this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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Except nmc batteries have no issue with being below 20 or above 80 percent soc, they have an issue with staying outside those values for longer periods of time. That's why people say you shouldn't charge above 80% in your day to day driving, because you'll usually charge it to 100% and then just have the car parked in your driveway for hours with a full battery. When you're on a road trip, you can absolutely use the bottom 20% of your battery as you'll be charging it up immediately. You can also charge it up to 100% before starting your road trip with next to no effects on the battery for the same reasons.
So, yes, there's obviously degradation for older cars and there's the obvious effect of batteries charging slower the more charged they are, so I'll give you that you won't fully charge your car during a road (if you don't have kids, I guess, as ours will absolutely drag out the break long enough to have the car sitting at 100%), but at the end of the day, the effects aren't nearly as terrible as you describe, as you'd be at about 90% range for the first episode of the trip and about 80% for consecutive ones.
Regardless of degradation issues, I'm still not willing to go below 20% except for emergencies. One wrong exit on a long stretch of highway and you could be out of range for the next charging station. Yes, this has actually happened to me.
20% is around 100km range, depending on your battery etc. of course. I try not to arrive at a charger with no range left, but even going to the next one shouldn't ever be more than 20 km unless you live in antarctica... 100km is excessive.