If you’re doing ‘normal’ mileage through the day then it matters not one jot whether you charge to 80%, 90% or full, what matters is how much you use and when you intend to put it back.
Let’s say, purely for argument’s sake, that your car can do 250 miles per charge and you work 25 miles from home. In a petrol car you’d top up once all the way up to full and then run it all the way down to something near 10-20% then you’d top up again. That’s economy of effort, you have to go to a petrol station to top up.
In an EV it’s all about time. If you get 6 hours of really cheap charging time, and your car takes 9 hours to fully charge, you don’t want to get to empty, it costs more to get back up to full. Likewise, if you park in your drive every day, what’s the additional effort to get the car charging? You have to put the cable in the sockets, one in the charger (unless it’s already there) and then in the car. Timers are usually set, either in car or on the charger to make the most of the cheap rate, so it’ll put power in for whatever time you want and you can even set car or charger to stop at a certain percentage full, so you can just go up to 80% if that’s your thing.
Getting back to the example, you use 20% of the capacity to get to and from work, you could charge weekly if that’s all you do but Friday’s home trip could be a little exciting. You could charge it up on Sunday, then again Monday evening, Wednesday Evening and Friday evening for the weekend. That way, there’s no chance of running low for unexpected journeys and you’ll never experience range anxiety in normal use. You make the most of charging only in these cheap times and, if you’re off somewhere for the weekend, you can charge to 100% on that Friday night, get up Saturday morning and off you go in a full car.
Even driving long distances you don’t need to feel range anxiety. The car does 250 miles, that’s 4 hours at 60mph and 3.5 hours at 70. By the time I’ve driven 2 hours I’m desperate to get out of the car and walk somewhere. So, instead of parking in a disabled bay and wondering around, park in a charging bay, plug in and go for your wonder. By the time you’ve been to the loo, got a coffee and got back to the car, you’ll be ready for more than the next 2 hours.
There’s a saying in the EV world – Don’t stop to charge, charge when you stop. It’s as simple as that, whenever you stop on a long journey, plug the car in, as long as you’ve driven more than 10 miles, the car will probably benefit from that charging time and, if there’s no chargers available the world hasn’t ended.
I'm Autistic, if I say something you find offensive, please let me know, I can guarantee it was unintentional.
I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.
Mark