Maximizing the life of a car’s battery helps limit the environmental impact of these vehicles since it means fewer cars getting retired and sent through a yet-to-materialize recycling process. On the other end of the production cycle, it could hopefully reduce the need for more resource-intensive li-ions being created in the first place.
Most of the recommendations center around how to keep your car’s battery happy in extreme temperatures, whether frozen or sweltering. Overall, owners should plug in their cars during these times, which will allow the battery’s cooling or heating systems to run most effectively by using grid power. EV owners should also avoid letting their cars’ batteries run down entirely since that has a negative effect on battery life.
Here are the tips :
1. Avoid driving in extremely hot or cold temperatures.
2. Don’t park in the sun when it’s very hot outside.
3. Don’t expose your car to extremely low temperatures (think: -22 degrees Fahrenheit) for “extended periods of time.”
4. Turn off your car before its battery charge reaches zero.
5. Don’t leave a car with a low battery sitting uncharged for an extended period of time; even if the car isn’t on, the battery can degrade on its own if it’s not charged.
6. Avoid keeping your car sitting with a full or empty charge. Ideally, keep your SOC between 20–80% particularly when leaving it for longer periods, and only charge it fully for long-distance trips.
7. Minimize fast charging (DCFC). Some high-use duty cycles will need a faster charge, but if your vehicle sits overnight, level 2 should be sufficient for the majority of your charging needs.
8. Climate is out of an operator’s control, but do what you can to avoid extremely hot temperatures, such as choosing shade when parked on hot days.
9. High-use is not a concern, so fleets shouldn’t hesitate to put them to work. An EV isn’t useful sitting idle in the fleet yard, and putting on more miles per vehicle is overall a better fleet management practice.
