milzinga said:
Hey guys, new to the forum and just bought a new eGolf and have a few questions regarding battery management. I see there are charging options in the emanager and am wondering when I would actually use those? I drive about 60 miles a day commuting and charge it every night using L1 at home.
1) When would I ever change the maximum charge or maximum amperage and why? Wouldn't I always want 100% charged?
2) Why would I ever use the minimum charging? Wouldn't I just plug it and and leave it be?
3) Can I leave it plugged in indefinitely (say a week or 2) while on vacation and no worry about it, won't it stop charging automatically?
4) Whats the best charging practices? I only use L1 right now but when I buy a house in the near future will likely install a L2 charger, and I know to use DC sparingly.
5) I haven't yet, but if I charge at work using L2 I can just leave it be right? Would it be better to use emanager? Why?
I'm just a little lost/overwhelmed with all the options and this is a whole new world to me and I would really appreciate some insight here on how to keep my battery in top shape the longest. Thanks so much!
1.) Many people are concerned with maximizing battery longevity. The e-manager allows you to adjust your maximum charge so that you only charge up to 80% or 90% state of charge. Lithium Ion Batteries are happiest when they sit between 30-80%, and lose the least amount of capacity over long periods of time if you keep them in that range. Important to note, when your e-manager or your dashboard shows a 100% state of charge, or full, your batteries actually aren't at 100% capacity. Volkswagen already engineered your car to keep the batteries from reaching a true 100% state of charge, and when your dashboard shows 100%, you are really at something between 85% and 95%. Maximum amperage settings are in there for a similar reason, if you charge the batteries too fast that will generate heat, which in turn can harm your batteries. Using strictly L1 charging at home, you have absolutely no need for it, and honestly with a 7.2kw L2 charger at home you still really don't need to worry about it.
2.) You may want minimum charging if you get different rates depending on time of day from your electrical provider. So if you want the majority of your charging to be during off peak hours, but you always want your car to be ready to go when you want, you'll use a minimum charge. I.E. I get home from work at 5pm, but off peak hours don't start until 8pm. I could set the minimum charge to be at 50% state of charge and my car will fill up to 50% so I have range to go do groceries if I need it, but the other 50% won't fill up until close to my next scheduled departure (6am the next morning) which is off-peak hours. For me personally electricity is $0.07 per kwh off peak and $0.15 kwh on peak, so it makes quite the difference in my electrical bill.
3.) If you were to leave your car plugged in for a week or two while on vacation, you probably won't have any problems. Personally I'd feel more comfortable leaving it parked at somewhere in the 30-80% state of charge, but you are probably fine to just leave it plugged in.
4.) If you are only using a L1 when you get home every night, and then let it fill back up to full overnight, that's excellent charging practice. You really are limited with the L1 charger in terms of options because you need to recoup 60 miles of range every day, which is going to take 8-10 hours on the L1. Once you get an L2 charger you'll have some more options (i.e. charging during off-peak hours).
5.) Yes you can just leave it be. I plug mine in every day when I get to work, and unplug at lunch time when I'm full (we only have 2 chargers and 5 EV's at work so we share). E-Manager allows you to set up a departure time and you can choose to have the cabin cooled/heated for that departure time so that it's always comfortable when you leave work at the end of the day. That's the primary benefit, otherwise you are just playing with the Min/Max charge settings to optimize the battery longevity.
TL;DR - VW built the E-Golf to be as easy to refuel as a normal ICE car. If all you want to do is have a full charge every day when you wake up in the morning then you can just plug it in every day when you get home at night. VW provided you with some tools so nerds like us can customize and play around with the settings, but you don't really need to worry about them unless you want to.
