Should I just charge the electric car’s battery up to 80 per cent?

There is a debate about what is healthiest for your electric car battery, and how it retains good capacity for as long as possible, but you won’t believe how well protected the battery in your car actually is. 

Some electric cars used to have a function you could switch on which automatically stopped charging at 80 per cent. Several experts interviewed by the media have said that 80 per cent is a golden rule, and that staying between 20 and 80 per cent is best for your car’s battery. 

Are repeated charges above 80 per cent dangerous for your battery? 

Well protected batteries 

It turns out that an electric car battery is well protected. 

The car manufacturers make part of the battery capacity unavailable to the driver. This is capacity that is blocked for use with the purpose to protect the battery.

There’s more to charging and battery capacity than just charging up to 80 per cent. 

Gross and net capacity 

We often work with the terms gross and net battery capacity, where gross represents the battery’s full capacity, including what is blocked. The net capacity is the amount of energy the driver can actually make use of. 

Working with the net and gross capacity of an electric car battery is more the norm than the exception for today’s batteries. 

Apart from Tesla, all electric cars in today’s market have a lock on top of the battery, where the battery is not really at 100 per cent even though the car indicates that it is. It’s this difference that protects the battery. 

You can be sure that your battery is well protected no matter how much you charge it.