Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[jspearman]

I think all of us who have lost a bar should actually meet each other at a real bar. Those with only one bar have to buy the two-bar losers a drink. The three bar loser gets a beer and $20 of Blink credit, since you'll be needing it.

What about RickS? Can he come, too, even though his bar is back?

Rick gets a beer from the Magic Hat Brewing Company.

 

[Stoaty]

It's official. We now have a member of the 9-bar club in Phoenix. Our car wasn't the one to lose the 3rd bar (yet). I'll post more later, when I've caught up on the last several days of posting in this thread...

That would be a 27.5% loss of capacity, or 72.5% of battery pack capacity remaining. My question: how is that pack going to retain 80% of capacity after 5 years? :twisted:

 

[EdmondLeaf]

I think all of us who have lost a bar should actually meet each other at a real bar. Those with only one bar have to buy the two-bar losers a drink. The three bar loser gets a beer and $20 of Blink credit, since you'll be needing it.

What about RickS? Can he come, too, even though his bar is back?

Rick gets a beer from the Magic Hat Brewing Company.

jspearman is this for real or frustration?

 

[vrwl]

Dennis, I can't find your comments on Nissan Leaf FB, which video you mostly commented?

EdmondLeaf, find the Nissan Leaf Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/nissanleaf?ref=ts. Then look for the entry dated June 27 which says "Nissan North America's Director of EV Marketing, Brendan Jones, sat down with The Balancing Act to talk about the Nissan LEAF. For our LEAF fans that are not LEAF Owners, what questions do you have about the Nissan LEAF?" (with a video attached). Then look for the comments from Dennis.

 

[EdmondLeaf]

Dennis, I can't find your comments on Nissan Leaf FB, which video you mostly commented?

EdmondLeaf, find the Nissan Leaf Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/nissanleaf?ref=ts. Then look for the entry dated June 27 which says "Nissan North America's Director of EV Marketing, Brendan Jones, sat down with The Balancing Act to talk about the Nissan LEAF. For our LEAF fans that are not LEAF Owners, what questions do you have about the Nissan LEAF?" (with a video attached). Then look for the comments from Dennis.

I am FB challenged, I can't find that video anymore there, if is still there can you point me in which place it is?

 

[vrwl]

Dennis, I can't find your comments on Nissan Leaf FB, which video you mostly commented?

EdmondLeaf, find the Nissan Leaf Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/nissanleaf?ref=ts. Then look for the entry dated June 27 which says "Nissan North America's Director of EV Marketing, Brendan Jones, sat down with The Balancing Act to talk about the Nissan LEAF. For our LEAF fans that are not LEAF Owners, what questions do you have about the Nissan LEAF?" (with a video attached). Then look for the comments from Dennis.

I am FB challenged, I can't find that video anymore there, if is still there can you point me in which place it is?

That's pretty much what I did... go to the link in my post. Scroll down that page until you see a post (white box) on the left half of the screen with the date June 27 listed right under the words Nissan Leaf on the left. Once you find that post, click on the link sort of halfway down the box which says View all 26 comments. Find the comments from Dennis in there. I can't explain it any better than that, sorry.

 

[jspearman]

jspearman is this for real or frustration?

It was a joke, but you know, I think it might be a good idea for us all to meet and compare notes, or just vent, if anyone is interested. I've been reluctant to share any details about our charging/driving habits on this forum, since what goes on the web, stays on the web, but I would be happy to talk freely with other drivers.

 

[surfingslovak]

That's pretty much what I did... go to the link in my post. Scroll down that page until you see a post (white box) on the left half of the screen with the date June 27 listed right under the words Nissan Leaf on the left. Once you find that post, click on the link sort of halfway down the box which says View all 26 comments. Find the comments from Dennis in there. I can't explain it any better than that, sorry.

Here you go: http://on.fb.me/fbleafthread

 

[vrwl]

That's pretty much what I did... go to the link in my post. Scroll down that page until you see a post (white box) on the left half of the screen with the date June 27 listed right under the words Nissan Leaf on the left. Once you find that post, click on the link sort of halfway down the box which says View all 26 comments. Find the comments from Dennis in there. I can't explain it any better than that, sorry.

Here you go: http://on.fb.me/fbleafthread

Ahh, nice. Thanks for the help

 

[EdmondLeaf]

That's pretty much what I did... go to the link in my post. Scroll down that page until you see a post (white box) on the left half of the screen with the date June 27 listed right under the words Nissan Leaf on the left. Once you find that post, click on the link sort of halfway down the box which says View all 26 comments. Find the comments from Dennis in there. I can't explain it any better than that, sorry.

Here you go: http://on.fb.me/fbleafthread

Ahh, nice. Thanks for the help

You learn something everyday, Thank you

 

[surfingslovak]

Ahh, nice. Thanks for the help

You learn something everyday, Thank you

Welcome! Facebook is a bit weird, but you can usually get a functioning permalink to anything by clicking on the date and time stamp:

 

[opossum]

I have added a date in red which shows when these cars would lose their third bar assuming it takes exactly the same number of days it took to lose the second one.

As a point of reference, our fellow Phoenician who just dropped a 3rd bar today is losing bars faster and faster, both in terms of miles and calendar days. It was about 3,800 miles between losing the 1st bar and losing the 2nd bar, then just 2,100 miles to lose the 3rd bar. Sorry, I don't have any pictures or details on the calendar gaps, and I'm not going to push the issue, as it's not my car.

I am completely Ok that I won't be able to use Leaf for about 4 mo a year during hot weather but we need info from Nissan to guide us how to protect our battery.

That sort of flexibility must be nice! Many of us didn't drop this much cash on a car, only to be reduced to driving it for 1/2 or 2/3 of the year. If that is going to be a proposed "solution," to the capacity loss issue, there are going to be quite a few unhappy folks out here in the desert.

George, someone needs to write a letter, open or otherwise, to the head of Nissan North America if not Carlos Ghosn himself.

My wife and I talked about doing a corporate carpet bomb of all the publicly available Nissan email addresses. Without getting into detail, let's just say we have opted for more professional and potentially productive methods of getting a resolution.

For someone in AZ who has paid $35K for a car that is practically useless in three years, would you term that 'unfortunate' ?

Bingo. Some of us were 'sold' on very promising statements from Nissan and dropped a lot of coin on a car that is very quickly becoming useless to a large number of us. The Valley of the Sun is a huge metropolitan area. Phoenix alone is over 500 square miles, with lots of high-speed freeways. A car with 50 miles of real world range (and dropping) will soon become rather useless to those of us who commute to work and play.

As they put rah-rah posts about the Leaf on the Leaf Facebook page I have been adding comments about the loss of cap bars in Arizona.

Ha! I did the same on a few posts! This was my favorite response:
"Trivia: What recent record did the Nissan LEAF break at the Goodwood Festival of Speed?"
"Fastest electric vehicle to lose 30% of its battery capacity?"

 

[EdmondLeaf]

I am completely Ok that I won't be able to use Leaf for about 4 mo a year during hot weather but we need info from Nissan to guide us how to protect our battery.

That sort of flexibility must be nice! Many of us didn't drop this much cash on a car, only to be reduced to driving it for 1/2 or 2/3 of the year. If that is going to be a proposed "solution," to the capacity loss issue, there are going to be quite a few unhappy folks out here in the desert.

To be completely clear I am very unhappy that I can't drive Leaf now, yes is my choice, but as far as I know high temp is a reason for high rate of battery degradation. My commute is 65 highway so if I continue to use during 100F+ days I maybe out of needed range in near future. It is not a solution for mass produced car, but we already see effect of temp here. My car that was never driven during hot day have higher capacity than car that have 1/5 of mileage and age but is driven everyday here. Again my intention was to use Leaf everyday and unhappy thst I am not using it. My experiment is only this summer.

 

[jspearman]

"Trivia: What recent record did the Nissan LEAF break at the Goodwood Festival of Speed?"
"Fastest electric vehicle to lose 30% of its battery capacity?"

That is incredibly funny. I'm sorry I missed that one, but I will go and like it now.

 

[SanDust]

I believe it has been speculated in these forums that the reason for the difference between battery capacity according to the battery manufacturer's specs of approx 24 kWh, and the observed capacity (both via usage meter on in-home EVSE, as well as via derivation from observed mileage and energy economy data) of approx 21.x kWh is so that when the battery's overall capacity declines, Nissan can tap into that difference as restore the "available and useable" capacity. If that is the case, then it's indeed just a simple matter of adjusting a value somewhere in the car's firmware/software.

You can't use 100% of the battery or you'll kill it. 21/24 kWh is 87% which is quite high. I think the Volt uses 10/16 or 62%. The standard would be 80%. Nissan can't use "excess" battery capacity as time goes on because there isn't any excess capacity to begin with.

 

[RegGuheert]

I have added a date in red which shows when these cars would lose their third bar assuming it takes exactly the same number of days it took to lose the second one.

As a point of reference, our fellow Phoenician who just dropped a 3rd bar today is losing bars faster and faster, both in terms of miles and calendar days. It was about 3,800 miles between losing the 1st bar and losing the 2nd bar, then just 2,100 miles to lose the 3rd bar. Sorry, I don't have any pictures or details on the calendar gaps, and I'm not going to push the issue, as it's not my car.

Thanks for the details. While this certainly does not look good, I'm going to reserve judgement on this topic for a little while longer until some of the cars on the list I made lose their third bar. The reason is that this car is losing the third bar so early that much of the loss of the second bar must have been in cooler weather. It will be interesting to see a comparison of the loss of the second and third (and fourth) bars at similar temperatures.

One thing I will note is that after the third bar goes, there is almost nothing left to help us predict what might happen. Why? Because battery researchers do not do much testing beyond 30% capacity loss.

 

[KJD]

As a point of reference, our fellow Phoenician who just dropped a 3rd bar today is losing bars faster and faster, both in terms of miles and calendar days. It was about 3,800 miles between losing the 1st bar and losing the 2nd bar, then just 2,100 miles to lose the 3rd bar. Sorry, I don't have any pictures or details on the calendar gaps, and I'm not going to push the issue, as it's not my car.

Time to take this car to the Nissan Dealer for the battery checkup. Does it still show 5 stars in all categories?

 

[TomT]

The battery report, at least in terms of what we as the owner get to see, is essentially worthless.

Time to take this car to the Nissan Dealer for the battery checkup. Does it still show 5 stars in all categories?

 

[KJD]

The battery report, at least in terms of what we as the owner get to see, is essentially worthless.

Time to take this car to the Nissan Dealer for the battery checkup. Does it still show 5 stars in all categories?

That is exactly the point here. If they have 5 stars in all categories and 3 bars lost in XXX many miles then there is something wrong with the report.

The 2nd issue is that a more detailed report will be sent to Nissan corp. and if they get enough of these detailed reports showing large losses, maybe, just maybe they will see the pattern and do something about it.

 

[ecoobsessive]

Mine goes in on Wednesday to officially start jumping through hoops. :roll:

Rick, if you don't mind and I'm understanding correctly, you had already had the 1 year battery check in May and then took the car back to the dealer because of the lost capacity bar problem in July. So they "fixed" the lost capacity bar problem without much explanation to you? And they didn't say whether or not you could expect more range?