When properly charged, an electric car battery lasts at least 300,000 kilometers.

Charging an electric car: Five crucial mistakes

Charging an electric car is very easy. However, you can still do a lot of things wrong. Five mistakes to avoid.

Too much, too little, too fast – all wrong. If you want to keep your electric car battery running for a long time, you should follow a few tips from the Auto Club Europa (ACE).

Limit full charge
To ensure a long service life, you should not regularly charge the NMC battery to more than 80 percent in everyday life. If you still charge it fully (e.g. before going on vacation), you should set off as soon as possible after charging.

“The worst thing for the battery is people who plug in their car after every short journey and leave it at 100% charge,” said battery expert Nikolaus Mayerhofer from the battery diagnostics company Aviloo.

By the way, many electric cars have a charging timer. It helps to conserve the battery, as the battery is only fully charged shortly before the planned departure - for example at 7 a.m. in the morning.

The situation is different with even newer and cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP): These can be charged to 100 percent in everyday life without any problem. LFP batteries are more durable, more robust and more environmentally friendly than NMC batteries, and they can also be recycled more easily. Their disadvantage is the somewhat lower energy density.

Avoid deep discharge
In contrast to older battery types, modern lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries do not have a memory effect. Therefore, it is not necessary to completely discharge the battery before charging. On the contrary: the closer to 0 or 100 percent and the longer the charge level stays there, the worse it is. In everyday life, a charge level between 20 and 80 percent is ideal.

If the car is parked for a long time and not brought in, an average charge level of around 50 to 60 percent is optimal.

Load slowly
Slow charging with alternating current (AC) at sockets, wall boxes or public AC charging stations protects the battery and is cheaper. Fast charging stations with direct current (DC), on the other hand, put more strain on them.

Fast chargers should therefore only be used when it is really necessary. The lower the battery level, the less harmful fast charging is.

Do not use the emergency charging cable regularly
Charging with an emergency charging cable is slow and gentle, but involves higher charging losses. It should therefore be avoided in everyday life. “The cables supplied by manufacturers are often emergency charging cables that are really only designed as emergency charging cables,” said Swiss charger developer Christoph Erni in an interview with watson.

Avoid extreme temperatures
Extreme heat and cold damage the battery. Ideally, the electric car is charged in the shade in summer and in a garage in winter. Especially when it's cold, it's ideal to charge the battery immediately after driving, as it will still be warm and the charging process will be quicker and gentler.

Alternatively, more and more electric cars offer the option of conditioning the battery automatically via route or charging stop planning or manually, i.e. preheating or cooling it.

And: A steady driving style without extreme acceleration and without constant full throttle also protects the battery.

markus abrahamczyk / t-online.de