Is always-on charging advisable?

[goshen]

I have the Chargepoint 50amp charging and have read different opinions on this forum about leaving the charging plugged in every time the car is parked in the garage.

What is the best practice on charging at home and are there any downsides to battery life if always plugged in or otherwise? Asking because I don’t do much driving and the car has always been in about 350miles most times at home.

Thanks

 

[Sandvinsd]

For our Nissan Leaf which only has about 130 miles of range on a full battery, we keep it plugged in. That is just because we use about 60-70% of the battery on a daily basis. The Lucid is a different story, as it has so much more range.

If you are not driving the car a lot, I would not worry about keeping the car plugged in. I usually just plug my GT in when I get down to about 30-40% (150-200 miles of range) and then charge it up to about 75-80 Which amounts to about once or twice a week. If I were parking the car for an extended period of time, I would just leave it plugged in and set the limit to about 60%.just because these batteries prefer to be stored at about half charge. Keeping it plugged in will not hurt it. As long as you routinely stay between 20-80% on the battery, the battery health will be good. I only charge above 80% if I am going on a trip the next day. Hope that helps!

 

[borski]

I have the Chargepoint 50amp charging and have read different opinions on this forum about leaving the charging plugged in every time the car is parked in the garage.

What is the best practice on charging at home and are there any downsides to battery life if always plugged in or otherwise? Asking because I don’t do much driving and the car has always been in about 350miles most times at home.

Thanks

No downsides to staying plugged in at home. Lucid says “a happy car is a plugged in car.”

Everyone else has opinions, but that’s the official story.

 

[Ahntilza]

I keep mine plugged in, only had it a couple of weeks, but no perceived ill effects. I did the same with my plug in hybrid before the lucid and that went without a hitch as well.

 

[Sandvinsd]

One reason I don’t keep the Lucid plugged in is that I don’t have scheduled charging for it. Really don’t want to pay up to 81 cents a kW if the car decides to charge between 4-9p

 

[Ahntilza]

One reason I don’t keep the Lucid plugged in is that I don’t have scheduled charging for it. Really don’t want to pay up to 81 cents a kW if the car decides to charge between 4-9p

That's definitely a legit reason to keep it unplugged. What kind of charger do you have?

 

[Sandvinsd]

That's definitely a legit reason to keep it unplugged. What kind of charger do you have?

ChargePoint Flex and a Lucid Home charger for the 2 EVs

 

[Ahntilza]

ChargePoint Flex and a Lucid Home charger for the 2 EVs

Have you been pretty happy with the Lucid charger? I am considering picking one up, and upgrading to the 100 amp circuit.

 

[borski]

Have you been pretty happy with the Lucid charger? I am considering picking one up, and upgrading to the 100 amp circuit.

It works great, especially for the faster charging, but it doesn’t have scheduled charging yet.

If you’re interested in it for the faster speed, it’s great; if you want the scheduled charging due to “time of use” rate plans, maybe hold off if you don’t have a secondary option, until they add that feature in, unless you don’t mind plugging and unplugging it manually.

Once they fixed the issues @DeaneG had with the IP namespace, it’s been rock solid from everyone I’ve talked to (and for me as well).

 

[Ahntilza]

It works great, especially for the faster charging, but it doesn’t have scheduled charging yet.

If you’re interested in it for the faster speed, it’s great; if you want the scheduled charging due to “time of use” rate plans, maybe hold off if you don’t have a secondary option, until they add that feature in, unless you don’t mind plugging and unplugging it manually.

Once they fixed the issues @DeaneG had with the IP namespace, it’s been rock solid from everyone I’ve talked to (and for me as well).

I'm just looking for faster charging speeds at this point, although for my daily back and forth the ~40m/h I get with the 14-50 based charger will get the job done. My commute is pretty short over all. I'll keep my eye on the Lucid charger's capabilities as you suggested.

 

[borski]

I'm just looking for faster charging speeds at this point, although for my daily back and forth the ~40m/h I get with the 14-50 based charger will get the job done. My commute is pretty short over all. I'll keep my eye on the Lucid charger's capabilities as you suggested.

Yeah, same. I have a 48A continuous WallBox and the 80A continuous Lucid EVSE; the scheduled charging is the only feature the Lucid EVSE is missing before I basically forget about the Wallbox entirely until I get a second EV.

 

[Ahntilza]

Yeah, same. I have a 48A continuous WallBox and the 80A continuous Lucid EVSE; the scheduled charging is the only feature the Lucid EVSE is missing before I basically forget about the Wallbox entirely until I get a second EV.

That makes perfect sense. You're in Cali right? I'm out in VA and there electricity rates are pretty modest comparatively speaking. Out of curiosity, does the lucid charger offer a fair amount of metrics or is it pretty opaque in that respect?

 

[Sandvinsd]

Have you been pretty happy with the Lucid charger? I am considering picking one up, and upgrading to the 100 amp circuit.

The Lucid home charger is great for speed. As @borski said, no scheduled charging yet which means it is only used on weekends when I can plug in for super off-peak. Also needs a user interface on an app. Not a smart charger at this point. Have to find the IP address it is using in order to log into it. I’m sure those issues will improve over time as does the car.

 

[Ahntilza]

The Lucid home charger is great for speed. As @borski said, no scheduled charging yet which means it is only used on weekends when I can plug in for super off-peak. Also needs a user interface on an app. Not a smart charger at this point. Have to find the IP address it is using in order to log into it. I’m sure those issues will improve over time as does the car.

That’s one of the kind of things I’m hoping for in the car app. My previous car was a Volvo S60 PHEV and it had a driving journal in the app that would chronicle mileage and efficiency and the like. I’d love to see that with the Lucid.

 

[borski]

The Lucid home charger is great for speed. As @borski said, no scheduled charging yet which means it is only used on weekends when I can plug in for super off-peak. Also needs a user interface on an app. Not a smart charger at this point. Have to find the IP address it is using in order to log into it. I’m sure those issues will improve over time as does the car.

Well, it’s a smart charger in that you can access it over wifi and download all sorts of info - there just isn’t an app to do it yet, and you have to go through the local IP as you mentioned.

You're in Cali right?

Yup.

Out of curiosity, does the lucid charger offer a fair amount of metrics or is it pretty opaque in that respect?

You can download lots of info, full unencrypted logs, debug info, etc. There are no pretty graphs, but the data is accessible.

Honestly, I expect them to make the info more opaque (but also more user friendly) as time goes on, since right now it basically just dumps all of the system logs and info into a zip file.

 

[borski]

That’s one of the kind of things I’m hoping for in the car app. My previous car was a Volvo S60 PHEV and it had a driving journal in the app that would chronicle mileage and efficiency and the like. I’d love to see that with the Lucid.

That’s a fantastic idea! Paging @Firstto520 @mcr16

You should also cross-post this idea to the “mobile app” thread: https://lucidowners.com/threads/what-would-you-like-to-see-from-the-lucid-mobile-app.1000/page-26

 

[Ahntilza]

Well, it’s a smart charger in that you can access it over wifi and download all sorts of info - there just isn’t an app to do it yet, and you have to go through the local IP as you mentioned.


Yup.


You can download lots of info, full unencrypted logs, debug info, etc. There are no pretty graphs, but the data is accessible.

Honestly, I expect them to make the info more opaque (but also more user friendly) as time goes on, since right now it basically just dumps all of the system logs and info into a zip file.

I could believe that, more often than not for the vast majority of owners less information is a better solution. Just the pertinent info and leave the details to those that *really* want to dig into it

 

[Ahntilza]

That’s a fantastic idea! Paging @Firstto520 @mcr16

You should also cross-post this idea to the “mobile app” thread: https://lucidowners.com/threads/what-would-you-like-to-see-from-the-lucid-mobile-app.1000/page-26

I’ll do that. It was really useful, for getting the most out of the car not to mention logging trips for work and stuff like that. It came in really helpful to see when the car was moved about when it was being serviced too, which was an issue once or twice.

 

[Ahntilza]

It was cool because you could add notes and categories.

 

[borski]

It was cool because you could add notes and categories.

That’s awesome!