Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[Nubo]

The video is very long; the Nissan/Tesla rant begins around 1:11:50, wanders a bit and goes through 11:28:00

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrzdouRUFQ[/youtube]


More coffee, sir?

 

[JRP3]

Jack is a bit off the rails on this one. Nissan is addressing the issue so it's a bit early to say they aren't going to do the right thing, and the Tesla "bricking" issue really was all operator error, specifically warned against in the manual, and in a form that was signed at the time of purchase.

 

[SanDust]

Jack is a bit off the rails on this one. Nissan is addressing the issue so it's a bit early to say they aren't going to do the right thing, and the Tesla "bricking" issue really was all operator error, specifically warned against in the manual, and in a form that was signed at the time of purchase.

On the capacity issue, Nissan completely ignored it, then misleadingly claimed there were only five cases, and then pointed out that technically this wasn't a warranty issue. Only after the first TV reports started showing up did they do anything, and that something was to test the cars. You think this is responsive? Mark Perry made a big deal of giving interviews talking about 20% battery loss after eight years. What would be so hard about saying they'd stand by these representations?

With respect to the Tesla, the claim that it was the customer's fault because they didn't read section 4.2.114 of the manual so reminds me of the first chapter in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[vrwl]

I have some data that might be of interest to those of you who are really analyzing this battery capacity loss issue...

HISTORY: I purchased my Leaf "Used/Pre-Owned". It was originally purchased by Hertz as a fleet car, but apparently they didn't lease it out much, because when I bought it, it only had 89 miles on it. Hertz originally purchased the car Oct 2011, and then it was auctioned off to Toyota in May 2012 and I purchased it the end of June 2012. So I purchased a 9-10 month old Leaf with 89 miles on it. I have no knowledge about how the car was previously charged or what level of SOC it had while it sat in the various parking lots over it's 9 month life span. All I know is that it only had 89 miles on it when I purchased it.

In a month's time, I've put about 900 miles on the car. It's currently sitting at 995 miles. Because it's almost a year old with minimal mileage, I wanted to put a gidmeter on it to get some baseline values, and so a local fellow forum member was nice enough to loan his meter to me this week to run some levels on it.

Last night, I charged to 80% (L1 charging, haven't gotten any L2 charging set up yet in the garage) then checked the levels at 80%. After checking the levels, I went ahead and charged it to 100% (again, L1 charging). After it finished, I ran the CC for about 20 minutes, with the L1 charger still plugged in and then waited another hour or so before I read anything on the gidmeter. Here's what I ended up with:

80% Charge, 980 miles:
75.8% SOC
213 gid
388.5 volts

100% Charge, 980 miles:
90.3% SOC
254 gid
393.0 volts

Because of the limited mileage on the car when I purchased it, I can only assume that there have been VERY FEW charge cycles applied to it. Since I've owned it (34 days), I've charged it to 100% twice, one of those times was for this test. NO quick charges, 80% the rest of the time. It sits in my garage nearly all day long, and my garage averages about 90 degrees inside in the summer (it only gets the morning sun and we have an insulated garage door to reduce the heat conducted through the door). I only drive it about 40 miles a day (if that) to run errands, so it usually has about 4 SOC bars when I plug it in (again, L1 only). I have only charged it once when there were 7 battery temp bars showing, and that was the night I drove it home from the Toyota dealership. I've hit 7 temp bars 5 times since I've owned the car, and except for that one time, I wait to charge it until it's back down to 6 temp bars.

So with this information, how do you think it applies to the various arguments regarding calendar time, heat and charging cycles with relation to battery capacity loss?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Jack is a bit off the rails on this one. Nissan is addressing the issue so it's a bit early to say they aren't going to do the right thing, and the Tesla "bricking" issue really was all operator error, specifically warned against in the manual, and in a form that was signed at the time of purchase.

The Tesla thing should not be allowed to happen, from the operator standpoint. What the guy in the video said, that I agree with, is at a certain SOC, the battery disconnects. That simple change should eliminate bricking in all but the most extreme cases. The LEAF already has this.

Nissan clearly isn't addressing anything without loud, public complaining, and even then, the best we have is that they are looking into it.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Why did u use CC for 20 minutes?
What is wrong with charging to 100% thdn checking GIDs?

I have some data that might be of interest to those of you who are really analyzing this battery capacity loss issue...

HISTORY: I purchased my Leaf "Used/Pre-Owned". It was originally purchased by Hertz as a fleet car, but apparently they didn't lease it out much, because when I bought it, it only had 89 miles on it. Hertz originally purchased the car Oct 2011, and then it was auctioned off to Toyota in May 2012 and I purchased it the end of June 2012. So I purchased a 9-10 month old Leaf with 89 miles on it. I have no knowledge about how the car was previously charged or what level of SOC it had while it sat in the various parking lots over it's 9 month life span. All I know is that it only had 89 miles on it when I purchased it.

In a month's time, I've put about 900 miles on the car. It's currently sitting at 995 miles. Because it's almost a year old with minimal mileage, I wanted to put a gidmeter on it to get some baseline values, and so a local fellow forum member was nice enough to loan his meter to me this week to run some levels on it.

Last night, I charged to 80% (L1 charging, haven't gotten any L2 charging set up yet in the garage) then checked the levels at 80%. After checking the levels, I went ahead and charged it to 100% (again, L1 charging). After it finished, I ran the CC for about 20 minutes, with the L1 charger still plugged in and then waited another hour or so before I read anything on the gidmeter. Here's what I ended up with:

80% Charge, 980 miles:
75.8% SOC
213 gid
388.5 volts

100% Charge, 980 miles:
90.3% SOC
254 gid
393.0 volts

Because of the limited mileage on the car when I purchased it, I can only assume that there have been VERY FEW charge cycles applied to it. Since I've owned it (34 days), I've charged it to 100% twice, one of those times was for this test. NO quick charges, 80% the rest of the time. It sits in my garage nearly all day long, and my garage averages about 90 degrees inside in the summer (it only gets the morning sun and we have an insulated garage door to reduce the heat conducted through the door). I only drive it about 40 miles a day (if that) to run errands, so it usually has about 4 SOC bars when I plug it in (again, L1 only). I have only charged it once when there were 7 battery temp bars showing, and that was the night I drove it home from the Toyota dealership. I've hit 7 temp bars 5 times since I've owned the car, and except for that one time, I wait to charge it until it's back down to 6 temp bars.

So with this information, how do you think it applies to the various arguments regarding calendar time, heat and charging cycles with relation to battery capacity loss?

 

[Boomer23]

I have some data that might be of interest to those of you who are really analyzing this battery capacity loss issue...

HISTORY: I purchased my Leaf "Used/Pre-Owned". It was originally purchased by Hertz as a fleet car, but apparently they didn't lease it out much, because when I bought it, it only had 89 miles on it. Hertz originally purchased the car Oct 2011, and then it was auctioned off to Toyota in May 2012 and I purchased it the end of June 2012. So I purchased a 9-10 month old Leaf with 89 miles on it. I have no knowledge about how the car was previously charged or what level of SOC it had while it sat in the various parking lots over it's 9 month life span. All I know is that it only had 89 miles on it when I purchased it.

In a month's time, I've put about 900 miles on the car. It's currently sitting at 995 miles. Because it's almost a year old with minimal mileage, I wanted to put a gidmeter on it to get some baseline values, and so a local fellow forum member was nice enough to loan his meter to me this week to run some levels on it.

Last night, I charged to 80% (L1 charging, haven't gotten any L2 charging set up yet in the garage) then checked the levels at 80%. After checking the levels, I went ahead and charged it to 100% (again, L1 charging). After it finished, I ran the CC for about 20 minutes, with the L1 charger still plugged in and then waited another hour or so before I read anything on the gidmeter. Here's what I ended up with:

80% Charge, 980 miles:
75.8% SOC
213 gid
388.5 volts

100% Charge, 980 miles:
90.3% SOC
254 gid
393.0 volts

Because of the limited mileage on the car when I purchased it, I can only assume that there have been VERY FEW charge cycles applied to it. Since I've owned it (34 days), I've charged it to 100% twice, one of those times was for this test. NO quick charges, 80% the rest of the time. It sits in my garage nearly all day long, and my garage averages about 90 degrees inside in the summer (it only gets the morning sun and we have an insulated garage door to reduce the heat conducted through the door). I only drive it about 40 miles a day (if that) to run errands, so it usually has about 4 SOC bars when I plug it in (again, L1 only). I have only charged it once when there were 7 battery temp bars showing, and that was the night I drove it home from the Toyota dealership. I've hit 7 temp bars 5 times since I've owned the car, and except for that one time, I wait to charge it until it's back down to 6 temp bars.

So with this information, how do you think it applies to the various arguments regarding calendar time, heat and charging cycles with relation to battery capacity loss?

Those are almost the same readings my car is getting right now, but my car was delivered six months earlier, at the end of March 2011, and it has almost 15,000 miles on it in Southern California. I did lots of 100% charges for the first year I had the car, and went to 80% charges most of the time a couple of months ago.

To me, your data adds support to the often stated opinion that time and temperature, and not charging behavior, are the biggest factors affecting battery life. Your car has been hotter than mine in its life, but its time on the road, its mileage and its charging history are very different from mine. Mine hasn't suffered as much from its miles and its charging history as yours has from living in Texas.

 

[JRP3]

Jack is a bit off the rails on this one. Nissan is addressing the issue so it's a bit early to say they aren't going to do the right thing, and the Tesla "bricking" issue really was all operator error, specifically warned against in the manual, and in a form that was signed at the time of purchase.

On the capacity issue, Nissan completely ignored it, then misleadingly claimed there were only five cases, and then pointed out that technically this wasn't a warranty issue. Only after the first TV reports started showing up did they do anything, and that something was to test the cars. You think this is responsive? Mark Perry made a big deal of giving interviews talking about 20% battery loss after eight years. What would be so hard about saying they'd stand by these representations?

I think at first Nissan thought it was a limited condition, and then as it turned out to be larger they responded by taking a few cars in for further testing. It may not have happened as quickly as we would have liked but I'm not surprised that things like this move slowly in a large company such as Nissan. Further, they have not yet found the cause or the solution, so more testing is warranted. Just swapping in a new pack in the same situation would probably lead to packs failing again in a year, which is no solution at all.

With respect to the Tesla, the claim that it was the customer's fault because they didn't read section 4.2.114 of the manual so reminds me of the first chapter in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Batteries should not be left fully discharged for long periods, it's not an exotic concept. If you run your ICE car out of oil, or water, you don't get a free engine.

 

[Nubo]

...
Batteries should not be left fully discharged for long periods, it's not an exotic concept. If you run your ICE car out of oil, or water, you don't get a free engine.

And Tesla knew full well this pedestrian concept and yet chose to design the car such that it would sacrifice its $40,000 battery pack in order to keep a $90 service battery charged. The analogy becomes an ICE with a calibrated leak in the oil pan.

 

[JRP3]

They tell you that the car must be plugged in when not in use. It's that simple. I agree the early design was not a good one but it was a known behavior with a simple solution, keep it plugged in.

 

[KJD]

I have some data that might be of interest to those of you who are really analyzing this battery capacity loss issue...

HISTORY: I purchased my Leaf "Used/Pre-Owned". It was originally purchased by Hertz as a fleet car, but apparently they didn't lease it out much, because when I bought it, it only had 89 miles on it. Hertz originally purchased the car Oct 2011, and then it was auctioned off to Toyota in May 2012 and I purchased it the end of June 2012. So I purchased a 9-10 month old Leaf with 89 miles on it. I have no knowledge about how the car was previously charged or what level of SOC it had while it sat in the various parking lots over it's 9 month life span. All I know is that it only had 89 miles on it when I purchased it.

My wild A** guess is that it was charged to 100% and then it sat out in the heat all this time. This would explain your capacity loss.

Do the 100% test again and do NOT turn on the CC. It is possible that the CC used more juice than the L1 charger was putting into the pack, so your test results are tainted.

 

[vrwl]

Why did u use CC for 20 minutes?
What is wrong with charging to 100% thdn checking GIDs?

Somewhere in this plethora of discussions about the battery capacity, I read several times that you should run the CC after charging to 100% and then let it recharge back up that last little bit to maximize the amount of juice the battery can store. So I did that to make sure I had a "full" reading. Don't even ask me to link to those discussions because I couldn't find them if I wanted to. I've read SO MUCH of this forum in the past month, I don't know where I read any of it at this point.

 

[vrwl]

My wild A** guess is that it was charged to 100% and then it sat out in the heat all this time. This would explain your capacity loss.

Do the 100% test again and do NOT turn on the CC. It is possible that the CC used more juice than the L1 charger was putting into the pack, so your test results are tainted.

I thought that might be true as well, but if Hertz bought the car in October, that means it sat outside in temps ranging from 85 or so down to lows maybe in the 20's over the winter. We had only had one month of summer by the time I purchased the car, and even then, maybe only a couple of weeks where it was 95+. So really, it hadn't yet experienced a lot of heat until I purchased it a month ago. October through April are the more pleasant, temperate months of the year around here.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Why did u use CC for 20 minutes?
What is wrong with charging to 100% thdn checking GIDs?

Somewhere in this plethora of discussions about the battery capacity, I read several times that you should run the CC after charging to 100% and then let it recharge back up that last little bit to maximize the amount of juice the battery can store. So I did that to make sure I had a "full" reading. Don't even ask me to link to those discussions because I couldn't find them if I wanted to. I've read SO MUCH of this forum in the past month, I don't know where I read any of it at this point.

ya ya, saw that...and people wonder why they get 4 stars for "starting a charge with a high SOC"...

i agree the information on this forum is all over the map.

"maxmizing" the amount of juice the battery can store is essentially overriding the BMS and that is what is causing the problems. if you want a true GID reading you are better off to charge to 100% at least 3-4 times within a short period of time like once a day for 4 days making sure you drive at least 30-40 miles each day if possible. after the charge is complete (u can get carwings notifications by txt if u want) let it sit 2 hours before checking GID. occasionally u might see a "balance" charge

go joyriding if you have to. at least the LEAF is fun to drive!

 

[Stanton]

I thought that might be true as well, but if Hertz bought the car in October, that means it sat outside in temps ranging from 85 or so down to lows maybe in the 20's over the winter. We had only had one month of summer by the time I purchased the car, and even then, maybe only a couple of weeks where it was 95+. So really, it hadn't yet experienced a lot of heat until I purchased it a month ago. October through April are the more pleasant, temperate months of the year around here.

I recognize your name since you're local to Dallas, so here's my take based on your car's uncertain history/past. You really haven't been able to take a GID reading in what I call a "cool" environment (<6TB), so all bets are off until we get through the summer here. In other words, you may have some capacity loss or you may not, but based on my car's behavior I think the BMS is doing something to limit charge capacity that no one really understands yet (although there's lots of data being collected). I wasn't able to take a GID reading before things started heating up here (borrowed a meter around May), but I'm anxious to get one in the Fall and see where I REALLY stand after a year.

While this may not make you feel any better, hopefully Nissan will be more forthcoming with what's going on in Arizona by the time we're able to see/measure how our cars did after their first summer. In the meantime, checkout my last blog post on this forum (link at top of page) to see what I'm doing regarding heat and charging.

 

[erdalc]

Hi everyone,

I do live in Houston, TX and I have been driving my leaf since its purchase on October 1, 2011. It has currently 8437 miles on it. It sat in my garage in June while I as out of country. I left it at 80% charge and when I returned I found it on 67 miles with 7 bars to drive. I charged it to 100% several times in July for the balance and I charged to 80% most of the times during my ownership. Last two days, I notice that it charges to 9 bars out of 12 even though the charger is set to 80%. The timer is programmed to start at 12:00am and to end at 7:00am. Do you think this is a sign of battery loss? Please advise. By the way, I love my leaf much.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Hi everyone,

I do live in Houston, TX and I have been driving my leaf since its purchase on October 1, 2011. It has currently 8437 miles on it. It sat in my garage in June while I as out of country. I left it at 80% charge and when I returned I found it on 67 miles with 7 bars to drive. I charged it to 100% several times in July for the balance and I charged to 80% most of the times during my ownership. Last two days, I notice that it charges to 9 bars out of 12 even though the charger is set to 80%. The timer is programmed to start at 12:00am and to end at 7:00am. Do you think this is a sign of battery loss? Please advise. By the way, I love my leaf much.

its possible. how many miles do you typically drive daily?

if less than 40, i would set your end timer to something like 4 or 5 AM. this gives the car time to cool after charging. charging to 80% in most cases can probably be done in 3-4 hours at most anyway.

perhaps a better option would be to start at 2 am and run till 6 am. you need to judge that. if starting a charge at 7 TBs, that is not something i recommend you do on a regular basis.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Last two days, I notice that it charges to 9 bars out of 12 even though the charger is set to 80%. The timer is programmed to start at 12:00am and to end at 7:00am. Do you think this is a sign of battery loss? Please advise. By the way, I love my leaf much.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=216477#p216477" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[SanDust]

They tell you that the car must be plugged in when not in use. It's that simple. I agree the early design was not a good one but it was a known behavior with a simple solution, keep it plugged in.

I think you're completely missing the point. It's new technology. Many buyers won't understand it. When they don't and something bad happens your choice, as the manufacturer of this new technology, is to either stand behind the product or tell them its their problem and to pound sand. Which choice will result in more future customers?

I'm amazed at how many people would consider a Tesla after the way they treated their Roadster customers. Not only with respect to the bricked cars, which is what the video is talking about, but also how they raised the price at delivery after their customers had put down a sizable deposit and then waited for their car for at least a year.

Nissan hasn't sunk this low, but the way they're responding to the lost battery capacity isn't making me feel warm and fuzzy. This is really stupid on their part because they're putting at risk a car that cost them billions of dollars to develop, all over a problem that effects a hundred cars.

 

[TonyWilliams]

all over a problem that effects a hundred cars.

The problem affects every car. It's just not apparent until baked for a few months to a year.