So what voltage do electric car batteries charge too and are there other battery management stuff they do to improve service life ?
The only thing that matters with e-car batteries is speed of charge. For example my third series Nissan Leaf has three options for charging it's 40kWh battery:
Rapid from a public charger at up to 50kW rate. Charges an empty battery to 80% in 40 minutes The more this is done, the shorter the battery life. Beyond 40 minutes the charge continues but the rate automatically drops rapidly as the battery fills. For example, 22 kW rate at 85% full, 7 kW at 92% full, so taking for ever to completely fill.
Fast from a Home charger installation at 6.6kW rate, taking 8 hours for a completely empty battery to full. Typically overnight, this is considered the normal way to charge and the batteries are lasting 12 years to date with this sort of charging.
Slow from a 13 amp socket at up to 9kW rate using the dedicated slow charger connector. This takes 20.5 hours to fill a completely empty battery. This amounts to trickle charging and gives the battery a very easy stress free life.
The personal way I've used these in my almost 5.5 years with the car:
Charge when content down to between 30% and 40%, avoiding emptying the battery more if avoidable
Rapid only when I absolutely have to.
Fast alternating with Slow roughly every other charge most of the time. Being down to 38% earlier today, it's actually on the Slow charger at the moment, the last charge being Fast.
Slow when ambient temperature is at or below 10 degrees C to protect the battery.
End result at present is little loss of range and capacity at 5.5 years. On the run in warmer months down from 168 miles to about 155 miles, so about 8%.
When used only in local stop-start heavy traffic, range is academic since always ending up back at home, but the rate of discharge in both mileage and battery content percentage indicates 140 to 145 miles.
So I'm very happy with it at 87, knowing the battery will easily outlive me. It will still have at least 70% range when I'm 94 and the car 13.5 years old, and even at 100 it will still get me to and from the supermarket etc a number of times between charges.
But of course even if still alive I won't necessarily still be driving, since I'll stop as soon as my faculties show any sign of not coping. Already, although my daytime eyesight is excellent at 6/6 metric (old 20/20 imperial), it's not good enough after dark so I never drive at night now.
For information:
"Pupils shrink and don't dilate as much in the the dark as we age, reducing the amount of light entering the eye. The retina of an 80-year-old receives far less light than the retina of a 20-year-old, making older drivers function as though they are wearing sunglasses at night. An older person may exhibit normal visual acuity in an eye exam but still struggle to focus on the road at night, where lighting is poor and more complex visual tasks are required.
Ironically, high beams, auxiliary lights and fog lights designed to help you see better at night can put you at risk for an accident due to the glare you may experience when oncoming vehicles have these features."
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