411 on volontary recall P1273 LEAF VCM LBC TCU NTB12-014

[TimeHorse]

I got the update done yesterday. I thought I saw some GOM differences - but I've to check more to be sure.

Ofcourse, I got the Annual battery check done as well. Infact, it was exactly 1 year ago yesterday I got the car.

Happy birthday EVNow's Washington LEAF, Happy birthday EVNow's Washington LEAF...

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I got the update done yesterday. I thought I saw some GOM differences - but I've to check more to be sure.

Ofcourse, I got the Annual battery check done as well. Infact, it was exactly 1 year ago yesterday I got the car.

happy anniversary! the battery check is a waste of time. i got mine and it might as well be a carbon copy of every battery check posted here.

 

[Roadburner440]

So is that a good or a bad thing? If you guys aren't noticing any degradation I would think that is good unless you think Nissan is hiding any degradation? GM does not do battery checks on my Volt (or ever), but it would seem to me the battery has gotten better over my ownership than worse. So I would think the same of the Leaf with or without the little battery sheet.

 

[IBELEAF]

Battery check is a waste, but probably important if you want to keep your warranty. I am also wondering what they would charge for it after the 3rd one.

 

[OilFreedom]

This "feature" doesn't appear to have changed with the firmware. It's not a bug or a problem. If you had to call Nissan customer service while driving and request they change the position of their foot on your car's pedal, then I can see it being a dangerous situation, but as long as YOU are in control of your foot, this is not a problem.

No, it's not a problem - just annoying when you expect somewhat linear throttle response and you get very non-linear throttle response. I've had situations where I've stabbed the throttle, car continued to accelerate faster than expected, let off throttle, car slows down much more than expected, then have to push down _more_ than it was originally to get going again.

Or it could all be in my head. And it probably is!

OK, so I tested this today on my stock firmware car.

In D from a stop, if you stab the pedal a bit from a stop (it's not much pedal movement, certainly much less than 50% throttle position, I'd guess more like 20%), power will climb to 80 kW as you accelerate past 30 mph.

Let off the pedal a tiny bit and reapply back to the same position, power will be in the 20-30 kW range. Stabbing the pedal back to the same position from speed results in 20-30 kW.

So I stand by my hypothesis that the car gets stuck at 100% power when you ask for more power than is available at low speeds and doesn't recalculate until you release the accelerator pedal some.

Really wacky throttle mapping - I haven't driven a gas car that behaves this way, even ones with electronic throttles, but I haven't driven that many. I've seen TPS maps for electronic throttle cars that adjust TPS based on RPMs/engine load, but this is mainly to open up the throttle more at low rpms / low engine load to make the car more responsive but as RPMs/engine load increases they reduce the throttle position for the same pedal position. Seems like Nissan forgot to program that bit in or there's a bug in the firmware.

I've been able to easily and repeatedly reproduce this too with factory firmware and the car in "D" mode. When it happens, pressing the power pedal further toward the floor does nothing -- because the power is maxed out already. Releasing the power pedal returns the pedal to "normal" operation. I'll test again after the software update.

 

[garygid]

I wonder why Ingineer seems to be unable to duplicate this "feature"?

 

[TomT]

The battery report is set up the same way the tick marks are on the dash: The loss of the first one does not happen until nearly a 15% loss. Thus, it is too coarse to be of any real value. I strongly suspect that what is actually sent to Nissan is far more detailed, however.

So is that a good or a bad thing? If you guys aren't noticing any degradation I would think that is good unless you think Nissan is hiding any degradation? GM does not do battery checks on my Volt (or ever), but it would seem to me the battery has gotten better over my ownership than worse. So I would think the same of the Leaf with or without the little battery sheet.

 

[Bassman]

Had my annual battery check performed last Thursday. Had the car 10 months and have already put 16,500 miles on it. The battery test is pretty useless. Asked them to do the cell pair test, but the service rep gave me some BS about having to take the battery out of the car to do it. The dealers are pretty much clueless on this car.

 

[Ingineer]

I wonder why Ingineer seems to be unable to duplicate this "feature"?

I can. I've noticed it pretty much my first day with the car. Like I said, I think it's intentional to make the car seem "faster". I notice it all the time in D when I'm driving aggressively at lower speeds.

I don't think this is a problem as long as you are driving like you should be. You are part of the PID loop for regulating the car. You know how fast you want to go, and how quick you want to achieve the target speed, so you make constant adjustments to keep the car doing what you want it to.

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

The battery report is set up the same way the tick marks are on the dash: The loss of the first one does not happen until nearly a 15% loss. Thus, it is too coarse to be of any real value. I strongly suspect that what is actually sent to Nissan is far more detailed, however

The Leaf keeps track of things with counters. For example, It has 8 counters for things like Charge Start/Stop SOC, Car Start/Stop SOC, temperatures, etc. The SOC is divided up (3 bit representation) into these 8 "bins" that contain the counters. Depending on where SOC is at that event, that particular counter is incremented. They also count and create total time counters for almost all events, such as charging, quick charging, car ready, car driving, etc. From this they can things like how many times you started charging when SOC was over ~90%, how many "deep" cycles you made, How many times you ran the battery way down before you stopped the car, even how many times it stopped YOU!

I'd say all in all it's less than a kilobyte of data. Very efficient memory wise (needed, as the NV memory in the ECU is limited), and cost nothing, even if they wanted to send it over the telematics.

The Consult III+ records the data, then a separate application called ASIST (sic) sends the data to Nissan.

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

Oh, and the battery ECU constantly monitors loss-of-capacity figures. It tracks SOC and sees how many total watt-hours in/out occurs, then updates these coefficients.

-Phil

 

[IBELEAF]

I can't believe I am the only one noticed the "range" changes after update. Here is some more data from my regular inefficient commute. 80% charge. No ECO. No climate control. Total trip 10.6 miles, drove up to 67mph on freeway for 6 miles, arrived to work with 1 bar used! (Same commute would normally use up 2-3 bars)

 

[johnr]

This is simply the acceleration ramp showing itself. Over the first few seconds it retards power, then when the ramp expires, you get more power allowing it to accelerate.

Keep in mind the pedal is not a speed pedal, it's a torque pedal, so holding it in one position could cause the speed to increase up to the speed limiter. How far you hold the pedal will determine how fast it gets there. If the torque requested is less than the amount needed to overcome the losses in the car/drivetrain/wind/etc, then a stasis will be reached and the car will stop going faster.

-Phil

Sorry, Phil, but I really don't think what you're describing is the same thing what adric22 and I - and others - have experienced. Let me explain -

In D mode, I try to accelerate moderately - at about 1/3 or 1/2 power based on the bubble meter - but the car continues to ramp up to 100% power and stays at 100% - lessening pressure on the throttle doesn't do anything - I have to actually take my foot completely off the throttle to stop the 100% acceleration. If I didn't, I'm sure it would reach 90mph a few seconds later despite pressing the throttle barely 10% of the way.

This bug doesn't happen all the time either - the rest of the time, the pedal simply feels much more responsive - as it is designed to in D.

And, I discovered that when the car tries to do this, I can stop it by flooring the pedal briefly and then backing off - and it immediately behaves normally again.

Also, if I floor the pedal to accelerate, this bug never happens.

Now, I haven't gotten the update yet - so I have yet to see if that changes it.

 

[Leafboy]

I have not experienced this condition. I have tried numerous times to do so, to no avail. I guess I should not be looking for problems since I haven't had any since purchase.

 

[Ingineer]

Sorry, Phil, but I really don't think what you're describing is the same thing what adric22 and I - and others - have experienced. Let me explain -

In D mode, I try to accelerate moderately - at about 1/3 or 1/2 power based on the bubble meter - but the car continues to ramp up to 100% power and stays at 100% - lessening pressure on the throttle doesn't do anything - I have to actually take my foot completely off the throttle to stop the 100% acceleration. If I didn't, I'm sure it would reach 90mph a few seconds later despite pressing the throttle barely 10% of the way.

This bug doesn't happen all the time either - the rest of the time, the pedal simply feels much more responsive - as it is designed to in D.

And, I discovered that when the car tries to do this, I can stop it by flooring the pedal briefly and then backing off - and it immediately behaves normally again.

Also, if I floor the pedal to accelerate, this bug never happens.

Now, I haven't gotten the update yet - so I have yet to see if that changes it.

I hesitate to call you a liar, but there is no way the Leaf can even reach 90mph "a few seconds later". If somehow you car can, It must have a much bigger motor/inverter than all other Leafs! I'd say take it to the Dealer immediately and call Nissan. I have not observed anything like this, and I too have the old firmware. What I have observed could seem like this if you were scared easily, but only happens in "D" and only within the first 5 seconds of accelerating. The speeds are typically under 40mph, and you definitely have to back off the throttle to prevent the car feeling like it's been launched out of a slingshot.

I have instrumentation that can read the accelerator pedal position accurately over the CAN bus. I'll take a drive sometime soon and see what ACTUAL pedal positions this occurs at.

If I am correct, you will not be able to replicate this in Eco.

-Phil

 

[gbarry42]

Remarkable! I got this behavior on the first try. It seems to be all about the "D" in the PID. So, it's about how fast you hit the pedal, rather than where you put it. It does explain something. I drive in ECO mode, but I have tried the D mode from time to time. Each time I am surprised at how fast the car accelerates, then I look at the kW-meter and it's showing like 40kW and I think "no wonder--if I did that in ECO it would take off just as fast". I had figured I could control the pedal in D just by pushing it less, but this made me think, if it's that touchy, I will need some practice to keep from driving it like that. Now I come to find that they were messing with me!

Phil--torque is more or less kW input to the motor, right?

 

[TomT]

Yep, they are directly related, at least within a given rpm range...

torque is more or less kW input to the motor, right?

 

[Atebit]

One other thing I noticed after the upgrade is the driver side window. I could've sworn before it was auto up AND down. Now, it is only auto-down. Nannied again, apparently.

Can anyone confirm? Mine is definitely auto up and down now. I may pass on the update if this and the new door alarm is the only tangible difference. Did they at least fix the alarm you hear when you turn off the car when the driver door is open?

RTFM! When the 12v battery is disconnected, the Auto-Up will not function until the current sensor is recalibrated. As Gary mentions, there is a simple procedure covered in the owners manual.

-Phil

How was I supposed to know that they would have to disconnect the battery to perform a firmware upgrade? Nothing else was amiss in the car including the clock(s), charge timers or my sat radio channels. The "Leaf Certified Technican" that I had to wait week for should've handled this.

 

[TimeHorse]

Phil--torque is more or less kW input to the motor, right?

Power is the scalar product of torque and rotational velocity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque#Relationship_between_torque.2C_power_and_energy.

 

[IBELEAF]

I can't believe I am the only one noticed the "range" changes after update. Here is some more data from my regular inefficient commute. 80% charge. No ECO. No climate control. Total trip 10.6 miles, drove up to 67mph on freeway for 6 miles, arrived to work with 1 bar used! (Same commute would normally use up 2-3 bars)

After a few charges/discharges bar behavior was reset and returned to normal, no magic here...