Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[surfingslovak]

Apparently "very soon" means next Tuesday.

OK TickTock, I'll bite. Did they say they would be releasing information on Tuesday?

I'm thinking he meant something more like: I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

We talked to Nissan’s General Manager of Global Communications, Jeff Kuhlman, in Yokohama. Kuhlman praises the affected owners who “are very knowledgeable, some are engineers themselves.”

He denies that Nissan has come to a conclusion on the matter: “We cannot give you a final analysis, because there simply is none available yet.” Seven affected Leafs were inspected by Nissan , and subsequently returned to their customers. Nissan did a full data download on all units.

“The data are with our technical team in Yokohama, and they are still analyzing them,” says Kuhlman. “Once they have finished their analysis, the owners will be contacted first, and we will discuss with them what needs to be done.”

Kuhlman expects the verdict to be available “within days.”

Click to open

 

[dsh]

Thanks Tick Tock,

Like the new link to opossum's News Interview on CBS Channel 5 KPHO-Phoenix, AZ with Anchor, Heather Moore." It shows the full video + ending.

Nice!

love the comment:

"They said it means "very soon"" - remember the Second Coming of Jesus is prophesied as being "very soon" also!

http://www.kpho.com/story/19591243/...mpany-after-dramatic-loss-of-battery-capacity

Apparently "very soon" means next Tuesday.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Kuhlman praises the affected owners who “are very knowledgeable, some are engineers themselves.”... Kuhlman expects the verdict to be available “within days.”

I guess we can wait until then before organizing a "LEAF march" on the Arizona state Attorney General's Office, and picketing dealers.

 

[surfingslovak]

I guess we can wait until then before organizing a "LEAF march" on the Arizona state Attorney General's Office, and picketing dealers.

:lol:

As frustrating as the last two months might have been for the affected owners and the rest of us, there are some encouraging signs now. Based on the traffic I observed on both threads, and what I've heard this week, I believe that the test has helped. Even if it was to some extent unintentional. I wouldn't expect them handing out any medals just yet though. I'm sorry that you were removed you from our Facebook group, not once, but apparently twice. Several of us think that was uncalled for, and will deal with it. OE won't be at the event.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I guess we can wait until then before organizing a "LEAF march" on the Arizona state Attorney General's Office, and picketing dealers.

:lol:

As frustrating as the last two months might have been for the affected owners and the rest of us, there are some encouraging signs now. Based on the traffic I observed on both threads, and what I've heard this week, I believe that the test has helped. Even if it was to some extent unintentional. I wouldn't expect them handing out any medals just yet though.

Yes, I feel like if anything will change Nissan's direction, it will be now. I'm sure whatever they do, theyll be slapping themselves on the back !!!

I'm sorry that you were removed you from our Facebook group, not once, but apparently twice. Several of us think that was uncalled for, and will deal with it. OE won't be at the event.

What a nut job. I didn't even know that was done, and it seems like the guy is in melt-down mode. I will post here what I've posted elsewhere; should I find that OE has crossed the line into liable and/or slander directed at me, or those good people who are trying to make the LEAF and EVs the best they can be, I absolutely promise I will light up his small, sorry world.

I don't say that to puff my chest, but to help him to help himself. Stop the madness before a line is crossed that will personally cost him. I hope he gets the help he needs.

 

[mark1313]

It should be interesting to see if battery capacity bar loss slow downs over the next couple of months based on what we have learned here and if we follow it..
Some things i can not do to help the battery life doing the summer ,stay away from extreme heat while driving,parking on a very hot parking lot for extended time @ work,charging in a very hot garage,I do not think the temps. ever go below 90 doing the summer,only 80% charges,thats impossible..

I hope Nissan is learning a lot about their Leafs from us as test subjects....Im having a hard time believing they put much testing into the Leaf in hot weather cities before sending it out for mass production...

One thing I did do different this summer was drive with-out the AC on doing my long drives to work and back,I still saw heat levels of 7 bars but wish I could of seen the actual battery temp. numbers doing the day with both the AC on and off...

Just so Nissan knows the Leaf will no longer be driven in extreme heat,it will be replaced with a well tested Prius..I owned a Prius for 5 years and a 100k miles with no problems before buying my untested Leaf..Thank You Toyota for giving me a car I could depend on..

 

[RegGuheert]

We talked to Nissan’s General Manager of Global Communications, Jeff Kuhlman, in Yokohama. Kuhlman praises the affected owners who “are very knowledgeable, some are engineers themselves.”

He denies that Nissan has come to a conclusion on the matter: “We cannot give you a final analysis, because there simply is none available yet.” Seven affected Leafs were inspected by Nissan , and subsequently returned to their customers. Nissan did a full data download on all units.

“The data are with our technical team in Yokohama, and they are still analyzing them,” says Kuhlman. “Once they have finished their analysis, the owners will be contacted first, and we will discuss with them what needs to be done.”

Kuhlman expects the verdict to be available “within days.”

Click to open

In the meantime, Nissan has given no consideration to Scott Yarosh, who, if I am not mistaken, provided one of these cars for the test.

From comments Tony has made after the range test it appears that one of the vehicles turtled at 350V. If that was Scott's car (it may not have been, since I don't have the data), then it is very likely that one or more cells was failing to the point where Nissan should have replaced it under warranty. But they didn't do anything for Scott including even providing him with any information about the condition of the battery.

Instead of paying Scott to get his car back so that they could study it, they made him pay to get out of his lease. To me, this is extremely poor customer relations. I wonder if they will ever release any information about the condition of the battery in Scott's LEAF.

 

[TickTock]

love the comment:
http://www.kpho.com/story/19591243/...mpany-after-dramatic-loss-of-battery-capacity

Apparently "very soon" means next Tuesday.

OK TickTock, I'll bite. Did they say they would be releasing information on Tuesday?

I was called yesterday to set up an appointment to go over what they found during the investigation at Casa Grande. Said they would have some "technical people" there should I have any questions. I would be very surprised if I get to talk to actual engineers (in fact, the probability of that is vanishingly small), but any information is welcome at this point.

 

[Herm]

Instead of paying Scott to get his car back so that they could study it, they made him pay to get out of his lease. To me, this is extremely poor customer relations.

Do we know if it was a nominal charge or substantial?

 

[RegGuheert]

Do we know if it was a nominal charge or substantial?

All I have to go on is this:

From talking to surfingslovak, ScottY returned his 4-bar loser leased Leaf early and they made him pay all the penalties associated w/doing so.

But does it really matter how much it was? Not to me it doesn't! To my knowledge the ONLY reason Scott broke his lease on the LEAF was because it did not come anywhere close to the public claims that Nissan made for the car and as a result would not even meet his needs for the lease period. Why should Nissan expect Scott or anyone else to pay for their mistakes or misstatements? Particularly since he has been working with them and even shared the car with them for WEEKS for them to play with. They really need to take some real responsibility in this situation.

And they are still out there selling LEAFs in AZ as if there is no problem.

 

[ewodraska]

You can add me to the one bar loss list, as of today.

Date: 9/21/12
Location: Tucson, AZ
VIN: 01742
Miles: 13146
Purchased May 2011
Nissan Case number: 949-1706
Manuf. date: 3/11

I saw my first 9 bar 80% charge on June 25th.
I haven't had a battery temp. below six bars since mid April.
I only saw 7 temp. bars this summer a few times. I can park in the shade of a tree at work, but have to move it as the sun moves.
Charges outside in my carport.
Charge to 100% maybe twice a month, the rest of the time charge to 80%. I did try to baby my battery this summer by keeping the max SOC to 7 bars.
5 stars on my yearly battery check.
Life time average of 5.0 mile/kWh

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

You can add me to the one bar loss list, as of today.

Date: 9/21/12
Location: Tucson, AZ
VIN: 01742
Miles: 13146
Purchased May 2011
Nissan Case number: 949-1706

I saw my first 9 bar 80% charge on June 25th.
I haven't had a battery temp. below six bars since mid April.
I only saw 7 temp. bars this summer a few times. I can park in the shade of a tree at work, but have to move it as the sun moves.
Charges outside in my carport.
Charge to 100% maybe twice a month, the rest of the time charge to 80%. I did try to baby my battery this summer by keeping the max SOC to 7 bars.
5 stars on my yearly battery check.
Life time average of 5.0 mile/kWh

wondering if this is a factor in your being a bit late to the party

 

[Weatherman]

Charges outside in my carport.

wondering if this is a factor in your being a bit late to the party

And, probably, this one, too:

"keeping the max SOC to 7 bars"

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Charges outside in my carport.

wondering if this is a factor in your being a bit late to the party

And, probably, this one, too:

"keeping the max SOC to 7 bars"

dont know about that. imm; 7 bars is pretty much guaranteed degradation. in fact, i think the upper end of 6 bars is when temporary degradation is happening.

what i wont conjecture on is how much, if any of that temporary loss will become permanent

 

[RegGuheert]

Charges outside in my carport.

wondering if this is a factor in your being a bit late to the party

And, probably, this one, too:

"keeping the max SOC to 7 bars"

dont know about that. imm; 7 bars is pretty much guaranteed degradation. in fact, i think the upper end of 6 bars is when temporary degradation is happening.

what i wont conjecture on is how much, if any of that temporary loss will become permanent

SOC, not temp.

 

[turbo2ltr]

I did another GID reading today as I've been noticing some odd "first bar" behavior. I have been noticing that it seems my range has increased a bit lately, and I assumed due to the cooler weather we've been having.. This is simply seat of the pants feeling. NOdata to back it up,

My drive yesterday yielded me just about 8 miles per SOC bar, except the first one which disappeared after exactly 1mile. (I attribute this to me topping off the battery at the office because if I don't the trip is usually hard to make) I did a drive yesterday that during the summer I would get pretty low but this time I still had 5 bars left after 46 miles of driving (1/2 highway at 60mph).

Anyway here is my GID history for 100% charge
New: 281
5/2012: 228
6/30: 213
7/22: 215
9/21: 213

That's a pretty significant leveling off that I'm happy to see. Though I think next summer will be bad.

 

[mwalsh]

From comments Tony has made after the range test it appears that one of the vehicles turtled at 350V.

What is the battery voltage supposed to be a Turtle in a good pack? And for that matter, does the same data exist for VLBW and LBW?

FWIW, mine was at 359v at LBW last night.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

SOC, not temp.

temp not SOC...

 

[RegGuheert]

SOC, not temp.

temp not SOC...

Yes, you are talking about temp while those you are quoting are discussing 7 SOC bars.

 

[Weatherman]

Full quote:

"Charge to 100% maybe twice a month, the rest of the time charge to 80%. I did try to baby my battery this summer by keeping the max SOC to 7 bars."


Meaning the charge to 80% is interrupted at 7 bars, rather than left to go to 10 (if I'm interpreting the sentence properly).

I do the same thing. Set the timer to 80% and pull the plug when the charge level is at 8 bars. It allows me to keep the average SOC about 4 bars across the entire 24-hour day, and, since I use just-in-time charging, the SOC is only above 6 bars for a couple of hours each day. About half the day, the SOC on my battery is only 2 or 3 bars.