Infrequent drivers - Charge every day?
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Welcome to the forum. I am in the same boat as you. Never had an EV so I’m curious about this answer as well. Great question!
I’m speculating here, but I’d consider a couple things. For that kind of usage, if you can charge at home even with just a 110 outlet and you’d probably be fine. If charging at home is not an option, then I guess you can go three weeks or so between charges, without dropping the battery below about 20%. Given that frequency I’d guess there’s no harm in charging to 100% when you charge, so you might be able to go the whole month. You don’t want the battery sitting a long time at low charge which is why I wouldn’t drop it below 20% too much, maybe 10% would be ok. You don’t want to charge to 100% every day, but once every 3-4 weeks should be fine, only downside is the time it takes to charge from 80 to 100%. At least that’s the way I understand things, and it depends on chemistry and stuff, so your mileage may vary.
Is that helpful?
I would just leave it plugged in at set at 50% until I needed to use it based on that scenario and charge up a little when needed for those short trips. It should still be fine if you just charged up to 80% and left it until it was down to 20-30% or so though before charging.
I know as we get closer to actual production and delivery I am going to have many many questions as I have never owned an EV and only test driven a few.
Chaz26 has the right idea... Just leave it plugged in at whatever level you want for everyday driving (probably 50-70% SOC). There is no need to charge to 100% unless you are going on a road trip. Even if the truck is not being used, there will be some degree of loss from the original SOC over time. You can do things to mitigate the amount of loss, but all rechargeable chemistries suffer from some "vampire drain" over time when idle. The technology has come a long way, and shutting down systems that may monitor the vehicle, shutting down any alerting or guarding, not checking the mobile app (which could awaken subsystems) etc. all could help.
Okay another question. How much does it add to your electric bill on average charging a car? I see all theses charts for cost per kw etc but how much does your bill go up if at all?
The easy ballpark math, for the scouts, will be something like this.
(Total miles driven per month)/ 2 = the total number of KWh you’ll use for the month.
(Total monthly KWh/)/(your electricity rate).
I do it differently. I do a “price to recharge “ calculation for my PHEV. I’ve got a ~14KWh battery, and my electricity costs me $0.0108 per KWh.
Which means, ballpark, it’s costing me about $1.50 to recharge.
Technically, there are charging losses (about 90% of the electricity that gets pulled from the wall goes into the battery). And we don’t know the exact efficiency of the scout either. But as a ballpark, the above method should be close enough to get an idea of what it might be.
First question…. I stay plugged in and charge to 80%. A 110V is awesome for low use rates. The faster you charge the more heat that is generated so slow charging is awesome when you don’t need to charge quickly.
We don’t know Scout specs yet but it seems like a fair number of EVs get 2-3 miles/kwh. Depends on how naughty a driver you are, lol. I get about 3. If you average 1,000 miles per month you’d use 1000/3= 333 kWh. If you pay ten cents per kWh your bill would be 333*$0.10= $33. Some electric companies have EV plans or off peak plans where you pay less charging at night. I pay a little less than four cents per kWh. So in my example my bill would be 333*.04= $13.
The other way I calculate energy cost, which makes it easy to compare to an ICE is to calculate per mileage cost. I get 3 miles per kWh. A kWh is $0.04. So I pay $0.04/3= $0.013 per mile. I usually will just round up to two cents per mile or if I want to be really pessimistic three cents per mile. It’s way less than an an ICE. If you have an ICE that gets 30 mpg, and gas is $3/gallon, that’s ten cents a mile.
Imagine paying .10 cents a kWh. NJ keeps jacking up the bill by 20% every few months. Mine is now .21 cents.
Currently, I am not paying any cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh). However, I am obligated to pay a monthly fee of $25 for the privilege of utilizing the local electric utility as a backup power source during catastrophic events that may temporarily disable our entire home solar system with battery backup. I intend to utilize our excess energy in the future to charge our electric vehicle (EV) or extended range electric vehicle (EREV).
I find that a level two charger is like running a coffee pot or your dryer. Not really that bad at all.
You can leave them unplugged for weeks or more at a time. But, if you are able to, I would suggest leaving it plugged in.
Okay next question. I have neighbors with an iD4 and a Lightning. Their plug is outside and they charge both in the driveway and not their garage. Is there any reason that garage charging is frowned upon? Thanks!
Oh yikes. Is there a nighttime off peak rate? Most EVs let you schedule charging start time. Otherwise, I’d hunt down a grocery store/restaurant/mall with a free charger and top off while eating! It’s nice when employers have free chargers on site. My city hall has a charger. I hope you can find a way to reduce your average kwh rate.
Our electric utility provider uses these time of use utility rates. Monday-Friday.
November-March
Peak 6am-10am & 6pm-10pm
Off-Peak 12am-6am & 10am-6pm
April-October
Peak 12pm-9pm
Off-Peak 9pm-12pm
Peak rate excluding: Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christma Day & New Year's Day.
A common refrain in EV circles is, "ABC," "Always Be Charging," or "Always Be Connected."
You don't have to charge to 100%, but if you can leave the vehicle plugged in, you'll be happier. We have both the Mustang and the Lightning in a garage, plugged in whenever not in use. Both have the ability to precondition their cabin. Being plugged in means they don't use battery energy to warm or cool the cabin before we go for a drive.
Level 2 charging is more efficient than Level 1 charging because it uses twice the voltage so half the amperage to push the same power. Amperage is the main variable in Joule heat generation. In addition, there's always a minimum energy cost to run the electronics of the charger so the longer it takes, the more that minimum cost adds up But if you only have an L1, use the L1.
Vampiric drain isn't a big problem anymore. We've left both vehicles unplugged at airports for several weeks and returned with the same state of charge.
We have variable electric rates, so I schedule the cars to charge during the time of lowest cost, which is $0.035/kWh, or $4.50 for a full charge on the Lightning and $3.21 on the Mustang.
You don't have to charge to 100%, but if you can leave the vehicle plugged in, you'll be happier. We have both the Mustang and the Lightning in a garage, plugged in whenever not in use. Both have the ability to precondition their cabin. Being plugged in means they don't use battery energy to warm or cool the cabin before we go for a drive.
Level 2 charging is more efficient than Level 1 charging because it uses twice the voltage so half the amperage to push the same power. Amperage is the main variable in Joule heat generation. In addition, there's always a minimum energy cost to run the electronics of the charger so the longer it takes, the more that minimum cost adds up But if you only have an L1, use the L1.
Vampiric drain isn't a big problem anymore. We've left both vehicles unplugged at airports for several weeks and returned with the same state of charge.
We have variable electric rates, so I schedule the cars to charge during the time of lowest cost, which is $0.035/kWh, or $4.50 for a full charge on the Lightning and $3.21 on the Mustang.
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