Long Term Battery Care and Charging Habits

[pdxrajiv]

I will not be driving the car for a month or two sometime in the near future.
Car will be at home in the garage.
Everyone appears to agree that I should leave the car plugged in.
Maybe the rest is "don't care" but if someone wanted to optimize, two questions I can't find consensus on:
1. What charge limit should I set? 20%, 50%, 80%?
2. What current limit should I set? 1 Amp, 10 Amps, 40 Amps?

Thanks in advance for your expert advice.

 

[jerry33]

50% is the best setting when the car is idle for an extended period. The amps don't matter as the charging won't be very long. What will happen is that a charge will occur every couple of days.

 

[Doug4650]

I'm not a battery expert but here's my opinion.

Charging the battery at all doesn't really do anything to "help" the battery.

So what I was do is,

• set the level at 20%
• set the AMPS at what you normally do (the idea is that at 20% it will not recharge).

Hopefully the battery will not charge at all while you are gone.

 

[TexasEV]

I'm not a battery expert but here's my opinion.

Charging the battery at all doesn't really do anything to "help" the battery.

So what I was do is,

• set the level at 20%
• set the AMPS at what you normally do (the idea is that at 20% it will not recharge).

Hopefully the battery will not charge at all while you are gone.

Yeah, it's obvious you're not a battery expert, because the battery experts at Tesla say to set it at 50% if the car will be stored for an extended time. Jerry33 above was quoting Tesla's advice.

Anyway how would you set the charge level at 20%? The slider goes from 50-100% charge.