialist. I roam around and put myself to use wherever needed. I’m now a consultant but I have badges for idk, maybe 20 facilities.
I don't see anything in your comment history that would indicate a strong engineering role. Mostly political engagements really. You haven't said anything useful on this thread regarding TFA and it's content. Listing your credentials while making obviously false and dismissive statements is not good faith discussion.
...what? You leave your car plugged in, and that's it. Then the BMS will take care of the battery without having to use it's energy.
If I preheat the car it also preheats the battery. If it's not warm enough it won't allow full recuperation. Oh my god, I have to use THE BRAKES for a few minutes, literal trash car.
And all those people in Norway, you know, with their heat pumps and EVs. Obviously life just grinds to a halt there every winter. *dramatic eye roll
When I need to drive me EV I open the door, get in, close the door, put it in drive and drive off.
Were you expecting something different? I'm in Norway by the way where it is expected to be -15 C in a few days; after eight years of EV driving (2015 Tesla S 70D) I am not anticipating any problems.
> What is your experience?
I've told you mine, what's yours? Or will you argue from authority again?
driving an ev for the past 2.5 years with 97% SOH remaining. So I must be doing something right wrt treating the battery nicely. And I don't have a garage, it's outside most of the time. I drove thousands of km in subzero C temperature.
>Cool. And when you need to drive it? Most systems do not keep the battery heater running indefinitely.
I get in and put it into drive. When it's cold, I preheat it, I can program departure times, so the battery is conditioned and the cabin warmed in advance. Even at sub-zero temperatures, it always starts reliably, unlike a diesel engine, which, as you know, requires preheating and can struggle with extreme cold starts. Also requires winter diesel.
I have a vehicle in my personal shop right now. It needs a new battery, it is effectively totaled.
The battery costs more than the vehicle.
The effort for me to replace the battery modules (not even the cells inside of them) involves taking the entire suspension out, and then, you have the ACTUALLY FATAL issue of working on the battery pack. You need 1000V+ gloves that expire every six months, composite ratchets and sockets, and for me high voltage certification.
There is nothing on an ICE vehicle that can kill you while working on its parts.
I will be downvoted by people who need (literally) to defend their purchase. Always am on this topic.
Fully agree (I'm 100% team PHEV or EREV/REEV) as a mechanical engineer. IMO BEVs and PHEVs/REEVs should be on parity in terms of tax/govt incentives, while encouraging electric use - for eg, subsidized (PH)EV charging, high(er) costs in city centres if running in ICE mode, etc.
I was just curious if EV manufacturers use any other tricks that're "well known" in EV-land but not for the average consumer.
These acronyms are a nightmare, what the hell is a PHEV? EREV? PZEV?
Consumers are just expected to know this stuff somehow, it’s nuts. Sometimes I buy parts for my car and just hope I selected the right one, because some models are PZEV/not PZEV but the sticker that would tell me has turned completely white & can’t be read.
> These acronyms are a nightmare, what the hell is a PHEV? EREV? PZEV?
PHEV is the old term, it's a plug in hybrid EV. I.e., you can plug it in and use the battery, or use the ICE engine via petrol (gasoline).
(B)EVs are pure battery EVs. Think Tesla.
REEV/EREV is range extender EV. Essentially an EV that has a small ICE engine that's very handy for making the 50 or 100km battery "run" for 500km if the need arises, by using the ICE as a generator.
In some countries, you also have "strong" and "weak" hybrids - these are not cars you can plug in (they only take petrol), but they use some motors and battery to vastly improve the efficiency of the engine. Think doubling your mileage levels of good.
> Consumers are just expected to know this stuff somehow, it’s nuts.
Yeah no I don't think that's good design either. May I ask what kind of parts do you buy that makes it so confusing? Our car (Honda) has a very simple model name, there's not a lot of variations or options to confuse to begin with.
Btw, if you want a real fun doozy, look up the parallel series hybrid system that iirc GM had. It was a beautiful beast - it could basically take any power source, and do anything with it (charge battery, run wheels etc).
There's a good YouTube video on it if you search for it.
Whenever I buy parts for my regular gas car the parts site asks if it’s PZEV or DOHC. To make matters worse the PZEV version is also DOHC (dual over head cams) as far as I can tell. And the VIN number doesn’t say if it’s PZEV or not. It’s not on any of the paperwork I got with the car either.
Consumers just take their shit to the dealer which hires technicians who job it is, literally, to know "what the hell". If that is too complicated for you to figure out, I can't recommend you do your own work on your car.
Thanks! That's very helpful (and unsurprising) to know. Any idea if satellites use LTO batteries btw? They have much longer lives and apparently can tolerate much more abuse.
I don't know why I'm being downvoted, but I live in a developing country where the tailpipe emissions from a modern well maintained car are literally cleaner than that of commercial (power) plants - potentially making EVs worse. Ofc I'm sure it's much nicer if you're in a 1st world country, but unfortunately that's not where I am.
I may be a bit odd, but I store lithium ion battery containing electronics in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. You lose 20% of capacity in a year if you have 100% state of charge but only 6% loss of capacity at refrigerator temperatures. So tool batteries, small electronics and whatever else that isn't used weekly gets put in.
I also try to charge fully only just before use (and only if I need 100%), and store at partial charge. If I am charging for storage, I just set a 30 minute timer. Since 1C charging is the most common, 30 minutes at 1C will be about 50% state of charge from empty, which is useful for items with no state of charge indicator.
I use AlDente[1] on my Apple laptops, and the 80% charge feature on my Pixel phone. My bedside phone charger is a slow charger.
Maybe I'm doing too much to manage my batteries, but I also haven't needed to retire anything for having a bad battery in many years, nor had items with dwindling capacity.
Have you ever measured your battery voltages over time storing it this way? Is that 6% capacity loss theoretical or measured data? I'm intrigued. This sounds crazy, but it should technically be fundamentally sound.
>You lose 20% of capacity in a year if you have 100% state of charge but only 6% loss of capacity at refrigerator temperatures.
Source? The common figure for smartphone batteries is "at least 80% capacity after 2 years", and that presumably includes cycles, not just leaving it charged.
From the article, Table 3: 100% SoC @ 25°C leaves only 80% of the original capacity after a year.
It's easy to look at that table and think that it's remaining charge after a year; it's not. It's lost capacity.
This is known in the industry as "calendar aging". So far as I know, stockpiles of lithium ion batteries are stored at a relatively low state of charge and in a cold environment for this reason among others. It's common to order a laptop battery or similar and get a unit that was manufactured a year back. It would be terrible to get a new battery that already had diminished capacity, which is what would happen if you stored them in a non-conditioned warehouse in a hot climate.
Reminds me of “Chargie”, a gadget that goes inline with your USB charging cable and controlled by an app on the device to limit the charge level to whatever you choose. I think it was born via kickstarter.
“The most Intelligent Battery Health Protection for Phones & Laptops”
https://chargie.org/
After the first battery of my Samsung S4 expanded at the end of its life in less than 2 years, I found a utility that didn't work perfectly but could limit charge anywhere between 30 to 100% most of the time, and it prolonged the lifetime of the couple of later batteries during the 10+ years I used the phone with a limit around 66%.
I was glad to see my new Samsung XCover 7 has a built-in option to limit charge to 80%, although a flaky usb cable could sometimes overcharge to 100%. And also has a removable battery.
It's probably not a flaky USB cable. Androids charging limit of 80% includes a policy to charge 100% every 14 days to recalibrate the battery controller.
A possibility to limit charging to ~65% does not exist per se but you can measure the time it takes to charge from 25% to 65% and use a power timer to shut down charging after that period of time. It's not accurate but easy to implement.
Another factor is fast charging... The battery loses capscity significantly faster if you fast charge often...
Maybe I just expect too much battery life, but I find that I get quite low or even run out when I limit charging to 80%.
My feeling is that the coulomb counting on the Pixel 8 Pro is just not very accurate, so the phone thinks it's at 80%, but is really at 60% or 40%.
I still use the feature, but now I have to top up during the day every so often. I suppose rationally I should just charge to 100% rather than take a medicine that causes the same side effect as the disease its meant to treat, but I'm not that rational.
> although a flaky usb cable could sometimes overcharge
The charge controller is in the phone. The cable and power supply have no bearing on when charging is terminated. Android has an "optimized charging" option where it will charge above 80% shortly before it predicts you are likely to unplug. Samsung may have meddled with this behavior but that isn't Android's fault.
I definitely would do that if I could. I would absolutely love to tell it to only charge to 66% (or whatever, even 50% would work). I rarely use the phone for multiple hours at a time without access to power, and when I do, I usually know beforehand (like during a trip or something) so I could tell it to charge all the way. My battery rarely goes below 80%, even now that the phone is 3.5 years old.
I understand newer iphones now have the option to only charge up to a certain percentage. Mine doesn't have that, it only has the "smart charging", which tries not to charge it too quickly and only is full by the time it expects you'll use it (usually in the morning). It's very hit and miss for my use patterns, so it ends up at 100% most of the time...
But yeah, at some point we should also consider the tradeoff between convenience and battery life. Batteries can be replaced, having to charge twice a day is a PITA for me.
My charging solution is that I've purchased three (cheap and therefore slow) wireless charging docks that sit my phone slightly leaning backwards, therefore nicely viewable if necessary.
One sits on my desk at work, one sits on my desk at home and the third sits on my bedside table (it acts like a clock radio / alarm clock). I just place it on the relevant charger while working / sleeping and it's always got enough charge when I need it.
(I also use the surprisingly fairly recent addition of charging protection to limit it to 80% charge)
I'm aware this won't work for all use cases, but it's great for mine.
Sometimes the phone is warm, I wouldn't even say hot. Could be because I bought lower wattage wireless chargers - I don't need it to charge fast, I just need it to top up the battery.
The only time my phone has given me a message about heat was, indeed, in a phone holder in the car, but it wasn't even charging. We are experiencing a heat wave in Australia right now though, and the car had been sitting in the sun in a car park for an hour.
They’re a joke, I used to have one in my car and the combination of sunlight & internally produced heat would make my phone shut off & display a “iPhone is too hot” message. Even when it’s cold outside.
I switched to wired charging with the phone mounted in the same spot and the heat issue went away. Wireless charging produces a lot more heat than wired.
+1 for battery university, they're an excellent source. Does anyone have any other suggestions for similarly technically deep (while approachable) articles on any other facet consumer electronics?
My understanding from this article is that:
1. Charge the battery to as low a max percentage as possible (till about 65%) 2. Keep it as cool as possible (up to zero degrees C at least) 3. Use it as little as possible before recharging it (minimize charge-discharge bandwidth)
Aka, over-rate and over size the battery if you're building the device, and minimize extremes on any side of soc (state of charge).
Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?
(Of course, use the device as needed, these are just guidelines for the best perfomance.)
Degradation is driven by many things, but a big one is heat. Elevated temperatures during both charge and discharge is very bad for battery longevity. To manage this, almost all EVs use liquid cooling, with a cold plate directly contacting as many battery cells as they can to move heat out of the battery. This coolant is then cooled by a radiator, an AC chiller, or both.
The worst temperature abuse case is DC fast charging, aka Supercharging, where high current charging creates tons of heat due to resistive losses. This is why frequent fast charging causes faster battery degradation, but ordinary charging and driving does not, because the coolant loop is sized for the DC fast charge heat transfer requirements.
Besides removing heat, adding heat into the system is also desirable. Cold weather environments approaching freezing or below is also bad for battery longevity, and more importantly, terrible for range. Resistive heaters are super power hungry, and to heat the battery coolant loop requires power from the battery. This is why, conventionally, EVs are terrible in cold weather.
> Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?
And now, onto the magic trick.
Heat management is so important to both the driving range and the longevity of a vehicle that EVs have moved from traditional resistive heaters to heat pumps. These magical thermodynamic devices can move heat from anywhere, including drawing heat out of cold ambient air.
When you combine that with a valve design that allows the heat pump to access the battery coolant loop, the motor drivetrain coolant loop, the cabin coolant loop, the vehicle computer(s) coolant loops, and external ambient temperature, you can have a super efficient system that shuffles heat where it's "wasted" to where it's "needed".
Tesla has an excellent video briefly covering their heat pump and their very clever Octovalve design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGgrkeds5U
For more depth, this video covers the heat pump and the ~22 different sources of heat it can draw heat from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dujr3DRkpDU
I don't think this advice is useful. You're going to use your devices, so you won't control the temperature or, largely, the charge percentage.
I think good advice is to keep your devices as cool as you can (ie don't leave your cars in sunlight when there's shade), which you probably did anyway, and keep the battery between 20% and 80% as much as possible. If the battery is going to stay unused for a while, leave it at 3.8V (or close to it), or at 50%.
Batteries are ultimately consumables, so don't stress too much. Just care for them as much as convenient, and that's it.
> I think good advice is to keep your devices as cool as you can (ie don't leave your cars in sunlight when there's shade),
In some climates, such as where I live, the larger issue is the cold in the winter. From what I understand, Li-ion batteries don't like being charged below 0 C. And it is not uncommon for it to dip to -15 C or even -20 C here.
Really, from what I understand, batteries want to be kept above freezing but cool. So yeah, don't leave it in direct sunlight in the middle of summer. The more difficult problem is the winter (unless you happen to have a heated garage).
Yeah, they lose capacity temporarily when it's very cold. Most EVs now precondition the battery before charging by heating it up.
> You're going to use your devices, so you won't control the temperature or, largely, the charge percentage.
> I think good advice is to keep your devices as cool as you can (...), and keep the battery between 20% and 80% as much as possible.
Yeah that's kinda what I meant. Where it's easy or possible to do so (for eg lots of modern laptops & phones allow charge limits), it's better to follow these guidelines.
> Batteries are ultimately consumables, so don't stress too much. Just care for them as much as convenient, and that's it.
Yeah I agree (and that's what I meant by my last sentence), however, a lot of people (including eg my dad!) end up having battery issues while being unaware that they can do things to protect their hardware.
For example, my phone has enough capacity to last the whole day even at 60% of it's capacity. I've set it to stop charging at 80% (the lowest possible SOC) for this reason. On my laptop, I frequently reduce it to 60% as I use it plugged in.
> I don't think this advice is useful.
I'm afraid I don't get what's not helpful? We're probably talking across each other.
It came across to me as "keep your batteries always under 0 C", which obviously almost nobody can do, and it leads to a sense of "eh, I won't go to these lengths, might as well do nothing", which is counterproductive.
I see the same reaction with healthy eating, where people are so put off by extremely militant advice that they think "I can't eat only vegetables all day, fuck it, I'll eat these three cheeseburgers".
I agree with your second comment, the first one just could be misconstrued as very hard-to-follow advice.
That's backwards. At too low temperatures batteries start to take damage during discharge or (especially) charge, so 0C is the lowest temperature at which you should charge it. 5C would be better.
It's a concern mainly for e.g. offgrid batteries being used in the winter.
I know, but "as cool as possible (up to zero degrees C at least)" is conflicting, and kind of means "below zero degrees".
Light bulbs (including LEDs) are similar. If you use them at slightly lower then their maximum rating, things tend to last a LOT longer. The "Dubai lamp" uses this concept - oversized LEDs that are derated, and last a very long time (100k hours). You can do the same by buying oversized dimmable LEDs and simply turning down the brightness.
That doesn't help nearly as much as reducing the current through them. And, PWM doesn't change the lumens per watt at all.
> Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?
Automotive EE here. EV aren’t ready for world wide use. That statement is constantly ignored by people in California who see zero issues with their new expensive fancy cars.
Shortest version… The heating and cooling systems of the battery are there to prevent damage. BUT… who powers the heating and cooling systems? The battery of course.
In a traditional or better yet a plugin hybrid, you can use the gas engine to control how much electric you are using in conditions that would be harmful to the battery. In EV vehicles you have no choice. The car won’t tell you “you can’t drive right now”.
The marketing of EVs was a mistake, and every mfg is paying for it. Ford taking a 2 billion write off this year on their EV line and canceling a lot of their vehicles.
They will be cool, but this generation makes a great second vehicle or town vehicle. Absolutely not an extreme weather highway vehicle.
Are you a technician or an engineer? And as a follow up, what part of the vehicle do you engineer?
Because this sounds a lot like a case of a dentist seeing a lot of cavities and making conclusions that teeth are "bad tech".
I live in a climate that's in yearly flux from -20 to +35 C and EVs have been normal here for a long time(7+ years) with no major issues. What parameters and therefore regions does your statement cover? I'm sure you can't run an EV in Syberia(RU), but people with petrol cars there have to run them even parked to avoid freezing during the winter so there will always be extremes.
As for the commercial equation: BYD and Tesla don't seem to be fitting that narrative. So this is not a matter of a marketing mistake - but an overall execution on the failed manufacturers.
Engineer. I started in core competency groups, worked on powertrain integration, and now, I’m a specialist. I roam around and put myself to use wherever needed. I’m now a consultant but I have badges for idk, maybe 20 facilities.
I don't see anything in your comment history that would indicate a strong engineering role. Mostly political engagements really. You haven't said anything useful on this thread regarding TFA and it's content. Listing your credentials while making obviously false and dismissive statements is not good faith discussion.
...what? You leave your car plugged in, and that's it. Then the BMS will take care of the battery without having to use it's energy.
If I preheat the car it also preheats the battery. If it's not warm enough it won't allow full recuperation. Oh my god, I have to use THE BRAKES for a few minutes, literal trash car.
And all those people in Norway, you know, with their heat pumps and EVs. Obviously life just grinds to a halt there every winter. *dramatic eye roll
Cool. And when you need to drive it? Most systems do not keep the battery heater running indefinitely.
No one is talking about the brakes.
I’m an automotive engineer that has worked for two of the big4. What is your experience?
> And when you need to drive it?
When I need to drive me EV I open the door, get in, close the door, put it in drive and drive off.
Were you expecting something different? I'm in Norway by the way where it is expected to be -15 C in a few days; after eight years of EV driving (2015 Tesla S 70D) I am not anticipating any problems.
> What is your experience?
I've told you mine, what's yours? Or will you argue from authority again?
driving an ev for the past 2.5 years with 97% SOH remaining. So I must be doing something right wrt treating the battery nicely. And I don't have a garage, it's outside most of the time. I drove thousands of km in subzero C temperature.
>Cool. And when you need to drive it? Most systems do not keep the battery heater running indefinitely.
I get in and put it into drive. When it's cold, I preheat it, I can program departure times, so the battery is conditioned and the cabin warmed in advance. Even at sub-zero temperatures, it always starts reliably, unlike a diesel engine, which, as you know, requires preheating and can struggle with extreme cold starts. Also requires winter diesel.
They seem to be working just fine here in snowy Norway.
How is this not an instance of "perfect is the enemy of good enough?"?
Honestly in this situation, hybrids (ideally of the plug in variant) are the "good enough" thing when you're shifting from ICE.
Shifting the easy 70% first gives a very nice boost, and the rest can be cajoled/fed hydrogen (if it matures by then) etc over time.
Depends.
I have a vehicle in my personal shop right now. It needs a new battery, it is effectively totaled.
The battery costs more than the vehicle.
The effort for me to replace the battery modules (not even the cells inside of them) involves taking the entire suspension out, and then, you have the ACTUALLY FATAL issue of working on the battery pack. You need 1000V+ gloves that expire every six months, composite ratchets and sockets, and for me high voltage certification.
There is nothing on an ICE vehicle that can kill you while working on its parts.
I will be downvoted by people who need (literally) to defend their purchase. Always am on this topic.
> EV aren’t ready for world wide use.
Fully agree (I'm 100% team PHEV or EREV/REEV) as a mechanical engineer. IMO BEVs and PHEVs/REEVs should be on parity in terms of tax/govt incentives, while encouraging electric use - for eg, subsidized (PH)EV charging, high(er) costs in city centres if running in ICE mode, etc.
I was just curious if EV manufacturers use any other tricks that're "well known" in EV-land but not for the average consumer.
These acronyms are a nightmare, what the hell is a PHEV? EREV? PZEV? Consumers are just expected to know this stuff somehow, it’s nuts. Sometimes I buy parts for my car and just hope I selected the right one, because some models are PZEV/not PZEV but the sticker that would tell me has turned completely white & can’t be read.
> These acronyms are a nightmare, what the hell is a PHEV? EREV? PZEV?
PHEV is the old term, it's a plug in hybrid EV. I.e., you can plug it in and use the battery, or use the ICE engine via petrol (gasoline).
(B)EVs are pure battery EVs. Think Tesla.
REEV/EREV is range extender EV. Essentially an EV that has a small ICE engine that's very handy for making the 50 or 100km battery "run" for 500km if the need arises, by using the ICE as a generator.
In some countries, you also have "strong" and "weak" hybrids - these are not cars you can plug in (they only take petrol), but they use some motors and battery to vastly improve the efficiency of the engine. Think doubling your mileage levels of good.
> Consumers are just expected to know this stuff somehow, it’s nuts.
Yeah no I don't think that's good design either. May I ask what kind of parts do you buy that makes it so confusing? Our car (Honda) has a very simple model name, there's not a lot of variations or options to confuse to begin with.
Btw, if you want a real fun doozy, look up the parallel series hybrid system that iirc GM had. It was a beautiful beast - it could basically take any power source, and do anything with it (charge battery, run wheels etc). There's a good YouTube video on it if you search for it.
Whenever I buy parts for my regular gas car the parts site asks if it’s PZEV or DOHC. To make matters worse the PZEV version is also DOHC (dual over head cams) as far as I can tell. And the VIN number doesn’t say if it’s PZEV or not. It’s not on any of the paperwork I got with the car either.
Consumers just take their shit to the dealer which hires technicians who job it is, literally, to know "what the hell". If that is too complicated for you to figure out, I can't recommend you do your own work on your car.
AFAIK, they charge only to 4.0 V. I think the batteries on satellites are also charged only to 4.0 V
Thanks! That's very helpful (and unsurprising) to know. Any idea if satellites use LTO batteries btw? They have much longer lives and apparently can tolerate much more abuse.
I don't know why I'm being downvoted, but I live in a developing country where the tailpipe emissions from a modern well maintained car are literally cleaner than that of commercial (power) plants - potentially making EVs worse. Ofc I'm sure it's much nicer if you're in a 1st world country, but unfortunately that's not where I am.
I may be a bit odd, but I store lithium ion battery containing electronics in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. You lose 20% of capacity in a year if you have 100% state of charge but only 6% loss of capacity at refrigerator temperatures. So tool batteries, small electronics and whatever else that isn't used weekly gets put in.
I also try to charge fully only just before use (and only if I need 100%), and store at partial charge. If I am charging for storage, I just set a 30 minute timer. Since 1C charging is the most common, 30 minutes at 1C will be about 50% state of charge from empty, which is useful for items with no state of charge indicator.
I use AlDente[1] on my Apple laptops, and the 80% charge feature on my Pixel phone. My bedside phone charger is a slow charger.
Maybe I'm doing too much to manage my batteries, but I also haven't needed to retire anything for having a bad battery in many years, nor had items with dwindling capacity.
[1] https://github.com/AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Battery_Care_and_...
Have you ever measured your battery voltages over time storing it this way? Is that 6% capacity loss theoretical or measured data? I'm intrigued. This sounds crazy, but it should technically be fundamentally sound.
>You lose 20% of capacity in a year if you have 100% state of charge but only 6% loss of capacity at refrigerator temperatures.
Source? The common figure for smartphone batteries is "at least 80% capacity after 2 years", and that presumably includes cycles, not just leaving it charged.
From the article, Table 3: 100% SoC @ 25°C leaves only 80% of the original capacity after a year.
It's easy to look at that table and think that it's remaining charge after a year; it's not. It's lost capacity.
This is known in the industry as "calendar aging". So far as I know, stockpiles of lithium ion batteries are stored at a relatively low state of charge and in a cold environment for this reason among others. It's common to order a laptop battery or similar and get a unit that was manufactured a year back. It would be terrible to get a new battery that already had diminished capacity, which is what would happen if you stored them in a non-conditioned warehouse in a hot climate.
Reminds me of “Chargie”, a gadget that goes inline with your USB charging cable and controlled by an app on the device to limit the charge level to whatever you choose. I think it was born via kickstarter.
After the first battery of my Samsung S4 expanded at the end of its life in less than 2 years, I found a utility that didn't work perfectly but could limit charge anywhere between 30 to 100% most of the time, and it prolonged the lifetime of the couple of later batteries during the 10+ years I used the phone with a limit around 66%.
I was glad to see my new Samsung XCover 7 has a built-in option to limit charge to 80%, although a flaky usb cable could sometimes overcharge to 100%. And also has a removable battery.
It's probably not a flaky USB cable. Androids charging limit of 80% includes a policy to charge 100% every 14 days to recalibrate the battery controller.
A possibility to limit charging to ~65% does not exist per se but you can measure the time it takes to charge from 25% to 65% and use a power timer to shut down charging after that period of time. It's not accurate but easy to implement.
Another factor is fast charging... The battery loses capscity significantly faster if you fast charge often...
I personally only use the 80% limitation...
Maybe I just expect too much battery life, but I find that I get quite low or even run out when I limit charging to 80%.
My feeling is that the coulomb counting on the Pixel 8 Pro is just not very accurate, so the phone thinks it's at 80%, but is really at 60% or 40%.
I still use the feature, but now I have to top up during the day every so often. I suppose rationally I should just charge to 100% rather than take a medicine that causes the same side effect as the disease its meant to treat, but I'm not that rational.
Absolutely. I find it strange that Google decides to provide a fixed value of 80%. A slider from 65% to 95% would be more sufficient...
95% would probably work out for you and still decrease battery wearout...
> although a flaky usb cable could sometimes overcharge
The charge controller is in the phone. The cable and power supply have no bearing on when charging is terminated. Android has an "optimized charging" option where it will charge above 80% shortly before it predicts you are likely to unplug. Samsung may have meddled with this behavior but that isn't Android's fault.
You only charged your phone to 66% for ten years?
I definitely would do that if I could. I would absolutely love to tell it to only charge to 66% (or whatever, even 50% would work). I rarely use the phone for multiple hours at a time without access to power, and when I do, I usually know beforehand (like during a trip or something) so I could tell it to charge all the way. My battery rarely goes below 80%, even now that the phone is 3.5 years old.
I understand newer iphones now have the option to only charge up to a certain percentage. Mine doesn't have that, it only has the "smart charging", which tries not to charge it too quickly and only is full by the time it expects you'll use it (usually in the morning). It's very hit and miss for my use patterns, so it ends up at 100% most of the time...
Veeeeery slow charger :)
But yeah, at some point we should also consider the tradeoff between convenience and battery life. Batteries can be replaced, having to charge twice a day is a PITA for me.
My charging solution is that I've purchased three (cheap and therefore slow) wireless charging docks that sit my phone slightly leaning backwards, therefore nicely viewable if necessary.
One sits on my desk at work, one sits on my desk at home and the third sits on my bedside table (it acts like a clock radio / alarm clock). I just place it on the relevant charger while working / sleeping and it's always got enough charge when I need it.
(I also use the surprisingly fairly recent addition of charging protection to limit it to 80% charge)
I'm aware this won't work for all use cases, but it's great for mine.
Those really make my phone overheat, so I avoid them. Didn't they heat yours up?
Sometimes the phone is warm, I wouldn't even say hot. Could be because I bought lower wattage wireless chargers - I don't need it to charge fast, I just need it to top up the battery.
The only time my phone has given me a message about heat was, indeed, in a phone holder in the car, but it wasn't even charging. We are experiencing a heat wave in Australia right now though, and the car had been sitting in the sun in a car park for an hour.
They’re a joke, I used to have one in my car and the combination of sunlight & internally produced heat would make my phone shut off & display a “iPhone is too hot” message. Even when it’s cold outside.
I think that's just sun+charging, not wireless charging specific.
I switched to wired charging with the phone mounted in the same spot and the heat issue went away. Wireless charging produces a lot more heat than wired.
Time for a new Vapor Cooled iphone?!
/s
Between 50% 3.7V and 80% ~4-4.2V is the best.
Don' let the voltage go to far below 3.7V and don't over charge above ~4-4.2V.