13 Mile Winter Range?

[Deleted member 14724]

on't notice a significant difference in energy consumption during those first 10-15 mins, so I just leave the heat on from the get-go. Preheating is critical, though. But once the heater fluids are up to temperature, it takes much less energy to keep them there. If you don't run heat for 15 minutes, they are cooling off and you have to expend energy to heat them up again. There is savings there, I'm sure, but I'm not convinced how much.

This is what I do. Last night was the coldest night in Atlanta so far (along with this morning). It was < 15F. The worst part of driving in those conditions is when the car has been left outside for a while and is very cold. The heater never seems to really get warm. The 12v blanket was my saving grace. When I preheat the car and drive, I set auto to 80F and just let it run, assuming a fairly short trip. I figure it will know what to do. I was averaging about 2.3-2.8 mi/kWh under those conditions.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

You said in the original post that you would complete your journey with 50% charge remaining. How are you measuring this in a 2011? It doesn't report percentage on the dash.

I got the 50% number from the carwings website.

Ah, Carwings. So when Carwings reports percent remaining, it calculates it simply as (charge bars showing) / 12 * 100%. So this means you did have 6 bars showing, and somewhere between 51% and 58% remaining. The difference is the hidden reserve that Nissan tries to keep in the battery, much like most gas cars still have 1-2 gallons in the tank when the gas light comes on.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

If you run a range test, it might have as little as 3 miles once it gets to VLBW in this cold. Good enough test just to see how many miles you can make until you get to LBW, it takes forever to recharge from VLBW on L1. And you don't want to turtle anyway.

 

[BrockWI]

We also pre-heat. I used to turn the heat off once in a while to try to conserve energy, but I have found it is better to leave the heat on and turn the fan down to 1. If you shut the heat off it takes a while to get it warm again, so I just leave it on and found it didn't make as much difference as I had thought it would and on speed 1 is tolerable in the car. And as others have mentioned dressing warmly helps and I usually take my bike to about 20F, unless there is snow, so I can't complain about the leaf

I have to say though I used to complain about the lack of heat in our VW TDI diesel wagon, now it is looking pretty good compared to the leaf

 

[dgpcolorado]

And as others have mentioned dressing warmly helps and I usually take my bike to about 20F, unless there is snow, so I can't complain about the leaf

I used to bicycle commute year 'round when I lived in Boulder (which is pretty much the tropics compared to WI). The night rides home — about six miles — could be pretty brisk. My personal best was one evening when I got home and it was -4ºF at my house and it had been colder than that where the cold air pooled in a valley on my route. Bicycles work pretty well in snow if it isn't too deep or icy. But Boulder would plow the bike paths before the streets, so that helped.

Since I worked in a lab I would use surgical rubber gloves under my heavy ski mittens as an extra layer. I had long before noticed that my hands got very warm when wearing them in the lab so the "light bulb" went on one day and I tried it for the commute instead of the usual glove liners. I did that bicycle commute for fourteen winters. Over 20+ years of bicycle commuting I did 43,000 miles.

 

[Wennfred]

44k miles & 12 CB's must mean you got a new battery pack. The original pack should be down 3 CB's by now.

Try charging at 100% instead of 80%, this will give you more range. Also look on EBay and see if anyone is selling a LeafDD, this little device will give you the info you need to know on your battery.


Fred

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

44k miles & 12 CB's must mean you got a new battery pack. The original pack should be down 3 CB's by now.

Try charging at 100% instead of 80%, this will give you more range. Also look on EBay and see if anyone is selling a LeafDD, this little device will give you the info you need to know on your battery.


Fred

Not necessarily. Coming from near Seattle, it's probably just on the verge of losing the first CB, around 85%. My old '12 went 22k here and only dropped about 8%.

With cold and studded snows, winter range loss is more the problem here, but it's like getting extra capacity every summer.

Edit: Come to think of it, if they start out at 97%, then the '12 only lost around 4% in two years.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

I'd be more concerned if the car doesn't have the winter package. At these temps, that battery heater is important. Electriffic, do you have the heated seats and steering wheel?

 

[Reddy]

I forgot to mention that some people have insulated the heater lines with aluminized insulating tape or added heaters to the batter. Here are a few threads that might interest you:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15392
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=15306&p=346958&hilit=heater+aluminum#p349949
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=335675#p335675
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13902&hilit=aluminum+tape&start=0#p316775
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10728

 

[Elephanthead]

I just bring my lunch on sub zero days so I can make the 22 mile round trip with heat both ways.

 

[LeftieBiker]

An on-topic bit of information: I just ran errands in town today, after preheating on L-1 for 10 minutes. Outside temp was about 15F, and had gotten down to zero last night. In fact, the battery heater came on this morning, and ran all day, using about 15% of charge. Anyway, when I left the house I had 63% charge, and when I got home I had traveled a total of 1.9 miles, using plenty of heat and with several stops. I had also used 10% charge. I'm fairly sure my range would have been more than 19 miles from 100%, though. ;-)

 

[GetOffYourGas]

An on-topic bit of information: I just ran errands in town today, after preheating on L-1 for 10 minutes. Outside temp was about 15F, and had gotten down to zero last night. In fact, the battery heater came on this morning, and ran all day, using about 15% of charge. Anyway, when I left the house I had 63% charge, and when I got home I had traveled a total of 1.9 miles, using plenty of heat and with several stops. I had also used 10% charge. I'm fairly sure my range would have been more than 19 miles from 100%, though. ;-)

FWIW, by using "plenty of heat" and making "several stops", it's probably safe to assume that your heater used more energy than the actual motor! If you continued this pattern, 19 miles may be all you'd get. But if you just drove 19 miles with the heat blasting, I'm sure that you could have made it farther.

 

[LeftieBiker]

FWIW, by using "plenty of heat" and making "several stops", it's probably safe to assume that your heater used more energy than the actual motor! If you continued this pattern, 19 miles may be all you'd get. But if you just drove 19 miles with the heat blasting, I'm sure that you could have made it farther.

I don't think so, because I think warming the cabin initially (more than to the 55F or so the preheating accomplished) used a lot of heat on a one time only basis. The car was warmer than that when I got back in after each errand. Also, the Regen started working better as the pack warmed (to a whopping three temp bars).

 

[electriffic]

Wow, I was reading my old questions and I have learned a lot since then.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I mis-reported my battery capacity; I'm not really sure what it was at the time but I now know it's at 10 bars.

I can now report with confidence that the Leaf, when: 1)charged to 80%, 2)used on short trips, 3)used in hilly Helena, Montana, 4)used with the cabin heater, and 5)used in sub-zero temps, goes about 25 miles before VLBW .

The answer to my original question (13 Mile Winter Range?) is that my 2011 Leaf has a 33 mile range when charged to 100% and under the same conditions I mention above. For the sake of comparison, my dad's 2008 Prius is getting around 31mpg under those conditions.

I have run the Leaf up to our local ski hill and back (100% charge) for a 50-miles-total trip with the temp in the single digits. I had about six miles to spare but the trip was slow and cold.

I continue to have a love/hate relationship with my Leaf over the range issue.

On one hand I live in a small town, so range isn't that big of a deal; 30 miles is adequate even with running kids around. It's such a simple, reliable car with no ICE complications. The 240V home charger makes it easy to come home from work, plug in for an hour or two, and head out again for the evening.

On the other hand it's a frigid, demanding mistress...she wants low speeds and no heater. I have caught myself driving to work in sub-zero temps with the heater off and a window cracked (to prevent frosting). I will tolerate this because I geek out over the incredible efficiency but I can't leave the heater off when I start running my kids around.

Sometimes I think about getting a second Leaf for my wife and sometimes I think about selling it and getting a used Prius. The grass is always greener on the other side, right?

 

[cwerdna]

For the sake of comparison, my dad's 2008 Prius is getting around 31mpg under those conditions.

If you aren't already, you should block the grille in cold weather. I used to when I lived in WA state in the winter. I monitored engine temps (well, water temperature) via Scangauge.

Some folks on Priuschat also install engine block heaters, in order to reduce the engine warmup time. Heck, they do it even on cars not in cold climates.

If you shut the heater off on the Prius when the engine's too cold, that'll prevent the ICE from running when idling or driving at low speeds. You can figure out the thresholds via Scanguage again by monitoring water temp (FWT for Fahrenheit Water Temp).

 

[garsh]

Two other things you should consider doing:

Insulate the heater. In order to get the Leaf to market quickly, Nissan used the same type of heating system that any other car has. The engine heats up engine coolant, which is then used to heat up air blown into the cabin. A regular car creates so much waste heat, that there's plenty of heat available for this process, and nobody worries about it. So all of the coolant lines are bare, uninsulated metal. And that means that they radiate a lot of heat away before it can be used to help heat the cabin. Wrapping all of the coolant lines and the coolant reservoir itself in insulation should greatly help your cold-weather heating efficiency.

Install a switch to completely disable the heater. Like you, I used to drive around in the winter with the climate control completely off in order to not run down the battery by running the heater. And like you, I used to crack one or more windows to keep the windows from fogging up. This of course makes the interior even colder. I eventually came across the linked post, and installed a switch to disable the heater (Method 2 in the linked post). Now I can leave the system in defrost mode, with the AC off, and no energy sent to the heater. My windows stay clear, and the heated seat & steering wheel are enough to keep me warm on most days.

 

[IssacZachary]

Hi there! I've been driving around in the winter with snow chains on and temps as low as -33°F/-36°C but mostly around 10°F/-12°C in my 2013 SL. I started charging up to 100% recently to help deal with the cold. I also set the timer to stop charging about 30 minutes before I leave, and set the preheater to come on too. Supposedly charging will warm the battery. I usually have at least two heat bars when I get in every morning. I also still have all 12 capacity bars at 40,000miles (65,000km). I use the heated seats and steering wheel and try to keep the cabin heater off or as low as possible. It seems there's a big difference in how much the cabin heater affects range when it's very cold. At 32°F/0°C it doesn't seem to take as much of a toll. It seems I'm getting at least 30 miles on a range by 20% with 40 being about average. I rarely go below 20%. Of course with the chains I never go above 30mph either.

 

[LeftieBiker]

The heatpump in your car greatly improves heating efficiency down to just below freezing. From there to about 25F it still helps quite a bit, but below about 15F it's nearly useless. One thing you can do in frigid weather is run the blower fan on the lowest setting, with a reasonable temp setting. I verified again yesterday that Low uses substantially less heat then the second lowest fan setting. It's because the volume of air being heated is quite a bit less.

 

[IssacZachary]

The heatpump in your car greatly improves heating efficiency down to just below freezing. From there to about 25F it still helps quite a bit, but below about 15F it's nearly useless. One thing you can do in frigid weather is run the blower fan on the lowest setting, with a reasonable temp setting. I verified again yesterday that Low uses substantially less heat then the second lowest fan setting. It's because the volume of air being heated is quite a bit less.

Thanks! I'll keep in mind the low fan setting.

Something else I've been trying is to use the recycled air button whenever I can. Of course if I'm defrosting it won't work. But my theory is that if it's more efficient to warm 30°, 40° or 50°F (0°, 5°, 10°C) inside air than to warm 0°, 10° or 20°F (-15°, -10°, -5°C) outside air.

 

[jjeff]

The heatpump in your car greatly improves heating efficiency down to just below freezing. From there to about 25F it still helps quite a bit, but below about 15F it's nearly useless. One thing you can do in frigid weather is run the blower fan on the lowest setting, with a reasonable temp setting. I verified again yesterday that Low uses substantially less heat then the second lowest fan setting. It's because the volume of air being heated is quite a bit less.

Thanks! I'll keep in mind the low fan setting.

Something else I've been trying is to use the recycled air button whenever I can. Of course if I'm defrosting it won't work. But my theory is that if it's more efficient to warm 30°, 40° or 50°F (0°, 5°, 10°C) inside air than to warm 0°, 10° or 20°F (-15°, -10°, -5°C) outside air.

I think Leftie meant "low uses substantially less power than the second lowest fan setting". Of course I suppose he could have meant "heat" in which case taking less heat away from the heating coil would also result in less power being drawn, either way I agree with him. To conserve battery I also run with the lowest fan speed with a temp setting of 77. Yes I know the cabin will never reach 77 but it's just a psychological thing and at 77 it assures I'll always have at least some heat, even if it's just a trickle. I also have tried playing with the recirc or even partial recirc options but to keep my windows from fogging(actually icing up in my climate) I find I need to run my mode with at least partial defrost(I almost always keep mode set to floor + windshield) which disables all forms of recirc
I totally agree with your statement about heating warmer air than sub zero air, unfortunately because of the fogging/frosting issue I'm not personally able to take advantage of this, if you are then great, no doubt it will use less battery power.