Looking after your EV while you're not using it for long periods, such as during pandemic

So this video is about looking after your EV if you're not using it for long periods, for example during this virus lockdown. And I've been asked to make this video by a customer. So John, I've risen to the challenge and I'm sure you'll be the first to comment below. So all EVs have two battery packs. You've got the traction battery which sits under the floor there, which drives the motor. And then you've got a 12 volt battery, it's typically up front, which drives all the lights, dash and all the electronics. And you need to look after both of those batteries. So that traction battery sits there under the floor, that will not discharge. You can leave the car for many, many months and you will see virtually no discharge from that. So no worries on that respect. However, battery degradation is something that you might want to consider. So if you really want to look after the battery life, then ideally you don't want to leave the car fully charged. So unplug the charger out the front and a battery will degrade more if it's left fully charged for long periods. So long periods, I'm talking about say more than two weeks. So if you want to look after the health of your battery pack, then you want to ideally leave it somewhere between 40% and 80% charged. Information coming out now seems to be the magic number is about 80%. So don't fully charge your car. If the car's at 100%, then go for a drive and get it down somewhere below 80%. It doesn't really matter what it is as long as you're not stressing the battery pack. So anywhere between 40% and 80% is fine. And then the battery will be quite happy for very long periods. So next, the 12 volt battery that sits up front, just like every other vehicle, every other petrol or diesel vehicle. If the car's left for long periods of time, that 12 volt battery slowly drains. And just like every other ICE vehicle, an EV needs a 12 volt battery to start. So if that battery is flat, you can't open the doors, you can't operate the central locking and you can't start it. So how do you look after that 12 volt battery? Well, you need to charge it and there's two ways you can do that. Ideally, you use an external charger, but if you haven't got one of those, then you can let the car do it. So all electric vehicles have an inverter and it's converting the 400 volt DC from the traction battery to 14 volt DC to charge the 12 volt battery. And that's traditionally done while you're driving. So what you can do is just take the car for a drive once in a while and then that gives the 12 volt battery a little top up. However, on a Renault Zoe, by opening the door and when the dash comes on, the car has switched on and that also initiates the battery charging. The other thing you can do is just run the preconditioning without the car plugged into the charger, because again, the car comes up live and the 12 volt battery is charged while it's doing that preconditioning. So if you just run the heating a few times a week, that also keeps your 12 volt battery topped up. Or you could just get in the car, switch the ignition on and listen to the radio for half an hour. Do some work in the car or do anything you can just to keep the car switched on because that charges the 12 volt battery. So I'm going to do a little test here and show you the car charging its own 12 volt battery. So I've plugged in a battery tester here to the battery. These are brilliant little bits of kit. I would advise all car owners to have one of these because it allows you to test your own 12 volt battery. Not only can you see the voltage, but you can also run a test and check the cold cranking amps and the state of health of the battery and the state of charge. This one I think was about 45, 50 quid, but you can buy cheaper Chinese ones on Amazon. I think for about 15 quid and really handy things to have in your toolbox. So in this case, the battery is currently at 12.8 volts. This is a good battery I know in this one, and I have been opening and shutting the doors, making this film. So this battery is currently fully charged. So the car is locked and it's been dormant for more than two minutes and it's all shut down. So if I go round and unlock the car and open the door, the car then wakes up and we can see here the voltage is climbing. So it's now 13.5 volts. So the DC to DC converter switched on and the car is now charging that 12 volt battery. So the other method is to charge the 12 volt battery yourself. So what you want to get ideally is a maintenance charger. So rather than using the traditional old fashioned battery charger, which does nothing other than just supply a voltage to charge the battery, you can now get these modern maintenance chargers. So these run through various cycles. They're much better for the 12 volt battery. They also will rejuvenate a 12 volt battery. But the key thing here is they have a maintenance cycle. So they charge the battery up and then they trickle charge the battery for long periods and keep it tip top. So what you're looking for is something that's got multiple steps and it'll either be called a smart charger or a maintenance charger or a five step or a seven step charger. So it's a selection of the common ones here. Optimate and Ctech are the very common ones. These are the newer NoCo ones. These cost a lot more money. This one is a 10 amp one. This is about £100. Those are about 50 quid. I would say just for maintenance charging, you don't need a high amperage one. That's 10 amp, that's 5 amp. This one is only 0.8 of an amp. So a 1 amp charger is fine for maintenance charging. So if you want to go out and buy a maintenance charger, one that I would recommend, a cheap one, is this Maypole smart charger. So the key thing with these is you're not looking for just a battery charger, you're looking for a maintenance charger. And we can see on this one here, there it says maintenance charging. And on the side here, automatic five stage charging cycle, including recovery and maintenance cycle. So this is where it does more than just standard charging. It does these five steps to condition your battery and then when it's done, it will just leave it on a trickle maintenance charge. So you can plug these in and leave it. And these really do look after your battery and they will often bring a failing battery back to life as well. And the other thing with this one is it has an LCD screen so you can see the voltage as well. To use a maintenance charger, firstly you've got to get power to your vehicle. So unless you're in a garage, you're probably going to use an extension lead. And most of these aren't waterproof. So you're going to be leaving it connected in for long periods. So obviously tuck this away somewhere where it's not going to get wet. Either slide it right underneath the engine bay, away from the edges so water's not going to drip on it. Or put it up here in the engine bay, close the bonnet down over it. Obviously you're not going to slam the bonnet shut. But just make sure it's not in the rain. So connect your charger up. The key thing here is to have the car locked and leave it for at least two minutes before you start this. Because when you've locked the car on models like the Zoe, the inverter still keeps charging that battery for two minutes. So you've got to let that completely finish for the car to properly go to sleep before you start charging. But we've got our maintenance charger connected up there. Plug it in. This will look at the voltage, 12.8 volts. And it will now start charging. And it's charging at 13 volts and it will go through the various steps. When it's charged the battery it will then run the maintenance cycle. And you can leave that running for however long you like. And it will just keep that battery topped up and keep it maintained. So ideally you probably want to do this once a fortnight, something like that. If it's particularly cold that's when batteries die. But if your battery is in good condition, once every fortnight, once every three weeks, run it for a night, that will be fine. Or if you're going away, plug it in and leave it. These things are designed to stay connected to a battery for very, very long periods of time. But as I said, if you then just drop the bonnet down like that and leave it like that, it's waterproof. The water's not going to get in, it's going to run down the side. And your battery will be kept in really nice condition and won't leave you stranded. So another thing you may want to consider is flat spots on your tyres. If your car's sat for a very, very long time and hasn't moved, then potentially you can get flat spots on the tyres. I don't think in reality you're ever going to see that. But if your tyres are pumped up correctly, then if you're worried about that, then just move your car. Obviously don't move it very far, because if you move it too far, you might end up putting the tyre back in the same place. But just move it back half a turn, that will be fine. One other thing to consider that you may have not seen before, but you get mould growth if you're not using a car. Particularly if there's any damp in the car, you could have left the floor mats wet. Or if your rain channels are blocked, sometimes you get water dripping into the bulkhead and down in the footwells that you may not even know about. But if there's any damp in a car, and the car's locked up for a month or more, it's surprisingly easy to get mould growth. You'll get mould growing on the fabrics, you'll get it on the steering wheel, or sometimes across the airbag part here. Or anywhere where you touch actually, it's quite disgusting really. So yeah, opening the doors, freshening the air, again that charges the battery and just helps to stop that mould growth. And also there's a surprisingly amount of insects live in a car. So you'll find very quickly you'll get cobwebs at the back of the dash and up the side of the windscreens. So you might want to come in with a vacuum cleaner and hoover away the insects. So when leaving a car for a long period of time, your brake discs do corrode, it's completely normal. Particularly if it's raining a lot, they will get quite rusty. And what can happen when a car's left standing for a long period of time is the pads can stick to the discs. So what you'll find is when you move the car for the first time, you'll feel the brakes are stuck on. And they will suddenly free up and you'll hear quite a bang and a jolt when those pads free from the discs. And your car will be noisy when you're driving initially because it's got to wear all that rust off. It's all normal, all cars do that. However, the rear brakes, if you've got the handbrake left on, which obviously you should do, then they really do have a habit of sticking. If it's left, particularly if it was wet when you parked up and the brakes are wet, then they will corrode onto the discs. So if you're leaving your car for many months, then if you can, it does help to leave the handbrake off. But obviously, if you're not on very level ground, then you don't want to do that. But also, if you're leaving the handbrake off, then it's a good idea to put a couple of bricks or some timber to chock the wheels so it can't move. Also make sure you leave it in park. However, park in a lot of cars now doesn't stop the wheels from spinning. But if there's any risk that your car's going to move, then leave the handbrake on. Do not leave it without it on. And to stop that sticking, just switch it on once a month or once every three weeks or so. And just move the car backs and forwards. And that has the advantage as well as you're going to give your 12-volt battery a little boost. So I think I've covered everything you need to know. If you're leaving your car for a long period, let's say more than about three weeks, in reality, the only issue you're going to see is that 12-volt battery getting low. If it goes completely flat, then you're not going to be able to open your car or you can't start it. On an EV, if that battery just gets low, then it can throw all sorts of errors on the dash. And the errors aren't telling you it's a 12-volt battery. Sometimes you'll get electric failure messages. On Nissans, you can even get brake failure when the battery goes flat. But what you don't want to do is come to get in your car when you do need to go, use it and find that the battery's gone dead and you can't start. So if your battery's poor, and possibly you don't know it's poor, but if your battery's on the way out anyway, just sort of opening the doors or having a quick run around the block might not charge it enough to stop it from draining. So that's when you're going to want a maintenance charger and a tester to test the battery. But a maintenance charger does a very good job of bringing that battery up to spec. But obviously if your battery's too poor, then you're going to need to change it. So investing in a maintenance charger is a very good idea. But if you don't want to do that, then just taking it for a spin once a week will probably suffice. So I hope that helps and I hope you will keep safe.