Battery Charging After Minimal Use

[NachOne]

Greetings All,
I just joined this forum after purchasing my first eBike, an Aventon Aventure. The general understanding seems to be that you should charge your battery after each use. My question: is it necessary/good practice to charge the battery after minimal use (from a full charge). I ride down to the coffee shop a couple of blocks away, several times a week. From a full charge, the battery will drop down to about 96% after a round trip. Would it be detrimental to battery life, if I waited for the battery to drop down below a certain amount (ex. 90%) after several trips before I recharge or should I just recharge the battery no matter how minimal the battery usage was on a ride? Thanks in advance.

 

[Nomad]

If your really talking about a drop that small more than one ride between charges would probably be more beneficial for battery life

 

[PedalUma]

let it get down to under one-half before charging and charge your battery in the Off position. This should charge it to about 90%.

 

[alphacarina]

I would wait to charge it *just before* I wanted to take a ride. When not in use, especially if it's going to be a while before you use it again, it's best to leave the battery sit with a 1/4 to 1/2 charge. Storage fully charged will shorten the lifespan of your battery

Don

 

[AHicks]

Count me in with the group that runs them for a while. I ride my bikes nearly every day, 3 to 5 miles at least, and charge them when the get down to about 46 volts. That would likely be below 1/2 on most battery meters.

BTW - Congrats on the new bike!

 

[NachOne]

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Biko]

Ideally, if you want to maximize your battery lifetime you use it between 80% and 20% of capacity.
That means, you only charge up to 80% and don’t let it run lower than 20%.
That 80-20% bracket seems to be the consensus with Lithium Ion rechargeable batteries.
The Flyer Upstreet6 ebike has this cool feature called “Long-life mode”

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[NachOne]

I will try that. Thanks for the info

 

[Elkman]

I would wait to charge it *just before* I wanted to take a ride. When not in use, especially if it's going to be a while before you use it again, it's best to leave the battery sit with a 1/4 to 1/2 charge. Storage fully charged will shorten the lifespan of your battery

Don

All the lithium battery manufacturers recommend leaving the battery with a 50% SOC only when it will sit unused for more than 3 months. Otherwise the factor to consider is that a battery may last for 500 charge cycles if discharge consistenly to 20% SOC or it may last 1500 cycles if discharged by only 50% before it is recharged. In essence the two situations are nearly the same in terms of miles ridden before needing to replace the battery. All the manufacturers recommend against leaving the battery on constant charge, as in having the charger brick left connected to the battery pack for 24 hours or longer.

 

[alphacarina]

All the lithium battery manufacturers recommend leaving the battery with a 50% SOC only when it will sit unused for more than 3 months.

In this case "All" is a very big word - Since you presumably did not contact them 'all' before eliciting this all encompassing statement, it would probably be better if you had said 'some' instead. To think that it does no harm to let a lithium battery sit fully charged for 80 days, but then if you let it sit 100 days, finally some harm could be done is just . . . . ludicrous

But, maybe you did contact them 'all'? If so, give us a quote about this 90 day theory from just 2 or 3 so we'll know there is some fact in what you claim. Me, I've got about $30K worth of lithium batteries powering vehicles in my garage and I'm not about to let any of them sit fully charged for even one month, let alone three . . . . and I do have vehicles which often sit for several months at a time, including two eBikes which sadly don't get ridden as often as they should. If leaving a lithium cell sit fully charged for a year does some amount of harm to it, then leaving it for a month also does some lesser amount of harm. All batteries regardless of composition last longest if properly cared for. It's a bit of a pain to try to get the longest service life from a lithium battery pack and for the relatively inexpensive battery on an eBike, maybe not worth the effort for many - For $300 or $400, you can just buy a new one every couple years, but for the $10K or $15K battery in some of my cars, it's for sure worth it to me to never fully charge them unless I know I'll be using them very soon. I usually just recharge to 75% or so which is fine for most of my trips and then only fully recharge if I'm making a trip which might need a full charge

Sorry for the mini-rant - It's just that I have a problem when someone uses all encompassing statements like 'all' or 'everybody' or others which probably aren't true - "Everybody loves crawfish" was one I heard just yesterday on TV. I hate them, so that can't be true!

Don

Don

 

[Elkman]

No need to be snarky Don. It is beyond comment that you can mention a problem with using the word "all" and then stating "ALL batteries regardless of composition" which shows remarkable ignorance of battery technology.

I have worked with a variety of lithium batteries from a wide range of manufacturers for the past 14 years and that includes ones for smartphones, ones for RV house batteries, wall banks, UPS, battery powered power boats, and industrial power supplies that mix batteries with capacitors. It includes two trips to China to meet with e-bike and electric scooter manufacturers and their engineers. But if you know different and can point us all the information you have that differs than please do so.

There is a consistency with these many different sellers of lithium powered devices as to when to recharge and what type of charge controller to use and about storing the battery unused for 3 or more months. They all recommend against leaving the battery pack on a charger after the battery is fully charged and they recommend not letting the charge level fall below 20% SOC. If one is using an electronic battery charger instead of a simple brick the setting or charge profile for lithium batteries is quite different than for lead acid or NiMh or NiCad batteries.

I have lithium batteries in our smartphones, e-bikes, motorhome, and in our Prius which are all different in terms of care and maintenance. With the short supply of batteries for e-bike at this time it would be prudent to maximize the life of the one you have as much as possible.

 

[alphacarina]

. . . . and here I was hoping to hear about a few (or at least one) manufacturer who specifically mentions the "leaving the battery with a 50% SOC only when it will sit unused for more than 3 months"

All batteries, regardless of composition don't last longer if properly cared for?? I guess I did learn something new today

Don