Plugging in at airport

[Anonymous]

Looking forward to making my first >100 mi round trip next week. I'll be driving ~100 miles to the airport and ideally, would charge during the 4.5 days I'll be away (airport has free L1 charging and I will need to charge anyway prior to returning home). What is going to be the least damaging option if I have to leave it plugged in:

1. Immediate charge, set hilltop reserve so charging stops @ 90%
2. Fiddling around with the electric rate/departure time settings to see if I can set it to charge a little every day. I can't figure out how to do this though - thought there would be some way to set the departure time more than a day away but that doesn't seem possible.

I called Chevy and the well meaning folks gave me two conflicting answers. Hoping you guys can enlighten me!

 

[dndrich]

Having done this sort of thing myself, you are overthinking it. Just plug 'er in and let it charge to 100%. Sitting at 100% for a few days in a cool airport garage is just fine. Stressing about the battery is not worth it.

 

[DucRider]

My personal opinion is that most of those adamant about not charging to 100% are former (or current) LEAF owners with no thermal management on their battery.

We've plugged out Fit EV in almost every night, left it at 100% charge while on vacation, did all the things you're not "supposed" to do.

After almost 4 years there is no discernible loss of battery capacity or range.

Leaving it plugged in to L1 for a couple of days will have no measurable impact on the battery. If hilltop give you enough range to get home, use that- it won't hurt the battery.

 

[michael]

Absolutely use hilltop. You do not need full charge to get home, you said 100 miles. There is no logic in letting the battery sit needlessly at full charge when 90% or whatever hilltop provides is still twice what you need

And no Leaf for me. I'm a former Focus owner. Thermal management helps but does not solve the battery fade problem.

FIT batteries are a special chemistry made by Toshiba...My understanding is they last very well but do poorly in cold weather.

From the standpoint of battery life, an even better plan would be to set the charge timer to charge up just prior to your return, but if someone unplugs you you would be a little short of juice for your return trip so it's probably not worth the risk.

I'd go with plug in upon arrival, hilltop selected.

 

[LeftieBiker]

My personal opinion is that most of those adamant about not charging to 100% are former (or current) LEAF owners with no thermal management on their battery.

Heat and sitting at a high state of charge are two different issues. Lithium batteries do not like sitting for long periods above 90% charge, so why do it because there will be no immediate negative consequence? Who gets lung cancer after one cigarette, or even one case of them?

 

[SeanNelson]

Absolutely use hilltop. You do not need full charge to get home, you said 100 miles. There is no logic in letting the battery sit needlessly at full charge when 90% or whatever hilltop provides is still twice what you need

Exactly. Hilltop will do exactly what you need it to do without any fuss - why not take advantage of it?

 

[cosmacelf]

I recommend hilltop too.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the replies - good to know that I don't need to be overthinking this. I will plug in with hilltop activated and be on my merry way.

michael, I thought of delaying the charge until close to my return trip but I couldn't figure out how to program the skipping of a day. If I park on Monday, for example, how do I tell it not to start charging until Wednesday evening?

 

[michael]

I've never needed to try that, I have it set to go at 8 AM every day, but can you set certain days to "no start time"?? Most EVs offer that option....