First time poster. And a newbie Tesla owner. What a great forum. Lots of ideas on charging. Here is my situation…..Juat bought my MYLR a couple of weeks ago and still waiting for the plates to arrive. So I have been driving it locally 10 -15 miles a day and have kept the charge around 50%. Once the plates come I plan on using it for work and work and back is about 180 miles round trip. I will only do that about 7 times a month. And it’s mostly highway driving.
Should I charge it to 100% each time I use it for work? Or should I try to charge it to 95% and get the 180 miles on that percentage? I assume I will get the mileage.
Just looking for ideas on what’s best to get a nice long life from the battery.
Thanks….
New EV owners tend to plan, drive as they would for an ICE vehicle. Instead of charging to 100% and then driving until you are almost at 0% state of charge let the Tesla Model Y's Navigation system guide you on when and where to stop and use a Supercharger station. The Tesla Supercharger network makes range anxiety mostly a non-issue.
A Better Route Planner (ABRP), a third-party software for your phone and web app, lets you customize many variables for your trip and plan your charging stops. ABRP can recommend Tesla Supercharger charging locations and also DC Fast Charge network locations. If you wish to use one of the DC Fast Charge networks such as Electrify America you would need to purchase the Tesla CCS Combo 1 charging adapter ($175 from the Tesla online store) or one of the 3rd-party CCS1 adapters that are available.
For a 180 mile trip I would not bother charging to 100%, not more than 90%. I would plan to charge once near the start of the return trip, arrive back home with a reasonable reserve state of charge, i.e. 15% or 20%.
In winter, if you drive this same 180 mile trip, you will find that the energy consumption will increase by at least 20% as your driving efficiency falls with the lower temperature. Instead of wondering, "will I be able to make it home?" just charge a little longer at the Supercharger (perhaps an additional 20%.)
Another useful phone and web app is Plugshare. Plugshare can locate nearby charging stations, perhaps even close to where you will be traveling and maybe even free to use for a few hours. (A 6kW Level 2 charging station (very common with public L2 charging) would enable you to add 20 miles + per hour to your range for every hour you charge. 4 hours would probably be all the time you would need to charge back to 80% or 90% for the return trip.)
The Tesla Supercharger network is available 24 X 7. There are currently 5,000 Supercharger locations and 50,000 charging connections (globally.) You need a valid credit card or debit card saved to your Tesla Account to use the Supercharger network. (I recommend performing a brief, i.e. 2 minute, Supercharging session at a nearby Supercharger to verify that you can charge your new Tesla Model Y using the Supercharger network. (Probably will cost $0.30 to perform the 2 minute test.)
The initial (maximum) charging rate when Supercharging will vary with the version (generation) of Supercharger, the state of charge of the battery at the beginning of the charging session and the battery temperature. The battery temperature will be automatically optimized for Supercharging when you enter the Supercharger location as the next way point or destination in the Tesla Navigation system and start to drive. That said, you would probably need to charge at a Supercharger for less than 20 minutes to reach your home with a comfortable level of reserve battery charge.