No wonder they now advertise charging times to only 80%. Some cars shut off at fast chargers at 80% but report 100%? What? And I also read they only want you to run your battery down to 10 or 20%. Added up, at best unless you slow charge at home for a very long time you only get 70% of the stated range, at that's if want to risk running out of juice when you're on a long trip. Larger batteries will need to be developed that allow fast charging to 100% without overheating and shortening their overall useful life. Can we trust anything this industry tells us now?
The Real Reason Why Your EV Won't Fast Charge Over 80 Percent (msn.com)
Range can also be significantly less than the officially quoted figures during the colder winter months.
With a small electric car like the Mini, the quoted official mileage range figure is ‘up to 145 miles’. That would be on a fully charged battery in ideal weather conditions, and with a battery that hasn’t suffered age-related degradation. If the advice in the article you linked is followed and the battery is only charged to 80% and the last 10% of charge isn’t used, that mileage range figure reduces to 101.5 miles (145 x 70%). During the colder winter months, that 101.5 mile range will be reduced, and as the car gets older, the battery will be affected by age-related degradation. I’ve seen the following figures quoted in various articles (not in relation to the Mini Electric but electric cars in general).
- cold weather; typically reduces range by 15-25% - say 20% on average.
- age-related battery degradation; around 2% per year. For a three year old car, battery degradation would be 5.9%.
So the useable range of 101.5 miles in ‘ideal conditions’ in a new Mini Electric might be as low as 76.4 miles per charge during colder winter months in a three year old car.
I dare say advancements in battery technology over the next few years will mean faster charge times and increased range, but the impact of factors such as those above shouldn’t be ignored.