Do you keep the level 2 charger "plug in" to GV60 if you know you will be away for 1 month?

[edwardlican]

If you know you will be away for a month, and your GV60 will be left in your garage for the whole month. Is it good to keep the home level 2 charger plug in to the GV60 and set a charge level to 80% ?

 

[SaratogaLefty]

If you know you will be away for a month, and your GV60 will be left in your garage for the whole month. Is it good to keep the home level 2 charger plug in to the GV60 and set a charge level to 80% ?

An option would be to initially charge the car to 100% just before you leave and then change the max charging to 80% and plug in your cable. Then lock the car and most likely it will not have to charge at all while you are away.

 

[edwardlican]

An option would be to initially charge the car to 100% just before you leave and then change the max charging to 80% and plug in your cable. Then lock the car and most likely it will not have to charge at all while you are away.

But I understand that it is not good for the battery to charged it to 100% and keeping it at 100% without actually using the energy in the battery. Will it be better to charge it to 80% and then set the max charging to 60% while the car is parked in the garage for 1 month?

 

[SaratogaLefty]

But I understand that it is not good for the battery to charged it to 100% and keeping it at 100% without actually using the energy in the battery. Will it be better to charge it to 80% and then set the max charging to 60% while the car is parked in the garage for 1 month?

Ok so maybe 90%

 

[Looney100]

If you're not driving the car, why charge it to near full? The battery is happiest at ~50% SOC.
The manual doesn't give good instruction on this, but I'd set the maximum charge to 50% and leave it plugged in.

 

[Alexandr O]

keep on charge for a month does not make sense. The discharge of a large battery is negligible and safety issues arise. Another issue is the drain of the auxiliary battery due to active applications.

 

[edwardlican]

If you're not driving the car, why charge it to near full? The battery is happiest at ~50% SOC.
The manual doesn't give good instruction on this, but I'd set the maximum charge to 50% and leave it plugged in.

Thanks for the advice. If you just charge it to 50%, will it has problem in charging up the 12 V battery during the one month away period?

 

[azurecardinal]

Thanks for the advice. If you just charge it to 50%, will it has problem in charging up the 12 V battery during the one month away period?

Wow there are some major league poor advice being provided in this thread.

You NEVER want to leave your battery at 100% SOC when you do not expect to use the car. It places excessive strain on the battery and will murder your long term battery capacity. Not to mention the increased probability of cell failure when additional environmental temperature variations are introduced.

You also NEVER want to leave a car plugged in for a period of a month. This represents an additional of active/live connection that introduces an entirely unnecessary incremental risk of a fire hazard.

Looney is right that 50% is the way to go. A battery is happiest at 40%, and giving it 10% more to account for 12v charging is more than enough. I wouldn't be surprised if you come home after a month and it's still sitting at 48%.

 

[Jock55]

I wonder why you want to keep your HV battery on charge at all whilst away for a month. I can understand concern over the 12v battery failing, so what I would do is charge your HV battery to 50% as others have mentioned and get a decent 12v smart charger (something like a CTEK) and put that trickle charging your 12v. You'll be fine.

By the way, don't be tempted to see what;s happening on the Genesis App every 5 minutes, as that WILL waken your car from a deep sleep and flatten both batteries eventually!!!

 

[Zcd1]

Genesis itself told us NOT to use a trickle/-charger and instead to DISCONNECT the 12V battery when we left ours in storage earlier this year. I have that in writing from them just in case anything's amiss when we get back to the car....

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[Golden]

I have a GV70 which as we all know have the same battery as the GV60 and a couple of weeks ago, I charged it to 80% and left for a 9 day trip.
when I came back, it was still at 80%.
And I did check the app once a day to see if the battery was self-discharging but was pleasantly surprised to find it did not loose any juice in 9 days.

 

[EdP]

I have a GV70 which as we all know have the same battery as the GV60 and a couple of weeks ago, I charged it to 80% and left for a 9 day trip.
when I came back, it was still at 80%.
And I did check the app once a day to see if the battery was self-discharging but was pleasantly surprised to find it did not loose any juice in 9 days.

Good to know. I'd rather not leave it plugged in for days unattended.

 

[Looney100]

To each his own, but the safety risk of leaving the car plugged in for long periods of time is being overblown. Think of how many electrical devices we leave plugged in at home for YEARS at a time, without issue.

First of all, the charger circuit is on a breaker, which will trip if there is an attempt to draw more than the circuit’s capacity. This is their sole purpose. So, what’s the scenario that we’re worried about here? That something happens that causes the circuit to draw at its maximum capacity (but not above) for an extended period to cause it to heat up and cause a fire?

What makes the car any different than your refrigerator or garage door opener from a fire risk perspective? Just the higher potential amperage. But, we’re forgetting that the wires on the charger circuit are beefed up to handle the additional current.
Think about it. The charger circuit is purpose-built to accommodate a continuous 48A draw - and arguably oversized - as at 48A, it’s being run at only 80% of its short term capacity (these are 60A circuits being run at 48A).
I suspect that if you had something go wrong with a typical 120V home appliance that caused it to draw at the circuit maximum it would create more heat than the charger circuit.
I don’t have the time at the moment, but there is a mathematical formula to determine resistive heat loss by wire gauge and current that would confirm this. I suspect we’d find more heat loss from a 14 gauge wire at 15A than an 8 gauge at 48A. Someone, please let me know if I’m wrong about the math.

 

[edwardlican]

Wow there are some major league poor advice being provided in this thread.

You NEVER want to leave your battery at 100% SOC when you do not expect to use the car. It places excessive strain on the battery and will murder your long term battery capacity. Not to mention the increased probability of cell failure when additional environmental temperature variations are introduced.

You also NEVER want to leave a car plugged in for a period of a month. This represents an additional of active/live connection that introduces an entirely unnecessary incremental risk of a fire hazard.

Looney is right that 50% is the way to go. A battery is happiest at 40%, and giving it 10% more to account for 12v charging is more than enough. I wouldn't be surprised if you come home after a month and it's still sitting at 48%.

Thank you for your advice and suggestion.

 

[EdP]

To each his own, but the safety risk of leaving the car plugged in for long periods of time is being overblown. Think of how many electrical devices we leave plugged in at home for YEARS at a time, without issue.

Want to hear about my losses from a lightning strike nearby?
I'd rather not leave my $50,000 battery pack left without protection.

 

[vexige]

To each his own, but the safety risk of leaving the car plugged in for long periods of time is being overblown. Think of how many electrical devices we leave plugged in at home for YEARS at a time, without issue.

First of all, the charger circuit is on a breaker, which will trip if there is an attempt to draw more than the circuit’s capacity. This is their sole purpose. So, what’s the scenario that we’re worried about here? That something happens that causes the circuit to draw at its maximum capacity (but not above) for an extended period to cause it to heat up and cause a fire?

What makes the car any different than your refrigerator or garage door opener from a fire risk perspective? Just the higher potential amperage. But, we’re forgetting that the wires on the charger circuit are beefed up to handle the additional current.
Think about it. The charger circuit is purpose-built to accommodate a continuous 48A draw - and arguably oversized - as at 48A, it’s being run at only 80% of its short term capacity (these are 60A circuits being run at 48A).
I suspect that if you had something go wrong with a typical 120V home appliance that caused it to draw at the circuit maximum it would create more heat than the charger circuit.
I don’t have the time at the moment, but there is a mathematical formula to determine resistive heat loss by wire gauge and current that would confirm this. I suspect we’d find more heat loss from a 14 gauge wire at 15A than an 8 gauge at 48A. Someone, please let me know if I’m wrong about the math.

+1... Does one disconnect their electrical dryer when they go on vacation?

 

[sgrenald]

To each his own, but the safety risk of leaving the car plugged in for long periods of time is being overblown. Think of how many electrical devices we leave plugged in at home for YEARS at a time, without issue.

First of all, the charger circuit is on a breaker, which will trip if there is an attempt to draw more than the circuit’s capacity. This is their sole purpose. So, what’s the scenario that we’re worried about here? That something happens that causes the circuit to draw at its maximum capacity (but not above) for an extended period to cause it to heat up and cause a fire?

What makes the car any different than your refrigerator or garage door opener from a fire risk perspective? Just the higher potential amperage. But, we’re forgetting that the wires on the charger circuit are beefed up to handle the additional current.
Think about it. The charger circuit is purpose-built to accommodate a continuous 48A draw - and arguably oversized - as at 48A, it’s being run at only 80% of its short term capacity (these are 60A circuits being run at 48A).
I suspect that if you had something go wrong with a typical 120V home appliance that caused it to draw at the circuit maximum it would create more heat than the charger circuit.
I don’t have the time at the moment, but there is a mathematical formula to determine resistive heat loss by wire gauge and current that would confirm this. I suspect we’d find more heat loss from a 14 gauge wire at 15A than an 8 gauge at 48A. Someone, please let me know if I’m wrong about the math.

I think the issue would be more about the giant battery than just having an electrical device plugged in. When I go away for an extended period, I unplug the various UPS’s I have around the house. We have brownouts and thunderstorms in Savannah all the time, and I don’t need to risk my expensive electronics. When I (finally) get an EV, I wouldn’t leave it plugged in. Then again, I have a carport, so that stuff would be exposed anyway.

 

[EdP]

+1... Does one disconnect their electrical dryer when they go on vacation?

Some people do.
Last month, I went away for about three weeks and there was a brief power outage. No big deal? Fortunately, my son came in to check the house. When the power came back on, the thermostat, previousel set at 80 came back at 64 and the AC was working hard. Had he not caught it, my electric bill would have been at least an extra $130 more.
A few years earlier in CT, lightning took out my TV, stereo receiver and more another time.

Glad you never had a problem, but many have. No, I'm not leaving my EV plugged in for a month but that is your decision.

Here, I also have whole house surge protection. So far today, 221 lightning strikes within 20 miles according to my weather station. I've seen over 400 often.
The risk is never zero.

 

[joegr]

...
I don’t have the time at the moment, but there is a mathematical formula to determine resistive heat loss by wire gauge and current that would confirm this. I suspect we’d find more heat loss from a 14 gauge wire at 15A than an 8 gauge at 48A. Someone, please let me know if I’m wrong about the math.

No, more loss for the 8 @ 48.
0.568 watts per foot for 14 gauge at 15 amps.
1.447 watts per foot for 8 gauge at 48 amps.

 

[Looney100]

Want to hear about my losses from a lightning strike nearby?
I'd rather not leave my $50,000 battery pack left without protection.

Ah. I hadn’t considered a surge. But unless the car is actively charging at the moment of the strike, I don’t think there would be a closed circuit to damage the battery.

No, more loss for the 8 @ 48.
0.568 watts per foot for 14 gauge at 15 amps.
1.447 watts per foot for 8 gauge at 48 amps.

I stand corrected on the relative losses. 1.5W/ft doesn’t seem like a concerning amount of heat.