Extend the Life Battery Like a Pro with the Help of These 11 EV Tips

Here are eleven surefire ways to extend the life of your electric car battery and prevent it from breaking down or you from having to buy a new battery sooner than you’d like.

Getting the most out of your electric car battery will not only allow you to travel more, but it will also ensure that you aren’t stranded on the side of the road or disoriented because you have to find reliable transportation for your electric car.

With a good maintenance program, an electric car battery can last for years or more.

Undercharging allows for regenerative braking, which can convert kinetic energy into useful energy if there’s enough room in the battery. Whether it’s out of habit or because you think a full charge will extend your travel time, it’s better to charge lithium batteries to about 81% than to a full charge. More details are here.

Choosing a road with less traffic with speed limits can be a reasonable alternative to driving fast and then charging for several hours. Try to drive slower when traffic allows, which saves battery power. Slowing down is not always an option, especially when highway traffic is fast. 

Remember that the battery charge decreases slightly each day. So make sure you have enough charge to last until you get home and can come back to recharge.

If you plan to fly to the beach in the spring and your car will be parked in the airport parking lot, make sure it has enough charge to stay at the airport and take you home when you return.

Not only does this keep the inside of your car cool, it also prevents the temperature control system under the hood or the battery from overheating when you’re away from home and running low on power.

Many people park a mile from a store to avoid being in the hot sun. When it comes to finding parking for your electric car, try to find a shady spot to stop when you’re on your way.

When it’s hot and muggy outside, you’ll need more time to recharge your battery. Lithium batteries don’t like heat as much as you do, and they tend to drain more when it’s hot outside.

Many people tend to plug in their electric car battery at night to charge it while they sleep. This is an ideal time for charging, but you should keep an eye on the charging time so that it doesn’t sit in the charger for too long.

See the NEMA 14-50 buyer’s guide for information on choosing a charger. When the charger is properly connected to a NEMA 14-50 outlet, it will not provide DC power to the vehicle unit when it is not needed.

Regardless of your destination, you should research in advance where there are charging stations along your route. Have a backup plan so you can charge if your chosen location is already full or out of service. It’s a bad situation if you find out quickly that you need to charge and you don’t know where there is an electric vehicle charging station. If you want to find charging stations across the country, visit the PlugShare website to find stations along your route.

Use the dedicated calculators to calculate your potential range. It’s also helpful to know your wait time. Type an EV cost calculator into the search engine and bookmark the one you like.

If you let your electric car battery fully discharge before charging it, you risk shortening its lifespan. If you notice that the battery is discharging around 35%, you need to charge it to prevent it from going down further and staying discharged longer.

As a rule of thumb, modern cars only protect themselves from discharge if you don’t leave an unloaded car in the heat or cold for several months.

Using a fast charger to charge an electric car battery sounds like a great way to charge it quickly so you can drive, and yes, you can charge it faster if you put the battery on fast charge, but every time you use fast charge it takes a while.

Over the years, fast charging can reduce battery life by up to 45% or less in the same amount of time. While this may seem like a small difference, it’s the difference between having a battery last a few years longer or having to spend money on a new battery sooner than planned.

Some electric car batteries last longer than others. It is therefore important to take the time to learn as much as possible about the battery and the car you own. This will tell you how often you should charge your electric car battery to get the best driving performance.