Limiting Charge % for Battery Health?

perrylv

Member
Sep 20, 2018
1
0
Las Vegas
I have a 2019 Levo on order (for months now) but am curious about the battery charging protocol. I have recently purchased a Tesla Model 3 which uses similar battery technology. Much research has been done to limit battery life degradation with the simple answer being to not leave the battery fully charged for any extended length of time and to avoid discharging the battery below 10%. The majority of owners settle on charging only to 70-80% unless leaving on a major road trip. This is a simple setting in the car. My question is if there is any way to automatically limit charging in our Specialized bikes?
 

nicklej

Active member
Patreon
Oct 11, 2018
156
122
Camberley
I work with e-bikes and know a bit about lithium technology. There isn't an issue running the battery down as such I think, but there can be implications to battery health are storing the battery at a given percentage for a given time.

Normally, you should never leave the battery under 10% (which is generally a critical value for lithium batteries) for long periods of time as the capacity will become lower quite quickly.
Equally, you should never leave it fully charged for a long period of time as the same thing can happen but not as quick.

All lithium batteries discharge at a certain rate but the instances above accelerate that. I know that for long term storage, 40% charge is the optimum for lithium.

When it comes to me riding my Levo, I don't care how much it drains. If I finish a ride with little or no charge, it goes straight onto charge until there are 2 bars of charge (or check mission control/BLevo and store at 40%). With my commute being long, I actually do 2 full charge cycles per day, one there and one on the way home.
 

KO2019

Member
Aug 22, 2019
4
1
Rutland
Curious how many charge cycles you are on and battery health. In 3 weeks, 2 charge cycles a day I’ve had 31 charge cycles so will be out of warranty, 300 cycles, within 4 months. Any value in keeping within the 80%-20% range for high mileage/ charge cycles?
 

McInner1

Well-known member
Subscriber
Jun 8, 2019
227
173
Austria
A charge cycle is a full charge:
500 or 700 charged watt hours make one charge cycle - independent of how many partial loads.
(Mission Control counts it that way!)
 
Last edited:

Mcharza

E*POWAH BOSS
Aug 10, 2018
2,499
4,723
Helsinki, Finland
Curious how many charge cycles you are on and battery health. In 3 weeks, 2 charge cycles a day I’ve had 31 charge cycles so will be out of warranty, 300 cycles, within 4 months. Any value in keeping within the 80%-20% range for high mileage/ charge cycles?
Oh boy, either you ride a lot or ride on full power. Try to charge almost full, because it don't count a charge cycle. And keep your battery between 30-90%, once or twice a month fully charge it to calibrate the battery cells
 

apac

E*POWAH Elite World Champion
Aug 14, 2019
1,326
1,172
S.Wales
From my understanding the battery monitoring system(bms) inside the battery pack will have been programmed to cease charging at 4.15v per cell instead of the maximum 4.20v. The bms will also have a low voltage cutoff point pre-programmed which will be a fair bit above the empty mark of 2.5 or 2.8v (depending on what wxact cells are used). The last thing specialized want are premature battery life spans.
 

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