80% Charge only 9 bars?

[GregH]

Quick data point.. I've been watching my 80% charge "gid" reading drop over the last few weeks 207, 206, 205 etc.. 203 this morning.
I've been waiting for that 10th bar to disappear and this morning with 203 it finally did. The odd thing is when it was 204-207 I'd watch to see how low the gid count got while driving before dropping the 10th bar and it was usually (if memory serves) under 200.. go figure. I haven't been to 100% in a while and will likely wait till things cool down a bit here in O.C. to balance it out. The car finishes the 80% charge every morning at 6am.

 

[DaveEV]

I've been waiting for that 10th bar to disappear and this morning with 203 it finally did. The odd thing is when it was 204-207 I'd watch to see how low the gid count got while driving before dropping the 10th bar and it was usually (if memory serves) under 200.. go figure.

Interesting. Would like to see if other 9-bar cars also read around 203 GIDs on 80% charge, too.

This is only 88% capacity of a new car which reads 231 GIDs on a 80% charge.

I haven't been to 100% in a while and will likely wait till things cool down a bit here in O.C. to balance it out. The car finishes the 80% charge every morning at 6am.

Would be very interesting to see what your GID count is on a 100% charge. Like you, I haven't charged to 100% in quite some time, either.

 

[ttweed]

Would be very interesting to see what your GID count is on a 100% charge. Like you, I haven't charged to 100% in quite some time, either.

Not sure if it is meaningful yet, and I don't have a Gidmeter to measure anything, but after receiving the first 9-bar 80% charge the other day, we charged to 100% two days in a row due to needing more range (something we don't often do), but for yesterday went back to the usual 80% schedule. Interestingly, the 80% charge yielded 10 bars again, both in the Carwings notice and on the dashboard. I don't know how long that behavior may persist, but I will be watching it carefully. Last night we had to charge to 100% again as my wife has a lot of driving to do today, but we should be back to 80% again tomorrow. Time will tell if 9 bars becomes the "new normal" @ 80% for us. The heat wave we've been having is supposed to break this week, so that may also have an effect.

TT

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Would be very interesting to see what your GID count is on a 100% charge. Like you, I haven't charged to 100% in quite some time, either.

Not sure if it is meaningful yet, and I don't have a Gidmeter to measure anything, but after receiving the first 9-bar 80% charge the other day, we charged to 100% two days in a row due to needing more range (something we don't often do), but for yesterday went back to the usual 80% schedule. Interestingly, the 80% charge yielded 10 bars again, both in the Carwings notice and on the dashboard. I don't know how long that behavior may persist, but I will be watching it carefully. Last night we had to charge to 100% again as my wife has a lot of driving to do today, but we should be back to 80% again tomorrow. Time will tell if 9 bars becomes the "new normal" @ 80% for us. The heat wave we've been having is supposed to break this week, so that may also have an effect.

TT

i think its meaningful in that the 80% charge setting is not a good way to determine degradation. the only "real" method that i can see is charging to 100% several times in a short period of time when you can drive enough to lower your SOC to a "safe" range (whatever that may be)

then using the resultant numbers and your intelligence to figure out where you stand

 

[palmermd]

The chart listed in the wiki ( http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery,_Charging_System" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) under "Battery Temperature Gauge" explains why I've never seen anything except 6 bars on the temperature gauge. Once you are on 6 bars it wont go to 7 until 100F and wont drop to 5 until 50F.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

The chart listed in the wiki ( http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery,_Charging_System" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) under "Battery Temperature Gauge" explains why I've never seen anything except 6 bars on the temperature gauge. Once you are on 6 bars it wont go to 7 until 100F and wont drop to 5 until 50F.

dont believe everything you read

 

[palmermd]

dont believe everything you read

Who posted the data? And if it is not correct, why have you not updated it with the correct data?

Can't wait to get my leafscan so I can monitor the temperature gauges and "see" when the bars change. Not that it matters, as noted in the earlier post, I've never seen anything but 6 bars. I did see 5 once in the winter, but never 7. Does not mean it has not happened, but just not when I was looking.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

dont believe everything you read

Who posted the data? And if it is not correct, why have you not updated it with the correct data?

Can't wait to get my leafscan so I can monitor the temperature gauges and "see" when the bars change. Not that it matters, as noted in the earlier post, I've never seen anything but 6 bars. I did see 5 once in the winter, but never 7. Does not mean it has not happened, but just not when I was looking.

its wiki... nuff said

i have 5 TBs this morning (after about a week) and car has not been exposed to temps lower than 18.6 C and yes, i do keep track

 

[wishboneash]

I've been waiting for that 10th bar to disappear and this morning with 203 it finally did. The odd thing is when it was 204-207 I'd watch to see how low the gid count got while driving before dropping the 10th bar and it was usually (if memory serves) under 200.. go figure.

Interesting. Would like to see if other 9-bar cars also read around 203 GIDs on 80% charge, too.

This is only 88% capacity of a new car which reads 231 GIDs on a 80% charge.

I haven't been to 100% in a while and will likely wait till things cool down a bit here in O.C. to balance it out. The car finishes the 80% charge every morning at 6am.

Would be very interesting to see what your GID count is on a 100% charge. Like you, I haven't charged to 100% in quite some time, either.

I am seeing some loss in capacity. Still at 10 bars on 80% charge. I used to get about 5 to 6 miles at 50-55mph on the 10th bar, but now down to 3 miles. Predicted range down by 8-10 miles from 1 year ago, so I now come home with a LBW after a 60 mile round trip commute. Used to have about 13-14 miles range left last summer. I hope Nissan can put in a 90% charge option as these batteries degrade as I expect I won't make it back home on an 80% charge in the coming months. If the charging infrastructure in the SF Bay area would improve, I wouldn't care and charge opportunistically and not worry about range any more.

 

[wsbca]

we charged to 100% two days in a row due to needing more range (something we don't often do), but for yesterday went back to the usual 80% schedule. Interestingly, the 80% charge yielded 10 bars again

After a week or so of 9/80's we got 10 bars on 80% last night as well (our first "San Diego Coastal" 9 bar 80% was on Aug 8th as reported a couple of pages up in this thread, just before the small flurry of similar reports.))

It was perhaps marginally cooler in the garage last night, but the main difference I can see was that yesterday we drove a lot further than normal. And, before leaving in the morning I had boosted our 9/80 status up over 10 bars with an ad-hoc charge of some 20 minutes (1.219 kWh logged by the Blink). Based on several additional unavailable regen circles on our initial descent, at that moment we were solidly over the car's normal notion of 10 bars/80%, as normally we only lose one regen circle at the bottom of the hill.

We then drove 62 miles in warm conditions with a lot of freeway and some hills, broken into 4 segments, ending with 1 bar left - as has been noted we saw the "drop one bar on every restart" behavior, but the bars themselves were fairly robust.

Anyway...this is obviously anecdotal but either it was just that much cooler last night, or 'exercising' the battery with the slight extra charge tomorrow before departure, the lengthy day of driving, and the accompanying lengthy recharge (13.5 kWh) to get back to "80%"
last night, we did get back to 10 bars last night. It's still fairly warm today and I suppose I won't be surprised if we're back to 9 bars tomorrow. I wonder if going to 100% to rebalance would be a net positive action or whether we're just as well letting it languish at 80 unless we really need to take it to 100.

 

[GregH]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to doing a few full charges to see if I can bump the numbers back up, but as long as my garage is over 70F and I don't need the range, I'll wait.
FWIW, 203 again this morning and 9 bars at 80%..

 

[RegGuheert]

dont believe everything you read

Who posted the data? And if it is not correct, why have you not updated it with the correct data?

This is the data provided by Nissan in the most recent version (April 2011) of the MWI service manual for the LEAF. If someone has more current information, please post it.

As far as why the bars are so wide, I have no idea. It doesn't match what I see on our LEAF either. However, according to Nissan the number of bars lit changes as the battery degrades and our battery is still pretty new.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

dont believe everything you read

Who posted the data? And if it is not correct, why have you not updated it with the correct data?

This is the data provided by Nissan in the most recent version (April 2011) of the MWI service manual for the LEAF. If someone has more current information, please post it.

As far as why the bars are so wide, I have no idea. It doesn't match what I see on our LEAF either. However, according to Nissan the number of bars lit changes as the battery degrades and our battery is still pretty new.

so why is the information sooooooooooooo far out from what i and several others have observed and reported?

 

[RegGuheert]

This is the data provided by Nissan in the most recent version (April 2011) of the MWI service manual for the LEAF. If someone has more current information, please post it.

As far as why the bars are so wide, I have no idea. It doesn't match what I see on our LEAF either. However, according to Nissan the number of bars lit changes as the battery degrades and our battery is still pretty new.

so why is the information sooooooooooooo far out from what i and several others have observed and reported?

The chart tells NOTHING about at what temperature the display will turn a particular bar on or off. That said, I think the data matches what we see exactly. If I see 6 temperature bars, it ALWYS occurs when the battery is somewhere between 50F and 98F. OTOH, I have never seen 6 bars below about 68F. But according to Nissan, I could see 6 bars all the way down to 50F. Maybe when I'm down to 2 capacity bars, that's what will happen. Who knows? Certainly not me.

 

[DaveEV]

dont believe everything you read

Who posted the data? And if it is not correct, why have you not updated it with the correct data?

The data is from the service manual (which has been revised). If you look at the page's history, you can what the service manual originally listed which I feel is more representative of the bar's behavior.

While temp-bar 6 can mean the battery is as cool as 50F - I believe this is due to hysteresis meaning while the car is on, it won't go down to 5 bars from 6 until you've hit 50F.

On the other hand - the old chart showed what the bars did as the battery is warming or car turned on.

It acts like the SOC gauge does - we've all seen how one can lose a SOC bar after turning the car off/on. Similarly, I believe the same can happen with the temperature bars.

I hope Nissan can put in a 90% charge option as these batteries degrade as I expect I won't make it back home on an 80% charge in the coming months.

Having a configurable SOC stop would also be great for the times when you know you know you only need 20 miles range - charge to 60% instead of 80% which should reduce the effects of temperature on battery calendar life by lowering the average SOC.

It was perhaps marginally cooler in the garage last night, but the main difference I can see was that yesterday we drove a lot further than normal. And, before leaving in the morning I had boosted our 9/80 status up over 10 bars with an ad-hoc charge of some 20 minutes (1.219 kWh logged by the Blink).

It certainly seems that a longer drive and/or charging over 80% can trigger some SOC meter recalibration. Depending on how far the pack is out of balance, it could be that any charging past 80% can also start to trigger balancing of the pack. Though 1.2 kWh past 80% is not much - historically my 80-100% charges have run between 3.9-4.9 kWh. I'm kind of surprised that you saw significant regen reduction with only 1.2 kWh added past 80% - that may also indicate that the pack is more out of balance?

It's still fairly warm today and I suppose I won't be surprised if we're back to 9 bars tomorrow. I wonder if going to 100% to rebalance would be a net positive action or whether we're just as well letting it languish at 80 unless we really need to take it to 100.

I can't see how charging to 100% would be a net positive action in terms of degradation. From a physics perspective - more time spent at higher SOC = faster capacity loss. I don't even "top off" to 80% until I'm at 5 SOC bars or below and I know I'm going to be driving at least 20 miles any more.

I still find it very curious as to how many San Diego LEAFs have started doing the 9-bar thing at nearly the same time and with similar usage patterns (all normally charge to 80%, occasionally charge to 100% as needed). The biggest correlation has to be the recent warmth here in San Diego.

Friday night's charge still resulted in 9-bars. Didn't need to charge the last 2 nights - we'll see what tomorrow morning brings, but I expect 9 bars. Then again - tonight seems to be a bit cooler than last.

sub3maratonman posted something interesting from 2-9 of the owners manual

When the Liion battery becomes warmer, less segments on the Li-ion battery available charge gauge illuminate because the remaining energy is a lower percentage of the Li-ion battery’s capability of storing power.

This would certainly explain us San Diegan's recent spate of 9-bar charges (though doesn't explain why this didn't happen last year and haven't seen a high number of similar reports from other areas). I also bet that GIDs are temperature adjusted as well - TickTock in AZ has documented seasonality with his GID counts and found that his GIDs seem to hold more energy when it's warm than when it's cold.

 

[planet4ever]

The chart listed in the wiki ( http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery,_Charging_System" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) under "Battery Temperature Gauge" explains why I've never seen anything except 6 bars on the temperature gauge. Once you are on 6 bars it wont go to 7 until 100F and wont drop to 5 until 50F.

dont believe everything you read

Who posted the data? And if it is not correct, why have you not updated it with the correct data?

I posted the data, as you can easily discover by clicking on the Wiki's History tab. The chart title has a footnote which says, as others have already noted, that the data came out of the Nissan LEAF Service Manual.

Also as others have said, you are not reading the chart correctly, Michael. I tried to explain in the text above the table that the overlap you see is not because of a large difference between "bar on" and "bar off" triggers as you apparently assumed, but rather because the car adjusts the triggers as the battery ages. See Li-On Temperature bar tutorial, please for recent discussion of this.
(Not all complimentary to me, incidentally. )

If the Wiki explanation is not clear, feel free to change it yourself, or to make suggestions to me as to how I can clarify it. I only ask that you not change the table itself unless you have a more reliable information source.

Ray

 

[planet4ever]

When the Liion battery becomes warmer, less segments on the Li-ion battery available charge gauge illuminate because the remaining energy is a lower percentage of the Li-ion battery’s capability of storing power.

This would certainly explain us San Diegan's recent spate of 9-bar charges (though doesn't explain why this didn't happen last year and haven't seen a high number of similar reports from other areas).

I think you are over-reading that statement from the manual. What it is really trying to say is that if you charge your battery when it is cool, you may see x bars of available charge, but if the battery then warms up without driving the car you may see x-1 bars. I tried to explain this back on page 2 of this thread.

Now, if you can show that (a) more people are charging during cool hours than a year ago, and (b) that you guys sleep in late enough in the morning for the car to heat up before you check it, then you may be onto something. In truth, though, I think some of the other theories about the nature of "80%" are more likely to be causing the phenomenon.

Ray

 

[palmermd]

If the Wiki explanation is not clear, feel free to change it yourself, or to make suggestions to me as to how I can clarify it. I only ask that you not change the table itself unless you have a more reliable information source.

Ray

I would suggest completely removing it or perhaps just putting up the anecdotal evidence others have noted. Even though what is there is apparently from the manual, it is useless in its current form. If you cannot read it and know when the bars turn on an off unless you know your capacity loss (which is not on the car or the table), then the table is meaningless.

 

[edatoakrun]

I did as timer charge from 7 bars to 80% from 2 AM to ~3:30? ("Charge completed" notifications not being sent, following my NAV system replacement). Ambient temperatures during charge ~75 to 70 F

Morning low~ 65F

At 7:00, the owner's portal showed 10 bars, Ambient ~70 F

At ~ 8:30, the dash showed 9 bars, ambient ~75 F

Just checked Owners portal again, at 9:16, now showing 9 bars, 75%.

This is only the second 9 bar report I've received, both following relatively hot trips (dash gauge maxing out at 103 F and 102 F respectively) of 50-55 miles, during which I used ~11 kWh, ~8 bar segments of my battery capacity.

My dash temp has been stuck at 6 bars for about a month now. I was actually checking at 8:30 this AM, to see if it dropped to 5 bars.

I got my first "...nine bars..." email, and also had nine bars on the dash, both for the first time, Thursday AM, the day I brought my car in for repair as mentioned here:

ttp://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=9573" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More observations, and/or coincidences?

This was the first timer recharge to 80%, following my hottest day of driving this year, on last Tuesday. The dash temp had topped out at 103, but the temp bar never hit 7.

As soon as I descended the ~200ft over the first 1/8 mile of my drive, the 10th bar appeared. Very odd, considering I get little regen (reported by CW as .0 kWh) on this steep, slow, gravel grade.

The 10th bar lasted for about 13 miles, close to what I usually get, with the 1500 ft net descent, on the drive towards Redding, at the same speed.

Second and third bars lasted about as long as I'd expect, had I had the normal 10 from the beginning, also.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8765&start=120" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[wsbca]

I still find it very curious as to how many San Diego LEAFs have started doing the 9-bar thing at nearly the same time and with similar usage patterns (all normally charge to 80%, occasionally charge to 100% as needed). The biggest correlation has to be the recent warmth here in San Diego.

sub3maratonman posted something interesting from 2-9 of the owners manual

When the Liion battery becomes warmer, less segments on the Li-ion battery available charge gauge illuminate because the remaining energy is a lower percentage of the Li-ion battery’s capability of storing power.

This would certainly explain us San Diegan's recent spate of 9-bar charges (though doesn't explain why this didn't happen last year and haven't seen a high number of similar reports from other areas).

It's been significantly warmer in the San Diego area this summer compared to last over the weeks in question (last two weeks) - that combined with the cars for the most part being one year older might explain why we're getting the 9/80's now? Here's a graph of maximum temperature (at Lindbergh) from July 20 to August 19 in both 2011 and 2012:

Our garage was undoubtedly cooler last night...but we didn't charge, so I don't know whether we'd have gone back to 10/80.