[densjag]

I have been reading a lot about how to charge the battery. Most people have indicated that in order to save battery life it is not a good idea to charge to 100%.

JLR has stated that the battery in our vehicle cannot charge in excess of 80%. This is how it is programmed. If that is a fact, then charging to 100% is still only 80%, and
should not damage the battery in the long run.

My charger does not have a timer and I charge overnight. It would be much easier if I did not have to worry about getting up to unplug the charger.

Comments appreciated.

 

[Qtown charger]

See earlier threads.

Bottomline: You are correct JLR software won't allow charging to 100%, or down to 0%. Thus, charge to "100%" and enjoy.

 

[sciencegeek]

I've been an advocate of charging to 100% only rarely, but if your circumstances are such that it's a hassle to usually charge to less than that I would agree with Qtown.

 

[Dennis C]

I charge to 100% every time, for the reason stated above. It’s not really 100%.

 

[gtquan]

I've been charging to 100% about half the time. Haven't seen any degradation in a year.

 

[Brendon]

There is a video floating around where the head of the I-PACE program at JLR is asked this question and he is very definitive that charging to 100% does not impact battery life, based on the real-world data that they have been able to harvest from their vehicles.

You are correct that a "full" charge is not in actuality full. Usable capacity is around 85khw, so about 95% of the battery is usable.

All the above said, given what I know about Li-Ion battery technology, I still play it relatively conservative. I don't let it get below 30% if I can avoid it, and typically charge it up to around 90%. If I do go to 100% or closer, I ensure that the car doesn't sit for multiple days with a max charge before getting used.

Either way, rest assured that Jag's battery management has to be extremely conservative given the 7 year warranty. Replacement is about half the cost of the car. They can't afford to have widespread problems.

 

[dernotte]

I am guessing that everything that Jaguar said about the battery and warranty is backed by LG Chem, and the 7 years warranty offered by Jaguar will be, bottom line, honored by LG Chem.

 

[Scufflegrit]

I messed around with trying to charge to only 90% for a while. It could have been a coincidence, but doing that appeared to negatively impact the battery optimization % in WattCat. It got down to around 85%, and my range was suffering. I went back to charging to 100% and the battery optimization started to creep back up and my range began to improve. Before I could see how high I could get the battery optimization I finally got the H264 update which seemed to reset the battery optimization back to 99%. I was wondering if the battery cells don't balance out correctly when the charging is interrupted. Or maybe H264 fixed this issue. I haven't tried a 90% charge since I got H264 a couple weeks ago.

 

[Qtown charger]

Raises the question: Does the cell balancing happen during the charging process or once the battery is "fully charged"?
My guess is the latter.

 

[Photon2.0eV]

Does anyone recall reading the results of the I-Pace 90 kwh battery test back in 2016 as reported by Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart, Technical Design Director Product Development of Jaguar? He indicated the battery pack could be charged 1000 times from 0-100% using a fast charger of 100 kw for one hour each time without a problem. That would equate to about 15 years of driving which is the predicted life span of the car. Of course he also said in reality charging is most often done on Level 2 charging which would extend the life of the battery pack even further since this charging rate creates less stress on the battery. Also he said in the real world charging usually does not start at 0% but usually around 20%-30% which also would reduce the stress on the battery pack.
WattCat also has indicated to extend the life of the battery pack with any significance you should only charge to 50% most of the time.
I have volunteered to conduct the study to charge to 100% each time about 60 times a year and at the conclusion of 16 years, I will post my findings back to this forum.

 

[sciencegeek]

Couple of thoughts here.

Ziebart's predictions are based on ideal theoretical modeling. In real world use people stress the batteries, and in real world batteries there is variation in manufacturing. The I-Pace battery has 432 pouch cells. They are not individually addressed but rather grouped into 36 pods of 12. I believe that if the individual units in a pod get out of whack with each other the balancing can't fix that. That's why your battery report talks about the SoH of 36 "cells". It's actually 36 pods .. they can balance those, but not each individual cell.

Refer to this thread regarding when balancing happens and other related matters.

Some battery temperature, charging, and cell balancing...

Via a super nice customer service rep I finally got some answers from JLR engineering on batteries and charging. My questions were motivated by the observation that my battery temperature was at 108F for 20 min during my first trip at an EA DCFC charger, which seemed high to me. Batteries should...

www.i-paceforum.com

Lastly, the Battery Optimization function in WattCat is not necessarily reliable; it's a fairly simple function that ardevd implemented on the basis of just a couple of parameters, which may get thrown off. I would not read too much into it.

 

[densjag]

I messed around with trying to charge to only 90% for a while. It could have been a coincidence, but doing that appeared to negatively impact the battery optimization % in WattCat. It got down to around 85%, and my range was suffering. I went back to charging to 100% and the battery optimization started to creep back up and my range began to improve. Before I could see how high I could get the battery optimization I finally got the H264 update which seemed to reset the battery optimization back to 99%. I was wondering if the battery cells don't balance out correctly when the charging is interrupted. Or maybe H264 fixed this issue. I haven't tried a 90% charge since I got H264 a couple weeks ago.

Thanks for the info but I have a couple of questions.
1. What is WattCat?

2. Did the H264 come over the air? I have a 2020 purchased in May 2020. I did receive one over the air update but being new to the Forum did not think to check what the update was. Any way of finding out? All I can tell from the computer is that I now seem to be up to date with upgrades.

 

[Pollo de muerte]

Raises the question: Does the cell balancing happen during the charging process or once the battery is "fully charged"?
My guess is the latter.

It may have been on the UK forum, but I read that this was altered based on the version of the software. Earlier versions optimized after reaching 100% and later versions optimized along the way. I only charge to 100% every few weeks, and I see increases in optimization on WattCat during my incremental charges (generally from 40% to 80%). I'm on TCU 18.2 FWIW.

I have not confirmed this, so take with a healthy grain of salt.

 

[dernotte]

When I look closedly at the graph of a charging session, there is clearly something happening at 50% and 60% of SOC.

 

[Qtown charger]

@Photon2.0eV. Great idea. I can provide data for 90 charging session over the last year.
We should all do that and not speculate on the results until the data is in. Perhaps a blind trial using "artificially degraded" batteries could be used that just appear to give lower range than other vehicles.

 

[sciencegeek]

1. What is WattCat?

An Android app developed by member ardevd with similar functionality (and more) as the JLR Remote app, uses the same API. Not for iPhone unfortunately

 

[Time2Roll]

OK so if you drive 20 miles a day don't charge it every night. Wait until you are below half and then charge.

If you are driving 100+ miles in a day by all means fully charge the battery before you go.

And if you will be away for a week + it is OK to leave it closer to half charge.

Otherwise just drive. Those are my thoughts.

 

[Scufflegrit]

2. Did the H264 come over the air? I have a 2020 purchased in May 2020. I did receive one over the air update but being new to the Forum did not think to check what the update was. Any way of finding out? All I can tell from the computer is that I now seem to be up to date with upgrades.

H264 has to be performed by the dealer. Per JLR's bulletin from late last year, the dealer was supposed to perform this update prior to customer delivery. My dealer did not. The best way to check for H264 is to create a free login on the JLR topix website and checking your VIN.

Lastly, the Battery Optimization function in WattCat is not necessarily reliable; it's a fairly simple function that ardevd implemented on the basis of just a couple of parameters, which may get thrown off. I would not read too much into it.

I know the battery optimization percent can be off, but I had logged my trips for a while and it jived with the lower available kWh shown in WattCat when fully charged. My range was a lot lower than a full battery should have provided based on my usual consumption. After leaving the car on the charger for a few hours after reaching full a few times the process started to reverse. The dealer also charged it when they installed H264, and according to WattCat the problem was completely gone when I got it back. Maybe cars with H264 won't see this issue. Or maybe I just had something funky.