EV Charging Tip: Why You Should NOT Charge to 100% Every Day

A lot of EV owners think they’re doing the right thing by keeping the car topped up all the time — plugged in overnight, plugged in all weekend, plugged in whenever it’s parked.

It feels responsible, like keeping a phone at 100%. But for an EV battery, it’s actually one of the quickest ways to age it.

The trouble starts in that last stretch of charging. Once an EV climbs past roughly 80%, the battery has to work harder and heats up more. That heat is what slowly eats away at battery life. And if the car sits plugged in, fully charged, it doesn’t just stay there — it loses a little charge, the charger wakes back up, adds a bit more, shuts off, repeats. Tiny cycles, over and over. Worse if the car is baking outside in the sun.

Most EVs in the U.S. use NMC batteries, which really don’t like being kept full all the time. LFP batteries are a bit tougher — they can handle a full charge here and there — but even those prefer living in the middle of the range instead of at the top.

So the simple rule makes more sense than anything else: day-to-day, an EV is happiest between about 20% and 80%. Save the full charge for a road trip. Everything else just puts extra miles on the battery when no one’s actually driving.