It's common to hear about best practices to ensure your electric vehicle battery remains in optimal condition for the longest period of time. The main one is to charge your electric vehicle to only 80%. However, there is also a common belief that DC fast charging your EV all the time degrades the battery in a way that can affect range.
That prospect is made even worse by the fact that the scope is already A problem when it comes to electric vehicles. Range anxiety is one of the biggest disadvantages of buying an electric vehicle, considering the fact that electric vehicles take longer to refuel and there are far fewer charging stations than gas stations. And when you only charge your vehicle to 80%, you'll only get four-fifths of the range the manufacturer advertises.
But what happens if you don't follow those rules? Not everyone has the luxury of being able to install an EV charger in their home, leaving those who still want an EV with Level 2 public slow chargers or much faster DC fast chargers. Does constant use of those DC fast chargers really affect the health of your electric car battery? Here's a look.
What is DC fast charging?
Your home's electrical outlets supply alternating current (AC), largely because it has long been easier to transmit it over long distances without significant power losses. When you plug a charger into a power outlet in your home, you are delivering AC power to your electric vehicle. That's true of Level 2 charging stations as well, which take advantage of AC power supplied by the grid.
There's just one problem. The energy your electric vehicle uses is stored as direct current (DC) energy. When you connect an AC power source to your vehicle, you have to convert that power into DC power that you can store and use later. However, there is a way around this. DC charging stations convert AC power from the grid into DC power before sending it to your electric vehicle, essentially bypassing your car's onboard power converter and charging the battery directly. This charging method is generally known as Level 3 charging or fast charging, and while Level 1 chargers max out at around 1.8 kilowatts and Level 2 chargers around 20 kW, most DC fast chargers can currently charge up to 350 kW, with even faster speeds. DC fast charging technology on the way.
Why would DC fast charging degrade my EV battery?
So what's inherently bad about faster charging when it comes to conserving your EV's battery? Well, inherently nothing, but faster charging may come with some trade-offs. The fact is that DC fast charging generates more heat, which over time can accelerate the degradation of the battery pack cells.
“DC fast charging can, in some cases, shorten the life of an electric vehicle,” explained David Michery, CEO of the electric vehicle maker. Mullen Automotive in an interview with Tendencias Digitales. “Compared to AC charging (levels 1-2), DC fast charging has a much higher current and will generate more heat and potentially cause kinetic problems of the active materials, which can lead to faster degradation of the battery.”
However, this appears to be largely theoretical. There is no denying that in the very long term, the additional heat generated by DC fast charging would scientifically affect an electric vehicle battery. Electric vehicles have been around for quite some time and studies seem to suggest that DC fast charging is not as bad for your car battery as previously thought. However, that could have more to do with how an EV handles smart charging, rather than simply using DC fast charging altogether.
According to a recent study conducted on more than 6,500 Tesla Mannequin 3s, frequent DC fast charging does not have as much of an impact as some had previously assumed. The study tracked Tesla vehicles that fast charge with DC frequently (more than 70% of the time), compared to those that fast charge with DC infrequently (less than 30% of the time), and noted that the trend to battery degradation is actually very related. It is important to note that while Recurrent's study includes vehicles from between 2012 and 2023, 90% of the vehicles studied were from 2018 or later, and 57% were from 2021 or later.
However, it is difficult to avoid science. As Dr. Nadim Maluf, CEO of Qnovo and an expert in battery chemistry, explains, there are a few different physical impacts on a battery when fast charging with DC.
“DC fast charging stresses the battery and causes two main degradation mechanisms to accelerate: the structural material of the electrodes degrades and metallic lithium dendrites form, which, over time, can lead to catastrophic failure,” Maluf said.
However, the degree to which it affects batteries built into electric vehicles simply isn't as much as one might assume based on all the online concerns about charging speeds. It is also likely to have less and less impact, as cars become smarter and the computers built into them can better modulate how quickly a battery charges to preserve its health.
What to do if you are worried about battery degradation
If you think the data on how DC fast charging affects EV batteries is a little vague, you're right. While it's clear that DC fast charging may not have a massive impact on battery health over time, the minimal impact it has over longer periods of time is a bit confusing and probably won't become clearer until we've had vehicles electric vehicles on the roads for a long time. much longer. So that begs the question: what should you do to ensure your EV battery stays as healthy as possible for as long as possible?
The good news is that there are many things you can do to preserve the battery inside your electric vehicle. The bad news is that those things vary quite a bit depending on a variety of factors. According to Maluf, there are three main factors that can affect battery health: charging speed, maximum state of charge, and temperature.
“The heat is bad (over 95 degrees Fahrenheit). Too much cold is also bad (below zero). The battery works best between 60 degrees F and 90 degrees F,” Maluf said. “Use your best judgment to optimize between these three factors. On a hot day, do not charge to 80% or more, as this may overcharge the battery. If you're planning a long-distance road trip, charge your vehicle to 90% or even 100% the night before, when it's cooler, using a Level 2 charger (for slower charging). This will ensure you have maximum range for your trip.”
It may seem like a lot. If it is very cold, limit charging. If it is very hot, limit the load. If you use DC fast charging, limit the charge. If you are not traveling by road, limit the load.
All of this, however, can be boiled down to the basics. If you can, charge at home using Level 1 or Level 2 charging speeds and set your car's limit to 80% on a day-to-day basis, or charge to maximum if you're about to embark on a road trip. And use your best judgment regarding temperature. Know that very cold and very hot temperatures are bad for batteries, but unless you frequently charge them in very cold or very hot temperatures, don't worry. also a lot about it. After all, you have places to be.
Fortunately, experts agree that drivers should not constantly worry about how and when they charge their car. “Once in a while, charging to 100% is completely fine with charging speeds of 1 to 3,” Michery said. “Overall, the goal is to achieve a balance between daily charging and vehicle range, which in turn will benefit the continuous health of the battery and extend its overall useful life.
The bad news is that no matter what you do, your EV battery will degrade over time. That's just science, and it's impossible to avoid with the current state of battery technology. If you keep an electric vehicle for years and years, expect the range to decrease a bit.
The future of batteries and charging technology
Electric vehicle manufacturers are incentivized to work on all of this. After all, they know that range anxiety is a big factor in many customers' purchasing decisions, and they really just want to sell more cars. In the short term, companies are likely to implement smarter systems that can better manage the amount of energy delivered to the battery to preserve its health, even if this comes at the cost of a slightly reduced charging speed.
However, in the long term, problems related to loading speeds may disappear completely. Because? Solid state batteries. Solid-state batteries will begin to be used in electric vehicles in the near future, and test data seems to indicate that they are much stronger than the lithium-ion batteries currently used in electric vehicles, not to mention the fact that that its duration is longer. range means that the degradation that occurs will not be as impactful.
In the meantime, please stay at Level 1 and Level 2 when possible, to be careful. But know that DC fast charging isn't as bad as some might lead you to believe, and you don't necessarily have to go out of your way to make sure you always charge at slower speeds, for fear that your car's range will drop dramatically.
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