Charging Teslas Every Night? (Read This First)


Charging Teslas Every Night?

If you own a Tesla, you may have heard conflicting views on how often you should be charging your Tesla and if you should be charging it every night. Teslas are complicated pieces of technology, and they are still relatively new on the market. It can be hard to determine whether the steps you are taking with your Tesla are correct or not.

You can charge your Tesla every night. There are many benefits to charging your Tesla every night as long as it reaches a full charge each time. As long as you are not overcharging or undercharging your Tesla, there is no harm in charging your Tesla nightly.

Keep reading to learn everything that you need to know about charging Teslas at night and the components that go into making sure that your Tesla is getting charged properly.

Charging Your Tesla Each Night Will Not Hurt The Battery

One of the biggest things up for debate when it comes to charging your Tesla each night is whether it will harm your battery. It can be hard to find any real consensus on this topic, as there are people that will say that it is harmful to your battery, while others will say that it is important to keep your Tesla on charge at all possible times.

It is especially important to charge your Tesla each night if you will not be using it for a long period of time. You will gain nothing by letting the battery get low before you charge it. Doing so can be more harmful to your Tesla than just charging it whenever you are not using it.

The Tesla can wake itself up to optimize your battery life, meaning you can keep your Tesla plugged in without issue. Teslas are smart enough to keep their batteries operating at the necessary functions without you having to babysit them. The cars themselves will work to make sure that things do not go badly.

You Should Charge Your Tesla When It Is Not in Use

You will not harm your battery by keeping your battery plugged in and charging it every single night. In fact, keeping your Tesla plugged in whenever you are not actively using it is actually what you are recommended to do to provide your Tesla with the proper care.

Tesla itself has stated that you should keep your Tesla plugged in and charging whenever you are not using it. This helps keep the battery in a healthy state and it will not damage the battery or decrease the amount of charge it can hold. Teslas are different from other battery-powered items that can suffer when charged too often.

Your Tesla will work better if you keep it plugged when you are not using it. This is important to remember because if you want to take care of your Tesla the best that you can, you need to make sure that you are keeping it plugged in when possible.

Charging Every Night Can Be Costly

You should keep your Tesla plugged in at all times that you are not using it, and this includes every night. However, sometimes it is not financially viable to do such a thing. Teslas can suck up your electricity which can lead to extremely high bills depending on how often you use your Tesla.

Teslas are created to be as cost-efficient as possible, so this will not always be a big issue. Still, if you are on a budget, Teslas can sometimes drain your pockets if you are always charging them like you should. It can be smart to charge your Tesla when you need it charged to keep your money in your wallet.

Consider the money you will save overall by owning an electric vehicle to charge at home, rather than purchasing gas for a gasoline-powered vehicle. The money you are saving still far outweighs the cost of charging your Tesla every night.

  • No need to worry about gas prices
  • You control the level at which your Tesla charges
  • You save on routine maintenance

Charging Overnight in Cold Climates

Those in colder climates will see the effects of Tesla charging on their pocketbook even more so than those that live in warmer climates. When you live in cold climates, your Tesla will lose energy while the battery is being heated up to its optimum level.

If you live in a cold climate, it may be smart for you to charge your Tesla only once at a time for a full charge. This will help decrease the amount of energy that is being lost in each charge by having to get warmed up. So, if you live in a cold climate, charge your Tesla 10 – 90% at a time rather than splitting that up into smaller charges.

This is the best way to charge your Tesla if you live somewhere cold, especially if you plan on charging it each night. Otherwise, you may find that your Tesla quickly becomes far more expensive than you had budgeted it to be. By being smart and charging when needed, you will keep your money, and keep your Tesla charged.

Charging Every Night Gives You More Battery Juice

One of the most significant benefits of charging your Tesla every night is that you will have more battery juice ready to go at any given time. This means that you will not have to worry about having enough energy in your battery to get you to wherever you are trying to go.

  • Depending on your type of Tesla, this will determine the range you can get on a fully charged battery. Even the lowest-range Tesla can get 250 miles on a full charge. This is far higher than the average American drives, which is only about 40 miles a day.
  • Even though you can get 250 miles to a charge, it is still important to charge your Tesla regularly. This will prevent you from dealing damage to it and ensure that you will have the battery charge necessary for each of your drives.
  • Since there are times that you may not be able to charge your Tesla, it is recommended that you keep it charged as much as you can. That way, if you have to go a long-distance before being able to charge your Tesla, you can do so safely and without worry.

Charging Your Tesla Often Is Not Necessarily Harmful

It may take some time to reach a happy medium with your Tesla battery regarding when to charge it, how often, and how much. However, like any piece of technology, you will have to take the time to learn about your Tesla. Find what works best for it and for you when it comes to charging.

Teslas tend to have what is known as a “vampire effect” on their batteries. This causes the batteries to get slowly drained, even when the vehicle is not in use, due to all the computers running in the background. They require energy to run as well.

Charging every night or at any time that you are not using the Tesla is recommended, but keep in mind that you do not want to keep your Tesla on its charger once it reaches 100 percent charge. Tesla recommends charging its cars to a maximum of 90 percent when possible.

Avoid Undercharging and Overcharging When Possible

Charging your Tesla constantly can, over time, start to affect your vehicle, if you are continually allowing it to drop below 20 percent or charging it all the way to 100 percent. Most batteries, including the ones that you can find inside of Teslas, will begin to see negative effects if you are constantly taking them to the extremes of their battery power.

While there may be times that you need to charge it to 100 percent or let it drop below 20 percent, these practices should not happen regularly.

Charging Your Tesla Every Night And Its Effects on Range

Charging your battery constantly can also affect the range that your Tesla gets over time. This is where charging your battery constantly to the maximum 100 percent starts to seriously affect your Tesla’s battery. Unless you want to see your driving range decrease in a short period of time, you should not constantly charge to 100 percent.

Teslas begin to lose battery capacity after 185,000 miles, but this can be quickened if you are constantly charging the battery to the maximum. The more you charge your Tesla battery to the maximum, the more quickly your battery capacity will degrade.

After that first 185,000 miles, your battery capacity will drop by about 10 percent. It will continue to decrease incrementally.The battery capacity normally decreases slowly, but only if you are taking good care of your battery. Otherwise, if you take poor care of it, you will find that your battery is giving up on you sooner than expected.

The lower the capacity that your battery has, the shorter its range will become between charges, which tends to be a bad thing overall. So, if you want to keep your Tesla going for as long as possible, do not charge it past the recommended 90 percent. If you continually charge it higher than that, you are going to lose driving range.

You Do Not Have to Charge Every Night But You Should

While it is recommended that you should be charging your Tesla every night, you do not have to. There will be nights when you find that you do not need to charge your Tesla, or you do not have a method of charging your Tesla.

Regardless of the reason why you cannot charge your Tesla every single night, it will not have a huge negative effect. Your battery may begin to suffer if you make a regular habit of not charging your Tesla, but if you only skip nights every now and then, it will not become an issue.

However, there are certain makes of Teslas that work fine without being charged every night. These tend to be older models that were not very energy efficient to begin with, though. If you are regularly driving a Tesla, you should be charging every night unless something keeps you from doing so.

Just because you do not have to do something does not always mean that you should not do that thing. This applies to charging Teslas every night. Even though you do not have to charge your Tesla every night, and your Tesla will function fine even if you do not, you should still be charging it each night to promote its longevity.

Not Charging Fully Each Night Can Decrease Range

You should charge your Tesla to the 90 percent mark each night. Teslas have a lot of intelligent software within them to help them understand their ranges and charges overtime. This is typically useful, but there are times when this function can mildly backfire on you.

If you were only to charge your Tesla to 70 percent each night, you would begin to see a change in the range that your Tesla says that you have. This is because your Tesla uses the amount that you are charging each night to decide the range capacity that your vehicle actually has.

Fixing Your Tesla’s Mistaken Range

If you wind up accidentally sabotaging your Tesla’s range and find that your Tesla is saying that you are losing mileage capacity faster than you should be, there is a simple fix to this problem. It will take some time, but it will get your Tesla back to saying the right amount of mile capacity that it has.

  • Make sure to charge your vehicle to 90% each night. Even after your battery has reached the 90% mark, you should be leaving it plugged in. Keep doing this for the next several weeks. After those weeks, your Tesla should fix itself to show the correct amount of mileage from now on.
  • If this fails to fix the problem, then this is the only time when you should let your Tesla charge to over 100%. After you have charged it to the 100% mark, leave it plugged in until the charging process is finished. Unplugging it sooner could keep the process from completing fully.
  • After you have charged it, drive your vehicle until the battery charge falls below 10%. You will need to charge it again to the 100% mark and repeat this process several times. After a few days of doing this, this should reset the mileage counter on your Tesla, allowing it to show the correct mileage again.

Charging Your Tesla Every Night And the Charge Cycle

One of the largest drawbacks to charging your Tesla too often is that it will cause your charge cycle to increase quicker than it would otherwise. This can lead to your Tesla battery’s lifespan decreasing. While you do not need to anticipate this happening if you are only charging every night, more frequent charging could lead to issues.

If you do not know, a vehicle’s charge cycle is essentially the number of times the battery is charged and then discharged. The amount of energy used during these cycles does not matter, which is why only charging once at night is recommended when it comes to your Tesla battery.

Charge Cycles

The number of times a battery is charged affects its charge cycle. A battery’s depth of discharge increases after it experiences a certain number of charge cycles. If you are especially battery conscious, you may want to charge your Tesla once every other night instead of nightly.

  • A Tesla battery starts at a 10% depth of discharge (DoD), meaning that it can handle about 15,000 charge cycles
  • After 15,000 charge cycles, your battery’s DoD will decrease to about 9,000 charge cycles
  • At 40%, your DoD will only be about 3,000 charge cycles, so after 24,000 charges, your battery has already decreased the amount it can handle by 12,000 charges
  • At 60% DoD, your battery will only be able to handle about 1,500 charges
  • At 80% DoD, your battery will only be able to handle about 900 charges
  • If you manage to hit 100% DoD, your battery will only be able to handle about 600 more charge cycles.

You are going to be better off charging your Tesla no more than once a night. Any more than this, and you will begin to kill your battery’s DoD too quickly. This is fine if you want to push your Tesla to its limits, but if you want your Tesla to last, do not charge it more than once a day.

Conclusion

Even though there can be a lot to remember when it comes to charging your Tesla vehicle, it is a simple task once you get used to everything that goes into keeping your Tesla healthy. The main concept you should keep in mind is that charging your Tesla once daily overnight will not harm it and will actually benefit it a great deal.

Just remember not to overcharge or undercharge your Tesla, and not to push it harder than it needs to be pushed.

Tesla Discounts:

Greg

The articles here on ThatTeslaChannel.com are created by Greg, a Tesla vehicle and Tesla solar expert with nearly half a decade of hands-on experience. The information on this site is fact-checked and tested in-person to ensure the best possible level of accuracy.

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