I've been driving a Tesla for almost 5 years and it runs on Lithium batteries. I've read some of the literature on Li battery use and chemistry over the years from Tesla and elsewhere, including Jeffrey Dahn, PhD, of Dalhousie University, who is the world expert on the subject. Google his name and you'll find a number of papers he's written.
The recommendation, for best life, is keep the charge between 20-80%. If storing for a while without use, 50% charge is best. Tesla recommends only charging to 100% immediately before starting a trip. The biggest killer for Li batteries is leaving them at 100% charge in a high heat environment (over 100F). My car has a 85 kWh battery (roughly 7000 individual cells) and had a range of 270 miles when I bought it almost 5 years ago. I have adhered to the recommendations and now, with about 55K miles on it, the max charge is 262 miles. So about a 3% degradation - not bad! It's a real shame that most device manufacturers don't tell you any of this, especially with the trend of making batteris in cell phones, laptops, etc., not user-replaceable. Barry W2UP -- Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/ ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
