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by heattemp99 1043 days ago
The biggest fail IMO is that if you use this range constantly, you'll basically degrade the battery heavily. These top ranges require a full 100% charge (bad for the battery) and a pretty low level of discharge (bad for any weak cells in the pack). So yes in a special case you have that range. Using it often will cause faster battery pack degradation.

My Chevy Volt has a 15kwh pack, and only lets you use 10kwh. The bottom 2 and the top 2 are never accessible. Which means the batteries are never depleted, and never fully charged. I bought it knowing I have 10kwh to use around town or on trips (afterward the gas engine turns on). I use those 10kwh every single day, for all 177k miles of the cars life so far. I still get the same 10.3kwh I got on day one I made my purchase decision based on.

Tesla should advertise their packs the same way, explaining that the outlier 10kw are for emergencies too.

2 comments

Full 100% charge is good for the LFP batteries which have been standard in Model 3 and Model Y since 2021.

Indeed, Tesla recommends to charge to 100% at least once per week.

https://insideevs.com/news/557527/tesla-model3-lfp-charging-...

edit: read response below

As far as I know this isn't true, LFP batteries degrade more when charged to 100% than if they're charged to less, but the remaining charge can't be estimated accurately unless you do:

https://www.torquenews.com/15475/battery-charging-behavior-t...

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/comments/yh5ts5/m3_lfp_...

(They still degrade much less than the other kind of battery Tesla uses, however).

Interesting, it seems they want people to charge to 100% so they can precisely estimate the state of charge on the road. Still, as you say it doesn't seem LFPs get degraded that much when sitting at full charge.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-puzzling-reason-why-t...

I think you could use the range and if the battery fails within the 8 year warranty they should give you a new one.

Many consumer goods work like this. Lots of cheap power tools are sold with the understanding that the consumer will use them a few times and no claims will be made during the warranty period. Many (most?) gym memberships are sold with the understanding that many clients will come a few times, then never return.

EV batteries are very expensive both to produce and to install.

No sane company wants to deal with the possibility of paying for battery replacement if they don't absolutely have to.

Using the "whole battery" at the expense of its lifespan is not only worse for manufacturers, but it's worse for the environment as well. I think responsible charging and usage is critical for current battery technology.