Why Parking Under The Shade Can Save Your EV’s Battery
An electric vehicle’s usefulness depends solely on the health of its battery. It determines how far said EV can travel on a single charge and how well it cope with sudden bursts of acceleration. Lithium-ion cells make up most EV battery packs because they offer great power density, high voltage, low self-discharge and several other reasons.
Despite this, there are few drawbacks that make them less ideal for certain situations. Lithium-ion batteries need to be kept within a certain temperature window to provide optimal power delivery. This also prevents accelerated battery degradation, which greatly reduces total charge retention.
Besides this, to help prolong the lifespan of the battery, charge levels should be kept between 20% and 80%. Overcharging or running it to extremely low charge levels continuously over many cycles can reduce overall charge capacity.
How Will Parking In the Shade Help Your EV’s Battery?
All vehicles parked in direct sunlight experience the greenhouse effect, where the windshield and window glass let in and trap heat within the cabin. This causes the ambient temperature inside the car to rise to extremely uncomfortable levels. When you get back into the car, the air-conditioning system will need to consume more power than normal to bring down the temperature.
This reduces the overall range because of the power that needs to be consumed by the A/C system. Besides this, the battery management system (BMS), which governs most EV battery packs, needs to constantly be at work (consuming power) to keep the temperature of the cells in check to ensure that they are within the optimal operating envelope.
If said BMS system isn’t doing an adequate job at cooling the battery pack, the cells may be subjected to more heat than they are used to, which will accelerate the degradation process and shorten the overall lifespan.
According to the Nickel Institute, exposure to excessive heat also causes an increase in chemical reactions that take place within the battery. This can reduce the overall charge levels of a parked EV. A combination of these heat related issues can have a noticeable, negative effect on an EV’s battery.
Based on JD Power findings, EV batteries are supposed to have a useful lifespan of about 10 to 20 years with moderate use. However, exposure to extreme temperatures and allowing the charge level to dip below 20% or exceed 80% can shorten said lifespan.
Heat is the enemy of the modern EV, which makes it prudent for owners to park them in a shaded area if they’re planning to leave them unattended for lengthy periods of time.
