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Lithium-ion batteries are the most common battery in consumer electronics. They are used in everything from cellphones to power tools to electric cars and more. However, they have well defined characteristics that cause them to wear out, and understanding these characteristics can help you to double the life of your batteries — or more. This is especially useful for products that do not have replaceable batteries.

Battery wear is loss of capacity and/or increased internal resistance. The latter is not a well-known concept, but over time the battery is able to put out less amperage as the battery ages, and eventually the battery is unable to generate power quickly enough to operate the appliance at all even though the battery is not empty.

The standard disclaimers apply, all advice is for informational purposes only, CleanTechnica is not responsible for any damages caused by inaccurate information or following any advice provided. Also, new technology may change the characteristics spoken about, making them less or more relevant in the future or even rendering them obsolete.


Lithium batteries age from the following factors:

These articles explain each facet in detail and are worth reviewing if you’re interested in understanding the logic behind the following recommendations.

Time

Try to buy batteries when you need them, because lithium ion ages from the moment it leaves the assembly line. However, by following the recommendations below you can get a longer lifetime from the batteries you own. If possible, look for the date stamp on any battery powered item you intend to buy and try get the newest one. Often you will find it on there, either on the outside of the package or on the item itself.

Charging Cycles

One cycle is fully charging the battery and then fully draining it. Lithium-ion batteries are often rated to last from 300-15,000 full cycles. However, often you don’t know which brand/model of battery is in the item you buy.

Partial cycles will give you many more cycles before the battery wears out, so when possible do partial discharges and then recharge. Don’t intentionally drain a battery before recharging for lithium-ion batteries.

For some equipment this is not realistic, in electric lawnmowers and other outdoor tools for example, but the manufacturer will hopefully have selected a battery chemistry designed for this use case.

Storage/Operating Temperature

Try to keep your batteries cool whenever possible. Don’t store a cellphone or other portable lithium battery in a car on a hot day, and keep them cool when not in use (bring your portable tool batteries inside instead of leaving them in an unconditioned shed/garage). Park an electric vehicle in the shade or a reasonable temperature garage when possible. Many EVs have active cooling of batteries so that will take care of this for you, although you still save battery power by parking in the shade or a conditioned garage.

Also, your pocket is about 30ºC, so store your cellphone on a desk and out of direct sunlight if you’re in the office or at home when practical.

Charging Characteristics

Charge your battery at a slow rate when possible. For a cellphone, use a charger that is rated for about 1/4 of the battery capacity if you can. Avoid quick charging except for rare instances when you absolutely need the most juice as quickly as possible. Charging at 1/2 its capacity per hour is acceptable but chargers that can charge a phone in under 1.5 hours from empty can be very hard on the battery.

For power tools, try to get a slow charger instead of the quick chargers many of them come with. This is not always possible, but often is.

Don’t leave any device connected to the charger once charging is complete. In fact, you should aim to charge to a maximum of 80% (more on that below).

Discharging Characteristics

Try not to abuse your battery by pulling as much power as quickly from it as possible. For an EV, flooring the acceleration pedal on a regular basis is not good for the battery. Similarly, power hungry games can drain cellphone batteries quite quickly as well. If your phone gets hot from high power use (and not the sun or high room temperature), it is an indication that you are punishing the battery.

Sometimes taking it easy on batteries is not always possible because some products, such as lithium-ion powered tools, are hard on the battery by design (drills, lawnmower, snowblowers, etc.). In these cases, manufacturers will typically use batteries designed for high drain rates (but have lower capacity), but anything you can do to be gentle on even these batteries will pay dividends in longer life. For power banks, try to use the power at a moderate rate. USB models can be tricky to limit your current draw rate as a phone or tablet will draw what it wants up to the bank limit, but for non-USB items you can often try to limit how quickly it’s drawing power.

Also you can “hack” this issue by buying and using a larger capacity battery if your device can handle it. For the same power draw, a larger capacity battery will have a lower percent drain per hour. This also reduces cycle count.

For items you don’t use daily, check on your batteries from time to time in case they are draining themselves when not in use. For EVs and cellphones, this is not a noticeable problem, but for power tools and power banks it is a good idea to check on the battery every few months (or weeks if it drains itself quickly) and top it up to 50%-ish for storage.

Depth Of Charge

Unlike most other battery types (especially lead acid), lithium-ion batteries do not like being stored at high charge levels. Charging and then storing them above 80% hastens capacity loss. So charge the battery to 80% or a bit less if that will get you through the day/week. Most EVs have the ability to select a percentage to charge up to in the software.

Charging above 80% is not a big problem if you intend to draw it down quickly and need the full capacity. Of course, try not to do this regularly if you don’t have to. Avoid overnight charging of your phone unless it has a smart charging feature, such as some Apple phones. For Android phones, use Accubattery software or similar, which will beep at 80% charge as a reminder to unplug the cord. Charge to full in the morning if needed to get through the day.

Similarly, for your EV if you have a long driving day planned, setting the software to charge to full by morning (not storing the vehicle overnight at full) and driving until you are below 80% rather quickly will not cause much extra wear to your batteries.

In general, it’s the storage time above 75-80% that causes most of the extra high charge wear.

For storing batteries long term, charge them to about 50% and check on them every now and then.

Depth Of Discharge

According to many sources, lithium-ion doesn’t like being fully discharged. So try to avoid draining your batteries below about 25% when possible. If unavoidable, then charge it back up to above 25% as soon as possible so the time spent near empty is minimized.

Miscellaneous Battery Information

  • Lithium-ion batteries have no memory effect. This was a facet of Nickel Cadmium batteries that went out of style decades ago, yet this is a surprisingly common question people ask about any rechargeable battery.
  • Most name-brand devices use quality name-brand batteries, but some devices (such as cheap power banks or no-name products) use off-brand or grey market batteries that will not last for years no matter how much you baby them. Try to avoid buying products with these batteries because the money you save buying them translates into reduced product life.
  • For some devices, the charge gauge can fall out of calibration and give you incorrect readings. This can typically be fixed by either fully charging or fully discharging then recharging the battery back to full. However this is hard on the battery, so it’s not something you want to do regularly, but in the rare instance that this is the cause of your issues, then a full charge or charge-discharge cycle will solve it. Quickly draw the battery back down to 80% before putting it back in service.
  • Everything stated above is quite generalized, and with the various battery chemistries on the market, all of them have slightly different characteristics. Once facet may be stronger in one chemistry vs. another but in general the advice provided is applicable to all lithium battery chemistries.

End Of Life (EOL)

End of life for a lithium-ion battery typically occurs when the battery can no longer perform the function the user requires of it. Commercially, when a battery (pack) has reached 80% of its design capacity it is considered EOL, but for end users, it’s typically looked at as when the device (or battery pack) becomes unusable.

When your battery starts acting funny, it can mean it’s ready to be retired. Some Apple phones have the ability to calculate capacity remaining (it is buried in the settings) and Accubattery for Android can do the same thing if installed and used for at least a week.

These are some of the strange quirks you may run into that can occur with worn out lithium-ion batteries:

  • Device shuts down stating low battery even though it should have plenty of runtime left, even if it stated a decent percent charge remaining just minutes before
  • The battery percentage meter drops randomly
  • Charging finishes prematurely even though the battery did not accept much power
  • Sudden capacity drops without warning
  • Self-discharge rate soars and is often uneven
  • The battery (pack) gets very hot during charging (sometimes the charger shuts down due to this)
  • Pouch batteries can start bulging (seen on some cell phones)

Be sure to recycle all batteries at the end of their life as they contain valuable materials that can be recycled into new batteries.


A summary of the terminology used in the battery world:

Charging algorithm = Battery is charged at Constant Current, then near full charge (typically over 80%) the charger switches to Constant Voltage. The charging rate slows until the battery reaches 100% charge. Many EVs modify this algorithm.

C = Capacity of the battery

  • Battery ability to output power is measured in 1/C. 1C means the battery drained in one hour, 2C means 30 minutes (1/2 hour), 3C means empty in 20 minutes (1/3 of an hour) and so forth.
  • Charging can also be measured in C, 1C means charged in 1 hour, 0.5C charged in 2 hours, 2C charged in 30 minutes and so forth.
    Charge rates are not typically linear, the battery is typically charged more rapidly until it reaches the Constant Voltage stage.

Series = Multiple batteries linked in a chain to increase the total voltage of the pack.

Parallel = Multiple batteries linked side by side to increase amperage instead of voltage.

(x)S(x)P configuration = explains how multiple batteries are linked. 4S2P for example means 8 cells, four in Series and two Parallel rows

Volts (V) = Electric potential. Power outlets are measured in volts.

Amps (A)= Number of Coulombs of electrons carrying those volts.

Watts (W)= Volts x Amps. Energy/Power usage is often measured in watts. A kilowatt is 1000 watts. kWh is Kilowatts per hour.

Energy is measured in Joules and is convertible to Watts/second if you have a time component.

Power = Energy over Time. Typically measured in Watts. One Joule per second is 1 watt. The same number of Joules or Watts in half the time is twice the power.

Nominal voltage = Voltage used to calculate Watts of a battery.

Battery capacity = How many Ah of power the battery can output (when new).

Load = Device that uses the power from the battery.

Internal resistance of a battery affects its Power output. Increased internal resistance is the reduction in rate of Power output the battery can deliver. Energy output is affected somewhat by increased internal resistance.



 


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Trump administration moves to count crypto as a federal mortgage asset

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Trump administration moves to count crypto as a federal mortgage asset

FHFA preps to consider cryptocurrencies as an asset for mortgages

In a landmark shift for the U.S. housing finance system, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a directive ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to formally consider cryptocurrency as an asset in single-family mortgage loan risk assessments.

The move, signed by FHFA Director William J. Pulte on Wednesday, signals a new era of crypto integration into traditional financial infrastructure — this time within the core of American home lending.

The order directs both housing finance giants to develop proposals that include digital assets — without requiring borrowers to liquidate them into U.S. dollars prior to a loan closing.

Pulte said in a post on X that the move aligns with President Donald Trump‘s vision “to make the United States the crypto capital of the world.”

Historically, cryptocurrency has been excluded from underwriting frameworks due to volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and the inability to easily verify reserves. This directive changes that.

Read more CNBC tech news

The decision comes at a time of increasing institutional embrace of crypto across banking, payments, and federal policy.

“Cryptocurrency is an emerging asset class that may offer an opportunity to build wealth outside of the stock and bond markets,” the order states, acknowledging crypto’s growing role in household financial portfolios.

The directive restricts consideration to digital assets that are stored on U.S.-regulated, centralized exchanges and can be clearly evidenced. It also requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop internal adjustments to account for crypto’s market volatility and ensure that any risk-weighted reserves comprised of crypto do not compromise underwriting standards.

Under the directive, both enterprises must submit their assessment proposals to the boards of directors for approval and then to the FHFA for final review.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were put under government control in September 2008 as entities that are known as government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs.

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This new San Diego battery can power 200,000 homes during peak hours

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This new San Diego battery can power 200,000 homes during peak hours

Arevon Energy just brought a massive new battery storage project online in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, and it’s built to keep the lights on when the grid gets stressed.

The new Peregrine Energy Storage Project clocks in at 200 megawatts (MW)/400 megawatt-hours (MWh), making it one of the biggest battery storage facilities in the San Diego region. That’s enough stored energy to power around 200,000 homes for two hours during peak demand.

Built for $300 million, Peregrine is the fifth utility-scale energy storage project Arevon has launched in California. It uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are known for their safety and thermal stability. LFP batteries use iron, phosphate, and lithium to create a strong chemical bond that resists overheating, making them safer than other lithium-ion chemistries. They also have a longer lifespan and are less prone to degradation over time.

The facility created more than 90 construction jobs and is expected to generate over $28 million in property tax revenue over its lifetime.

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Energy storage projects like this are key to making California’s grid more stable and reliable. By soaking up clean energy when demand is low and discharging it when the grid is under strain, Peregrine helps reduce blackouts and avoid spikes in electricity prices.

“The successful completion of Peregrine Energy Storage is a result of the collaborative efforts of the project’s stakeholders and the local community who collectively support California’s renewable energy goals,” said Kevin Smith, CEO of Arevon.

Arevon already operates more than 3.2 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy projects in California, with another 800 MW under construction. Nationwide, it owns and operates 4.7 GW of solar and storage projects across 17 states.

Read more: SpaceX alums just supercharged EV charging at Costco


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Whoopsie! Uh oh! Oh my! Here’s all the goofs and gaffes by Tesla Robotaxi so far

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Whoopsie! Uh oh! Oh my! Here's all the goofs and gaffes by Tesla Robotaxi so far

The time is finally here: there are actual driverless Tesla Robotaxis on the road, at least in a portion of Austin, Texas, as of this weekend. And thanks to their ridership of exclusively Tesla influencers, almost all of the miles they’ve put under their belt has been filmed or livestreamed, which gives us plenty of footage to discover what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong.

Tesla’s Robotaxi service went live on Sunday around noon, at least for the relatively small number of Tesla influencers who were invited to ride.

It’s a limited launch in several other ways, too – it’s geofenced to somewhere around 30 square miles in South Austin which Tesla spent additional time mapping and testing in, it’s supported by backup teleoperation, it doesn’t operate from 12am-6am or in bad weather, and every car has a “safety monitor” in the passenger seat with access to controls to stop the vehicle.

Nevertheless, there are Teslas without someone in the driver’s seat, and that’s still a step forward, and partial delivery of a promise that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been making for about a decade now (though there are still other unfulfillied promises on the table).

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Because of that decade of promises, a lot of eyes have been on this launch – and also because of the fact that every invited rider is chasing views on social media, so we have a lot of footage just a few days in.

To be clear, this is not the first driverless taxi on the road. GM used to operate robotaxis through subsidiary Cruise (more on that in the Take), and Google has its Waymo robotaxis in multiple US cities (it just expanded its service area last week) and is even testing overseas.

So there’s already plenty of text and video out there talking about the experience of riding in non-Tesla self-driving taxis (like my long writeup and video of my rides in Waymo’s driverless taxi during a chaotic Venice Beach weekend).

But, Tesla is Tesla, and there’s always more attention on what Tesla does. So lets put a little more attention on the various errors that we’ve seen from Robotaxis in the 3 days since launch.

We did link to several of these videos, and others, in a post the day of the launch, when vibes were quite positive from the Tesla fans who were invited to ride. In the first few hours, there were few issues.

But, soon, errors started creeping in. We added some as updates to that article as they came in, but we thought this article would be better to compile them all (and thanks to r/SelfDrivingCars which compiled several others)

Indecision leads to driving into an oncoming lane

In Tesla Daily’s first Robotaxi ride, the Tesla tries to attempt a left turn one intersection early, gets indecisive, then continues on, driving through an oncoming lane for a time before re-entering a left turn lane ahead. See the whole exchange starting at around 7:08 in this video:

Robotaxi stops in middle of street for about a minute

Dirty Tesla pressed the “pull over” button to get dropped off early, and the car got confused and tried to let him out in the middle of a left turn lane. Support ended up “resuming the ride” and the Robotaxi found a nearby gas station to drop him off at. The whole interaction took about a minute, starting at ~8:58 in the video:

Robotaxi drops rider off in an intersection, stays there for ~55 seconds

Farzad also asked for a slightly early dropoff, and the car stopped quite early… as in, gridlocked in an intersection and leaking out into one lane of traffic. Thanks to wide Texas streets for letting others by, I guess. 38:04 in the video:

Tesla phantom brakes when caught by sun glare

Kim Java had a hard “phantom braking” moment, where the vehicle hits the brakes for no particular reason, while driving into the setting sun. 10:13 in the video:

Safety monitor intervenes, presses “stop in lane” to avoid UPS truck

In what seems to be the first true intervention caught on video, Dave Lee was approaching a parking spot when a UPS truck stopped in the lane and started backing up. The Tesla “safety monitor” in the front seat wisely anticipated the situation and was hovering the “stop in lane” button, then pressed it when it seemed like the car wouldn’t stop on its own. The car then remained in position while the UPS truck backed up, giving it just enough room, but it probably would have been nicer if it backed up a little more. Excellent job by the safety monitor here, really. 28:53 in the video:

The previous day, Dave Lee was getting picked up by a Robotaxi in a parking lot and it hit a curb in the parking lot right at the start of the drive (at 0:39 in the video).

Robotaxi hits a bump too fast, then goes 27 in a 15mph zone

Farzad was heading to a disc golf course on a low-speed street. The Robotaxi handled one speed bump well, but then took another one too fast. It then drove past a 15mph speed limit sign, slowed down for a deer, and then picked speed back up to 27mph. The whole exchange starts around 14:27:

In the same video, starting at 4:56, the car seems not to know what to do about a shopping bag in the road – it brakes, then considers going around it, then just runs it over.

Tesla brakes for nearby police, exterior view

Edward Niedermeyer, a longtime Tesla hater, posted a video from an exterior angle of a Robotaxi behaving strangely nearby police vehicles. The Robotaxi passes by one police vehicle with lights on in a parking lot, then brakes rather hard when it passes by another police car blocking a side intersection, then passes by another at normal speed, then brakes hard for a fourth despite it being in a parking lot behind a curb. Slowing down would be appropriate behavior in this instance, but the braking events seem more sudden than necessary, and inconsistent given the position of the police vehicles involved.

Safety monitor intervenes, hops in drivers seat in parking lot

In what seems to be the second intervention, Dirty Tesla had just gotten out of the taxi and while it was trying to leave the parking lot, it nearly ran into a parked car. The Safety monitor intervened to stop the car, then apparently got out and drove the car away manually (not captured in video).

Electrek’s Take

Yes, the title is lighthearted. I was going for irony.

The fact is that there are issues with Tesla’s approach to self-driving, and these various videos show them.

Tesla drivers are well acquainted with the current limitations and quirks of FSD as well, many of which were shown off in the clips above. It doesn’t do well with sun glare (neither do you, but you can wear sunglasses and/or flip down the visor for a little help), it sometimes misses speed bumps, it phantom brakes, and it has weird moments of indecision sometimes. C’mon, we’ve all seen it, let’s be honest with ourselves here.

As best I can tell from hundreds of miles away, these vehicles exhibit pretty similar behavior to the FSD in the vehicles I’ve driven. It works pretty well a lot of the time, but most of the time I’m also glad I’m there in the driver’s seat so I can tell it to STOP CHANGING LANES FOR THE 5TH TIME THIS MINUTE FOR PETE’S SAKE.

Tesla’s system also uses only cameras, not LiDAR, and most experts (including Tesla engineers) agree that incorporating multiple sensing modes is the correct path to take (here’s more on that). Tesla is using only cameras because it’s cheaper, and thus more scalable (though LiDAR prices have dropped rapidly).

In particular, LiDAR does better in poor weather than cameras do. We haven’t seen particularly bad weather yet for Robotaxi (there was rain in Austin on the morning of the Robotaxi’s launch – and the launch coincidentally did not happen until afternoon), and Tesla’s FSD system does work in the rain.

But even I, in famously sunny Southern California, have encountered a rainstorm severe enough for FSD to suddenly shut off and tell me to take over. So, in the very conditions that you’d definitely want an enclosed space to keep you safe from the weather, Robotaxi might not work.

So far, the errors we’ve seen above have not caused any sort of damage, either to Tesla occupants or the general public (except for some curb rash, perhaps), but as miles get put on the system, it is inevitable that something will happen.

When something does happen, the public will not respond kindly to it. Recall when GM’s Cruise robotaxi got into an accident in San Francisco – which was actually entirely the fault of a human driver. A human driver struck a pedestrian, who was then pushed into the path of a Cruise vehicle which didn’t have time to stop, and hit the pedestrian as well.

This was largely reported as a self-driving car crash, even though Cruise didn’t cause the accident in the first place. Cruise was, however, responsible for having poor after-crash behavior, as the car didn’t realize the pedestrian was stuck under the vehicle and dragged her on the road for several feet, and then hid this fact from investigators. As a result, its license was pulled in California and it soon shut down elsewhere as well.

We are all aware of how many unpredictable things happen on the road every day, and how many problems are caused by human drivers. Autonomous technology does promise solutions to that, particularly in its theoretical ability to make decisions quickly. But autonomous technology has heretofore not been great at understanding what to do in unexpected situations, like the Cruise issue above.

Waymo has had issues as well, one of which you can see in my own experience with the system, where the car I was in got stuck for several minutes trying and failing to make a left turn into a crowded street. Or this clip where it gets stuck in a parking lot and needs a manual driver.

One pattern I do notice is that a lot of Tesla’s errors seem to happen when the car is dropping off or picking up riders. This could be because parking lots are more complex spaces than roads, or simply because the ability to park is a newer feature for FSD. In my time in Waymos, it also seems the least decisive when trying to find parking or pickup spots.

But the exceptional part about these Tesla issues is that it’s only been three days, and there are reportedly only 10 cars and 20-some riders using the system. Tesla has always said that it could scale its solution to an entire fleet with a single software update, without geofencing, thus turning the entire fleet autonomous overnight.

And Tesla has also always been famous for the “move fast and break things” approach which is so common in Silicon Valley. This is all well and good for tech, but when you’re dealing with thousands of pounds of metal going down the road near pedestrians, things can get serious real quick.

And so, its questionable that Tesla is operating in a regulatory vacuum and doesn’t want the public to see details about its program or FSD safety data. We saw what hiding information from regulators did to Cruise, and it certainly wouldn’t advance Tesla’s progress if the same happened.

Thankfully, Tesla does seem to be taking a more measured approach than we might have expected, given its inclusion of safety monitors who we’ve already seen avoid two accidents in just the first three days of operation. But that’s not scalable, and while Tesla fans have pointed out that Waymo also started with safety monitors, it didn’t charge fees or take public rides during that testing phase, and Tesla is doing both.

It remains to be seen if Tesla’s approach will be scalable faster than Waymo’s (or MOIA’s, or Zoox, or anyone else’s), but given the first few days of limited operation in Austin, the dream of expanding everywhere overnight does seem unlikely.


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