EV battery care: how your habits affect capacity
Battery aging is mostly about how you charge and where you park. Set your habits below to project how much capacity you keep over the years — and see which changes help most. Every value is editable; this is an estimate, not a guarantee.
Projected battery health
- Care score
- 68
- out of 100
- Capacity at year 8
- 86%
- estimated retention
- Years to 80%
- 14
- years
Illustrative estimate based on typical battery behavior — not a prediction for a specific car.
Capacity over time
| 0 | 100% |
|---|---|
| 1 | 96% |
| 2 | 94% |
| 3 | 92% |
| 4 | 91% |
| 5 | 90% |
| 6 | 88% |
| 7 | 87% |
| 8 | 86% |
| 9 | 85% |
| 10 | 84% |
| 11 | 83% |
| 12 | 82% |
| 13 | 81% |
| 14 | 80% |
| 15 | 79% |
Your habits
How to keep more capacity
- Charge to 80% day-to-day instead of 90% — only fill to 100% before a long trip.+1.6% at year 8
- Lean on DC fast charging less — keep it for trips, not daily top-ups.+1.4% at year 8
How to read the result
The care score rates how gentle your habits are for your battery chemistry, from 0 to 100. The curve projects capacity over time and marks the 80% line many warranties use. Two kinds of aging are at work: calendar aging from time, heat and sitting at a high charge, and cycle aging from charging and discharging as you drive — so higher annual mileage adds wear on top of the calendar effect. The biggest levers you control are daily charge level, how often you fast-charge and heat — so the tips quantify what each change would recover. NMC/NCA batteries last longer kept around 80% day-to-day; LFP batteries are fine charged to 100%.
Frequently asked questions
- Is it bad to charge to 100%?
- For NMC/NCA batteries, sitting at 100% for long periods adds stress, so 80% is a good daily target and full only before a long trip. LFP batteries are designed for 100% and actually prefer a regular full charge to keep the range estimate accurate.
- Does DC fast charging ruin the battery?
- Occasional fast charging on trips is fine. Relying on it for everyday charging adds more wear than slow home charging, especially in heat, so use it when you need it rather than by default.
- Should I run the battery down to 0%?
- No. Deep discharges don't help and add stress. Modern EVs don't need 'calibration' cycles; topping up little and often is gentler than running it flat.
- Why does climate matter so much?
- Heat is the bigger long-term enemy: a hot battery ages faster even when parked. Cold mainly reduces range temporarily. Parking in shade or a garage and preconditioning while plugged in both help.
- Does driving more wear the battery faster?
- A little — more miles means more charge cycles, which is real cycle aging. But for most drivers calendar aging (time, heat and average charge level) matters more, so gentle charging habits count for more than the odometer. High-mileage drivers benefit the most from easing off fast charging and keeping the daily charge limit modest.