How to maximize the life of your electric car's battery, according to science

Lithium-ion batteries are the Goldilocks of the electronics world. For the li-ion in your electric car, conditions can either be too hot or too cold, but li-ions prefer it juuust right.

A new report from the University of Michigan lays out the best ways to keep your EV's li-ion battery happy and healthy for the longest amount of time possible. With help from the Responsible Battery Coalition, researchers compiled these recommendations by analyzing academic reports as well as vehicle instruction manuals. They came out with nine actionable guidelines, which Electrek helpfully summarizes here.

The report is a useful tool for EV owners, but it has a higher mission, too. Maximizing the life of a car's battery helps limit the environmental impact of these vehicles, since it means fewer cars getting retired and sent through a yet-to-materialize recycling process. On the other end of the production cycle, it could hopefully reduce the need for more resource-intensive li-ions being created in the first place.

Most of the recommendations center around how to keep your car's battery happy in extreme temperatures, whether frozen or sweltering. Overall, owners should plug in their cars during these times, which will allow the battery's cooling or heating systems to run most effectively by using grid power. EV owners should also avoid letting their cars' batteries run down entirely, since that has a negative effect on battery life.

Not too hot, not too cold; not too charged, not too dead. Your car's battery likes it juuuuust right. Credit: University of michigan

Here's a summary of the findings. Charge on!

• Plug in your car when it is extremely hot or cold.

• Avoid driving in extremely hot or cold temperatures.

• Don't park in the sun when it's very hot outside.

• Don't expose your car to extremely low temperatures (think: -22 degrees Fahrenheit) for "extended periods of time."

• Turn off your car before its battery charge reaches zero.

• Don't leave a car with a low battery sitting uncharged for an extended period of time; even if the car isn't on, the battery can degrade on its own if it's not charged.

• Some cars say to minimize the use of "fast chargers."