Charging normally starts slowly for the first few seconds then ramps up to peak after 1-2 minutes.
Charge rate varies with how full the battery is. It may be helpful to think of it as being a bit like filling a glass with sparkling wine.
Peak charge rate is normally when the battery is at around 10-15% full. It then progressively drops to about half this by the time the battery is 80% full. At 80% full, the battery management system will slow the charge rate to about 12kW, as the battery cannot absorb more without harm. Normally best to stop at this point, both to preserve battery life and because the last 20% takes an age to fill and is rarely worth it.
All the above applies to NMC batteries, as you have in the EV6. This does not apply to LFP batteries.
Thanks. That seems to describe exactly what I saw.
From this thread and various sources am I correct in thinking best practice seems to be the following:
Keep the battery between 20 and 80% charge and predominantly charge by AC at home.
Charge occasionally to 100% (although I canāt see a definite statement from Kia about this and the occasionally varies from monthly to bi- annually).
Also is it best to top up every night ( on AC at home) even though one might only be going from 70-80% or is it better to wait until it needs a higher % charge? Or does it not make a difference?
No difference. Just keep topped up on AC as convenient. Good that you had a positive experience at a commercial charger. Note that if you set a DC charger as a destination via the Nav then it will activate battery conditioning if necessary. Optimises speed and quantity of charge.
Best to keep battery between 20% and 80%, unless you need the last 20% of battery for a long trip.
No need to top up to 100% āfor the good of the batteryā.
For longest life, battery is happiest between 30% and 70%, so no need to keep topping up to 80%, though we often do as itās convenient to leave the car plugged in at home until the next time we need it.
Good to hear, youāre enjoying the EV experience, been doing the exact same thing as the Other EV owners have done and keep it in 80 - 20 % range, charge overnight, I tend to charge every couple of days, depending on work commitments.
BMW used to recommend that on the i3 I had. Enables the cells to ābalanceā, whatever that means!
With respect to solar and charging an EV, we have only been able to utilise all the solar (8kWp) on the sunniest days (60kWh) by charging the EV(s) to mop it up (windy and sunny? Weāve maxed at 100kWh in a day with our share of the wind turbine added in). Donāt have smart meter (yet) so no time of use tariff (yet)
On the charge speeds on a dc rapid, that is also affected by the battery temperature. Different EVs have very different charging curves - donāt think have seen anything so low as indicated in the photos on my iX, even approaching 90% (at least on an Ionity charger), though that might be because I wasnāt paying attentionā¦
On subject of tethered v untethered the untethered is only better (in my humble opinion) because you can get much longer cables
And I wish I had got a zappi instead of the Indra that I have. Now waiting for bidirectional zappi to come available and I will get one of those and a car that can power the house so as to maximise the cheap electricity for use in the house as well as car charging
To my understanding the i3 can be charged to 100% daily with no āharmā as it has lithium based batteries? At least we did that with ours with no perceivable impact over 2-3 years. I understand e.g. with Tesla one can charge daily to 100% the normal range model (lithium) but should not do so with the long range (different chemistry).
There is no issue chatging an i3 to 100% each day. I charge mine twice a week to 100%. As thos is via the 7kW AC charger, i dont carebif the last 5% takes a disproportionate time.
Always with an EV, ask manufacturer for a charge curve. My i3 is near flat from 10% to 94%. DC or AC at home.
Most peak very early in in their charge curve and drop down.
Iāve gone down a bit of a YouTube rabbit hole today about electric batteries and the best ways to charge them ā this is probably one of the more authoritative and comprehensive ones I have come across.
I doubt there is consensus on these matters. Numerous variables will determine optimal performance and battery charging levels, not least the battery chemistry in use. The majority of EV batteries are lithium ion of one type or another. Most are NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) or LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate). Until recently NMC was predominant globally, although LFP is increasingly used, especially in China. Each variant will have its own advantages/disadvantages, such as capacity, safety, weight, charge/discharge characteristics, etc.
Unless you are a research scientist I wouldnāt think these matters are of particular significance to the average EV driver. While it may not be advisable to always charge to 100% and store it at that level, I think you should charge as you need to and rest assured that your your EV battery is guaranteed to perform beyond certain specified levels for at least 8 years. If you plan to keep your EV for longer than this then, of course, careful consideration of how you charge and how you drive might be worthwhile, although not for me.
Having some chemistry and physics in my background I found the presentation by the university lecturer Dr. Dahn very interesting and indormative. It gave me an understanding of why NMC batteries might generally be best charged to 75% rather than 100% but also not to worry too much about it as even with less than optimal charging practices that most batteries are good for 400,000km. He maintained that when most cars are falling apart the batteries will still be good and will all have a second life in power storage.
By and large the presentation would make you not worry at all about battery longevity but I think that it wonāt be any great hassle for me to go from 45-70% SOC most of the time and so when my Kia falls apart the battery will have more useful life left than if I didnāt optimise it - and so be generally better for the environment.
If Iām understanding correctly single crystal positive electrodes which are already being made commercially will have no charging constraints and will happily go between 0-100 in (relative) perpetuity.
Okay I think thatās the point - the battery will last a long time, so I donāt worry too much about charging levels. In the U.K. the public charging network is generally inadequate (except in south-east England) and greatly overpriced, so a home charger is highly recommended.
Not sure about single crystal anode materials and their current commercial viability. Anodes are currently composed mainly of graphite but most research is focused on the cathode active materials. There seems to be potential for sodium-ion batteries to replace Li ion at some time in the future for some applications. However, it will be several years before current NMC Li ion chemistries are superseded in industry.
From doing a quick look at the Zappi online help and the Kia charging information On the Kia Iāve set up a daily departure time, added when my cheap(er) EV rate is and told the app only to charge on this rate. Iāve set the Zappi to fast as I donāt (yet) have solar.
Iām presuming that I will just select the scheduled charging when we need to charge at night and then connect the charge point and wake up with a recharged car.
I think the departure time is only for setting a scheduled climate control switch-on so it is toasty when you get in. You donāt have to set one; I donāt as I leave home at variable times each day. I just activate climate from the app 5mins before I leave. Note you can set the temp level and also options for heated steering wheel/seat (if you have them), heated mirrors/screen defrost in the app. It still works when not plugged in too, although obviously draining a bit from the battery to do so.
The āonly charge in windowā and āprioritise charging in the windowā are options in the app, or use the settings button bottom corner of the screenshot. āOnlyā will charge in the low rate window and then stop at your target level, or when the rate ends whichever happens first. āPrioritiseā means it will charge to your target amount (say 80%) in the window if possible, but start outside that if there is insufficient time to achieve that level. The settings for max level of charge for AC and DC are there too.
I only use the car app to set charging times etc. Our charger has no timer function, not sure if the Zappi one does. What Iām unsure of is how the charger will act if the car is set for one thing and the charger for another. The easy way is just to do as you have said; control from the car or the Kia app.
Bruce is better placed than I to advise on the Kia app.
If your Kia app works in a similar way to our Tesla or previous Skoda app, then you may need to do 2 things:
Tell Zappi to push charge and tell the car to receive charge in the same scheduled time window.
The Zappi app does have a timer for a scheduled āBoostā charge and you should set a āscheduled Boost chargeā window in terms of start time, duration and which days of the week that you would routinely like the Zappi to try to push charge into your car.
Then program the car to accept charge in the same nightly window.
This works for us when the Zappi is in Eco or Evo+ mode.
If memory serves, leaving the Zappi in Fast mode may mean that the Zappi is trying to push charge all the time, so all you do is control the time window via the Kia app. This is the simplest way if you leave the Zappi in Fast mode.
This is my current plan, to let the Kia control when to allow charging in my night rate window to get a feel for the home charging experience.
However I think I might also like to lock the Zappi with a lock code as it goes against my instinct to have the full menu options open to anyone passing by. I think itās unlikely that they would park their car and charge but it is feasible that a prankster could set a lock code and lock me out or do something else nefarious in the settings. Probably overthinking things but you may only need one prankster uploading to TikToc for every kid in the neighbourhood to be trying it. The knocking on doors and running away of the 2020ās.
Now that Iāve just articulated all that Iāve got myself more anxious!
Apparently there is a setting that hides the menus etc without a code and allows charging so I may set that up today which will still allow the Kia to control the charge but stymie the TikToc hordes coming to get me!
I had to manually click it on last night (as Iām using the lock device mode).
Iāll take @Bluesfan advice and have the charging set up in both car and Zappi tonight and see how that works.
I wonāt need to charge every night but Iām presuming once itās not connected there is no harm and it means any night one of us comes home and the car needs charging they donāt have to worry about any settings other than just plugging it in.
The only downside being if something goes wrong and my wife or daughter donāt have adequate charge some morning my head is on the block!
Thatās right, it wonāt do any harm. It needs both the charger and the car to want the charge before it will flow. If the car is already full or is disconnected, then the Zappi will simply wait.
