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[Richard230]

My 2014 Zero S is now almost two years old.  I always keep it fully charged and plugged into the wall outlet whenever I am not riding it.  In fact, I plug the bike in as soon as I arrive home after a ride. According to the Zero app, I have exactly the same kWh capacity in my pack as it when it was new: 13.34 kWh.   

[oobflyer]

For those of us that can't live with ourselves unless we're doing our absolute best to optimise everything, I recommend therapy.

Xanax also helps  ;-)

The elimination of charging anxiety!

This seems like the most logical explanation.

Did you "fast-charge" the Leaf or drive/store it in a hot climate?

No - I babied the thing. I had a three year lease - just dropped it off at the Nissan dealer last month. I did fast-charge (ChaDeMo), but rarely - probably no more than a dozen times in three years. The battery temperature gauge never read 'hot'. It's a mystery to me, but i guess the decision to lease vs. purchase was the right one :-)

[rayivers]

My 2014 Zero S is now almost two years old.  I always keep it fully charged and plugged into the wall outlet whenever I am not riding it.  In fact, I plug the bike in as soon as I arrive home after a ride.

+1 pretty much, for both my '14 FX's; I don't usually leave them plugged in overnight, but always for at least 8 hours after riding until balancing activity slows to a crawl.

After over a year of having both bikes nearly always ready to go at a moment's notice, I can't imagine doing anything different.

Ray

[grmarks]

OK so after ready all the responses, here is a question. If I commute 5 days a week and one way is 20% (so a round trip is 40%) what is best for battery longevity?

given I have a timer and it starts charging at 2am.

A) charge to 100% on Monday morning, ride to work (sits at 80% for about 8 hrs) ride home (sits as 60% for about 7 hrs), charge to 100% (sits at 100% for about 3 hrs) and repeat the cycle every day

B) as above except charge every second day, which means the battery goes down to 20% every second day. I.e. the SOC goes from 100% to 80% to 60% to 40% to 20% then back to 100% over 2 day cycle.

Generally with lithium batteries it is said that to take the battery down to 20% makes it loose cycles more than taking it down to 60% twice. I.e if I was to get 2000 cycles by taking it down to 20% then I would NOT get 4000 cycles at 60% but maybe 4500 by only going to 60%.

So I am surprised that farfle said to store it at 20%

[Richard230]

I rarely run my pack below 50% and (like I said) the bike stays plugged in 24/7.  For me, having a full battery pack when I ride off and not having to worry about range anxiety is all I really want.  Where I usually ride there are typically no places to recharge so I am more interested in completing my ride and getting home than trying to (theoretically) keep my battery pack happy. 

[Cortezdtv]

If you ride you bike everyday plug it in everyday, this whole conversation IMO only really relates to letting bike sit for weeks to months at a time

[Alan Stewart]

I don't have an electric motorcycle yet, but my experience with my 2014 Nissan Leaf is nothing like oobflyer's. I've been driving it for about 20 months and over 17,500 miles now. I haven't lost a single 'bar' on the charging gauge. Possibly I've lost a little bit because in the second summer (I'm in Atlanta) I noticed the estimated range after charging was typically 94 miles instead of the 96 of it's first summer, but then again I was also having trouble with a tire that kept leaking down all summer, so this may have been due to some extra rolling resistance. I typically charge it fully at 110 each night, unless the SOC is over 80% when I get home. That's usually on the weekend, since I commute about 37 miles roundtrip on weekdays. SOC when I get home is typically about 45% in the summer. Winters are harder to judge since temperature affects both the charge rate and range. When temps get low enough (only for a few weeks), I often don't get back up to 100% overnight, lose ground each night, and need to use the level 2 charging at the office on Friday to get caught back home Friday night! The only other time I use level 2 or CHADEMO charging is the rare occasion when I do significantly more miles in a day than normal.

[MostlyBonkers]

I wish I could find it again, but I clearly recall a comment Robert Llewellyn made during one of his fully charged show YouTube videos. He said he had a friend with a leaf who only ever used fast DC charging and had noticed no deterioration in range after over 40,000 miles. I don't know what period that was over. He might be a taxi driver or courier that does that kind of mileage in a year.

Perhaps oobflyer's leaf suffered a few cell failures in the battery pack. I imagine the BMS would have disabled them and that would explain the reduced performance. Just guessing though.

Going back a few months I remember the inspiration for the article on lithium ion batteries was a discussion about storage during the winter months. As Cortez noted, this whole discussion centres around that. If you aren't going to use your bike for months then there is an argument for storing it at 40-50% and  checking it every few weeks.

I think it's difficult to let go of the idea that you could extend the life of the battery a little by keeping it at a lower SoC as much as possible. I suffer with that problem and it seems that no matter how much evidence there to prove it isn't worth the bother, that information sticks to some minds like Velcro.

By all means use timers, complicated charging routines, reminders on your phone to flick a switch, plan your journeys etc. Whatever works for you to reduce that anxiety.

My recommendation and this applies to me too, is to work on that anxiety because it is irrational. It's like a form of OCD. Let's call it OCCD: Obsessive compulsive charging disorder!

You may be more prone to anxiety than most people, I know I am. Cognitive Behavior Therapy can help some people but for many it's little more than a sticking plaster. [emoji4]

[NEW2elec]

 When I go for a ride I come home and plug it in.  When the charge light goes solid and the click clack starts I unplug it.  It may stay plugged in over night some but I ride it at least a few miles every week so it's getting some charge. I just don't like the idea of the on board chargers always being on, maybe i just don't know enough about them and I see the amps go way down to .24 but still seems like they could use a rest. Also here in the southeast we get the popup thunderstorms and I don't want it fried by a lightning surge.  I do keep it at full SOC in my garage I hope that doesn't hurt it.

On the Zero webpage for 2013 it shows battery life till 80% to be 284000 miles (city) Which city range is showing 126 miles on the 11.4kWh.
By my calculations that comes out to 2253 charge cycles.
Now 2253 cycles times the 76 miles range for the 55MPH speed and you get 171,301 miles to 80%
Now does that figure in just full charge and discharge or a cumulative effect of charging 40% and 60% to equal a full charge.

[Lipo423]

You nailed it…I would definitely not suggest keeping the bike plugged. Besides the fact that you "throw away" Kw's because of the residual charging, you also have the risk of having a charger problem for any further reasons…
In my experience keeping the bike at around 30% is very healthy, for the battery pack itself, charger, as well as for your pocket (if you know what I mean)
Partial charges do not account as full cycle charges, but as partial ones, 60+40 is 100%= 1 cycle

One of the main issues to get practical data is that mostly of the forum guys -including myself- have not got closed to a significant amount of charging cycles, so getting good information about loosing capacity has happened in very little cases (a lot of them because of defective cells)
We also need to bear in mind that our Zero friends never "offer" to us 100% real battery capacity, which is another factor that extends battery life (they know what they do)…When we say "I have got 5% battery left" we are probably at around 15-17% as the BMS is programed to not use 100% battery capacity…but you guys know this...

[MostlyBonkers]

I'm not sure I've completely understood your last paragraph New2. I think those figures are based on full charge cycles though. I don't know how much testing zero have done or how they reached those figures. It gets more complicated when you throw in different charging regimes. Good question though. If you're referring to how the Prius only lives between the 40-60% state of charge, then it could be very relevant. It would be very deceptive of zero to do that though because it wouldn't represent a real world use-case.

[MostlyBonkers]

Oh, and I take Zero's figures with a pinch of salt. Even if you halve them, they are still in the region of 80-100,000 miles before hitting 80% health. More than enough for most and that's being extremely conservative.

It is amazing how much anxiety people feel on this subject, myself included.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

It is amazing how much anxiety people feel on this subject, myself included.

Yes, from my perspective, I wish everyone would stop overanalyzing this topic. The person with enough miles to say something is Terry and he's said his piece. I am amazed at how much skepticism there is here. Just ride the damn thing, and plug it in. Be happy and get your money's worth out of it (not penny-wise and pound-foolish).

[kingcharles]

I believe the Brammo Empulse also has Farasis cells.
Would Farfle's advice apply equally or would the BMS of the Brammo require a different approach?

[Farfle]

I can think of a couple of reasons Zero's advice is to leave the bike plugged in:

It's the simplest advice to give.

It gets people into the habit of plugging in, thus reducing the chance of them finishing a ride at a low state of charge and then not using it for months.

They've calculated that the battery pack will still have well over 80% health after 5 years even if left plugged in all the time.

Leaving the bike plugged in is the most convenient thing to do. People like convenience and Zero wants happy customers. If they suggested standing the bikes at 40-50% SoC, inevitably people forget and get on a bike with half a tank. It might not be enough juice to get them to their destination, or it might shorten the trip out they planned. Either way they'll be pissed off and frustrated.

It's unlikely that many people will own their zero for more than a couple of years and they might only suffer a 5% drop in battery health in that time. They either won't notice it or it won't make much of a difference to them.

For long term owners, improvements in battery technology will result in nominal capacity increasing 50-60% during five years. The price is likely to drop too. Range is unlikely to be an issue for those owners, but they might consider a new battery pack rather than a whole new bike.

Five years is a long time for Zero to develop new technologies, integrate new features and improve the product. The original bike might be kept as a runaround or given to a family member whilst a new model is bought for main use.

This is exactly correct. It is simple, and you can't really screw it up.