[sandimoon415]

I am a new owner of an XC40 Recharge.
The car tells me it recommends only charging it 80-90% of capacity.
I'm taking a big trip and want it to be 100% as I start. Does anyone ever or consistently charge their car 100%?
Is it more important NOT to do it to 100% on HOT days? This is a heat thing, I gather?
Thanks in advance,

 

[BainbridgeIsland]

This is a heat thing, I gather?

I think it's more of a chemistry thing. Repeated charging of the battery to 100% could result in quicker degradation of its charge capacity/lifespan. Or so I've heard, I don't really know the engineering behind it. Should be fine to do it occasionally for long trips.

I charge mine to 90%, but I hardly ever do long trips in this car.

 

[David]

I charge it to 100% for longer trips (which are rare for me), and that's totally fine to do. They just don't recommend doing it on a regular basis because it would gradually decrease the life of the battery. I don't think it has anything to do with heat, in particular.

 

[DeaneG]

Just don't leave the car sitting at 100% charge for days at a time. I've charged my other EVs to 100%, but I try to do it just before I plan to leave.

 

[He Keith]

Volvo recommends 90% and that is what I do. I do not charge it every day. 2-3 times a week max. usually Friday night so it is ready for the weekend then Sunday or Monday night to get through the week. If I can keep my car in my possession long enough I suspect 3x a week. I am fine letting battery get below 50% and then let that trigger a mid-week charge. My goal is to get comfortable running battery from 90 done to 30%-40% range before charging.

If I were leasing I might go to 100%, but even with home charging once you get above 80% the charge rate slows down.

Also I plan on keeping the car for a long time so trying to minimize the charge cycle and there is interesting data in this video regarding how you charge and discharge your battery and its impact on degradation.

Video covers more than just Tesla and degradation and charge cycles is around the 15:00 mark.

 

[BikerBill]

As a Tesla X and a Volvo XC40 P8 owner I only charge to 100% the night before or early when leaving for long trip in the morning. Normally both cars are charged on a regular basis to 90%. And I only want to drive them down to 20% when traveling. I will use a charging location away from home when I'm getting free electric and sitting in a nice restaurant all the way to about 100% knowing full well when I leave the restaurant I am driving home and will utilize maybe 10% to get there leaving the car around 90%. And I will not tie-up outdoor charging locations if there are other cars waiting their turn.

 

[Cuelaw57]

I haven’t taken any long trips, so when I charge it is to 90% as recommended by Volvo.

 

[Maribo]

My weekly routine allows me keep it between 40-60% state of charge. 100% for longer trips.

 

[340driver]

Volvo originally recommended that we charge the Recharge to 80% then changed that to 90% since battery precooling/heating doesn't take effect unless car is programmed to charge to 90% or above.

 

[Azsunny]

I am a new owner of an XC40 Recharge.
The car tells me it recommends only charging it 80-90% of capacity.
I'm taking a big trip and want it to be 100% as I start. Does anyone ever or consistently charge their car 100%?
Is it more important NOT to do it to 100% on HOT days? This is a heat thing, I gather?
Thanks in advance,

My car is grayed out at 90, how do you adjust to 100?

 

[SeattleCat]

When you enter the trip into ABRP what does it say?


I charge to 90 or less. But if ABRP said that I needed 100 to get through a stretch of a journeys I would do a 100.

The size of a journey is less important than how far is your next charger.

Something I did not realize until my longer journey. 150+ chargers are Only better than 50 chargers when the car is low on charge. So if you need to top up from 70 to 90 and a 50 is near by use it vs driving to a 150.

Have fun. The P8 is great to travel with though Walmart car parks get old

I would suggest that if you have a 12 hours of driving journey to punch out in one day you might want to re consider. 12 hours of driving can with charging ( especially if you drive hard and fast) end up being 14-15.

And you adjust the 90 to 100 by dragging the number 100 to the right.

 

[arijaycomet]

I am a new owner of an XC40 Recharge. The car tells me it recommends only charging it 80-90% of capacity. I'm taking a big trip and want it to be 100% as I start. Does anyone ever or consistently charge their car 100%? Is it more important NOT to do it to 100% on HOT days? This is a heat thing, I gather? Thanks in advance,

Daily charging, I do 90% per Volvo's recommendations. This is typically what I've done in all of my EVs that allow it (my early 2012 Leaf has 80% or 100% so I did the former; my Tesla vehicles had a slider like Volvo, so I did 80-90% daily). You'll find this is adequate.

Something to consider as it pertains to road trips -- that extra 10% charge is not likely to help you. Look at the distance of your first DC fast charger that you'll stop at when you leave your house. Here in the Midwest (and truly, most of the USA) the Electrify America chargers are the BEST network as they are the only reliable 150kW chargers for our cars. They usually space their chargers apart 150 miles (or less). Assuming you wanted to arrive at 10% SOC or higher, and assuming even with freeway speeds you'd get 180 miles on a full 100% charge -- you'd only need ~90% SOC (going from 90% to 10% and using 80% of 180 miles is 144 miles and real world driving, estimated)

Another real world example: when we drove south from Ohio to Tennessee, the first charger was 125 miles from my house. There was no need/benefit to charge to 100% before we left. As a matter of fact, arriving at the chargers at the LOWEST possible SOC (within reason ... > 5% ideally) will give you MAX charging speed. If you arrive at a really HIGH SOC, the kW/speed of charging is actually slower, which wont benefit you. Strange as it sounds, the ideal way to travel is to have a warm battery pack (happens naturally while driving) and to arrive at each charger as "drained" as possible so you can hit peak/max kW charging speeds.