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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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Quick Charge Podcast: November 29, 2023

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Quick Charge Podcast: November 29, 2023

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is available now on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday. Subscribe to our podcast in Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they’re available.

Stories we discuss in this episode (with links):

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Listen & Subscribe:

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Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

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UAW launches campaign to unionize all automakers at once – Tesla, Toyota, etc

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UAW launches campaign to unionize all automakers at once – Tesla, Toyota, etc

The UAW has launched an unprecedented campaign to unionize the entire US auto sector at once, with thousands of auto workers at 13 companies announcing simultaneous unionization campaigns.

After UAW’s big strike win, winning 25%+ pay increases at the “Big Three” American automakers after a simultaneous strike at GM, Ford and Stellantis, the union is looking to maintain that momentum and go bigger.

Immediately after declaring victory, UAW President Shawn Fain said that in the next negotiation in 2028, UAW wants to come back to the bargaining table to negotiate not just with the Big Three, but with “a Big Five or a Big Six” – implying that the union planned to expand to other automakers. And President Biden said that he would support a UAW push to unionize Tesla and Toyota.

Now we’ve seen an official announcement that UAW isn’t just looking to unionize two or three more automakers, but all of them at once. Typically, unionization campaigns focus on a single company at a time, but here UAW is targeting a whole sector with simultaneous campaigns at each individual company. This seems like a tall order, but UAW’s triple-strike against the Big Three seemed to work out well, so it’s now applying that simultaneous tactic to organizing new union drives.

In service of its goal, UAW launched a new website at uaw.org/join, asking workers at each company to sign their union card. The website mentions several automakers by name, and has links to individual campaigns for each automaker where workers can go to express their interest in unionizing:

The campaign was accompanies by a video narrated by Fain making his union pitch. In short, UAW says that automakers and investors are making record profits, but that worker compensation has not kept up. The video specifically mentions Tesla and Rivian’s recent quarterly results, and also states that the Japanese/Korean automakers have combined to make $470 billion in profits, and the German automakers have made an additional $460 billion, in the last ten years.

Since the UAW’s big wins, other automakers have moved to increase pay to (partially) keep up with pay increases at the Big Three. VW, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda have all announced hikes in pay, showing how union wins can buoy an entire industry by making automakers compete for workers with higher pay.

But UAW doesn’t want to stop at a few voluntary pay hikes from other companies, it thinks that unionizing those companies can give workers a better deal. One worker at Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant put it thusly:

We’ve lost so much since I started here, and the raise won’t make up for that. It won’t make up for the health benefits we’ve lost, it won’t make up for the wear and tear on our bodies. We still build a quality vehicle. People take pride in that, but morale is at an all-time low. They can give you a raise today and jack up your health benefits tomorrow. A union contract is the only way to win what’s fair.

Jeff Allen, 29-year Toyota assembly worker

UAW also quoted workers at Hyundai, VW, Mercedes and Rivian in its release, focusing on how they think unionization would improve safety and benefits at these automakers.

Electrek’s Take

Unions are having a bit of a moment in the US, reaching their highest popularity ever since surveys started asking about them.

Much of union popularity has been driven by COVID-related disruptions across the economy, with workers becoming unsatisfied due to mistreatment (labeling everyone “essential,” companies ending work-from-home) and with the labor market getting tighter with over 1 million Americans dead from the virus and another 2-4 million (and counting) out of work due to long COVID.

Unions have seized on this dissatisfaction to build momentum in the labor movement, with successful strikes across many industries and organizers starting to organize workforces that had previously been nonunion.

But union membership has been down over several decades in the US, and as a result, pay hasn’t kept pace with worker productivity and income distribution has become more unequal over time. It’s really not hard to see this influence when you plot these trends against each other.

It’s quite clear that lower union membership has resulted in lower inflation-adjusted compensation for workers, even as productivity has skyrocketed. As workers have produced more and more value for their companies, those earnings have gone more and more to their bosses rather than to the workers who produce that value. And it all began in the 80s, around the time of Reagan – a timeline that should be familiar to those who study social ills in America.

All of this isn’t just true in the US but also internationally. If you look at other countries with high levels of labor organization, they tend to have more fair wealth distribution across the economy and more ability for workers to get their fair share.

We’re seeing this in Sweden right now, as Tesla workers are striking for better conditions. Since Sweden has 90% collective bargaining coverage, it tends to have a happy and well-paid workforce, and it seems clear that these two things are correlated. And while that strike is continuing, meaning we haven’t yet seen the end of it, most observers think that the workers will eventually get what they want since collective bargaining is so strong in that country.

These are all reasons why, as I’ve mentioned in many of these UAW-related articles, I’m pro-union. And I think everyone should be – it only makes sense that people should have their interests collectively represented and that people should be able to join together to support each other and exercise their power collectively instead of individually.

This is precisely what companies do with industry organizations, lobby organizations, chambers of commerce, and so on. And it’s what people do when sorting themselves into local, state, or national governments. So naturally, workers should do the same. It’s just fair.

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Rivian R1T could add a projector for movies on the go

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Rivian R1T could add a projector for movies on the go

The Rivian R1T might get an exciting upgrade. The electric pickup can drive through 3+ feet of water, rock crawl a 100% grade, and take off like a sports car. But what if the Rivian R1T had a mobile projector that could be easily stored in the gear tunnel? That’s what Rivian is scheming up.

Rivian files patent for R1T mobile movie projector

Rivian’s R1T electric truck is the ultimate adventure vehicle. It recently made history as the first EV to win the off-road Rebelle rally, the longest of its kind in the US.

The truck continues improving through OTA updates that add fun new features, range, and more. One of its most recent improved the ride quality of its vehicles. By building its cars from the ground up, Rivian has a major advantage.

Like Tesla, the EV maker focused on software and “having the ability to configure every piece of hardware,” according to Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s VP of software development.

Rivian can use this advantage to create unique products that integrate into its EVs. One of its most recent ideas is a mobile projector.

According to a new patent filing for a “vehicle entertainment apparatus,” the Rivian R1T could soon see an added movie projector.

Rivian-R1T-projector
Rivian R1T with projector (Source: USPTO)

The patent, filed November 23, details a kit that can include a projector, screen, and at least one speaker. The kit is attached to a shuttle that slides in and out of the gear tunnel for easy storage.

Once extended, the projector can be rotated into position. It will also include a mirror to reflect the projected light onto the screen without harming quality. Meanwhile, the pole to hold the screen will fit into several spots.

Rivian-R1T-projector
Rivian R1T with projector (Source: USPTO)

The setup enables a mobile entertainment setup in little to no time. Everything can be stored in the gear tunnel while not in use. When ready, it can just slide out and set up.

Rivian is including everything needed for the ultimate movie night on the go. And the best part – everything is powered by the R1T.

Rivian-R1T-projector
(Source: USPTO)

Electrek’s Take

Although a movie projector may seem like a wild idea to some, that’s right up Rivian’s alley. The company has developed several add-on options like a three-person tent and the Camp Kitchen.

Many were dissapointed when Rivian discontinued the Camp Kitchen from its gear shop earlier this year. The $5,000 add-on included a pull-out kitchen complete with two induction cooktops, a water tank, collapsable sink, and more.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said on the MKBHD podcast that the idea was more popular than expected. However, Rivian is redesigning it for something that doesn’t take up the entire gear tunnel.

Maybe a Rivian R1T movie projector isn’t that far off after all. Meanwhile, Rivian will likely offer a redesigned camp kitchen first.

Would you consider buying Rivian’s movie projector add-on? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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