Dumb**s alert: am I the first to drain it??

[Jimmydreams]

I had no systems on. No radio, no lights, no fan, no heater. So again: I had nothing on other than the car itself. Temperature is 60 today so nothing needed to be comfortable.

This is the part that tells me something is wrong. Your radio doesn't use the HV battery, IIRC....so why would your 12 volt battery suddenly die??

Something smells fishy....

 

[evnow]

This is the part that tells me something is wrong. Your radio doesn't use the HV battery, IIRC....so why would your 12 volt battery suddenly die??

He just means that the radio etc had been turned off to conserve energy.

 

[gudy]

I think I concur....something not quite right. You should be able to drop from double digits to single digits without the car packing in, especially if you are off the freeway and driving at city street speeds by then.

If you'd pulled the emergency disconnect from the pack, I wonder if that might have forced the car into a reboot?

mwalsh, where is this emergency disconnect ?

 

[Jimmydreams]

This is the part that tells me something is wrong. Your radio doesn't use the HV battery, IIRC....so why would your 12 volt battery suddenly die??

He just means that the radio etc had been turned off to conserve energy.

Ooops...reading comprehension error!!

 

[evnow]

mwalsh, where is this emergency disconnect ?

Middle of rear seat foot area.

 

[Stoaty]

While the car definitely shouldn't go from 17 to turtle to dead that fast, I think the real problem is assuming you can drive 88 miles at 63-64 MPH. You might be lucky to make the 88 miles at 55 MPH. Knowing the likely range of the battery for a given charge and driving style/speed is far better than looking at a made-up number dependent on your recent driving history.

 

[smkettner]

My thought is a group of cells were out of balance. So in total there was 17 miles but the computer shut it down as a single group of cells was in danger of going below spec or being charged in reverse. Charging should fix that AFAIK.

 

[KeiJidosha]

I had no systems on. No radio, no lights, no fan, no heater. So again: I had nothing on other than the car itself. Temperature is 60 today so nothing needed to be comfortable.

My point in posting was to say that hey it is possible to drain it even if youthink you have it under control.

San Diego has some hills. Were you climbing in the last ~5 miles? I agree it seemed like you had a decent margin based on the display. Thanks for posting. Interested to hear any explanation from Nissan.

 

[DaveEV]

While the car definitely shouldn't go from 17 to turtle to dead that fast, I think the real problem is assuming you can drive 88 miles at 63-64 MPH. You might be lucky to make the 88 miles at 55 MPH.

At 64 mph in ideal conditions you'd be just barely make it - or not.

At 55 mph 88 miles is no problem in good conditions.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

Not being able to turn the car Off is a big clue -- it ain't right.
That, combined with the rapid drop from 17 to zero miles tells me the dealer needs to get their computer techs on it.

It does raise the interesting question, though -- how do you cold boot the thing? Yanking the Big Plug (battery disconnect) seems a bit heavy-handed, and wouldn't necessarily reboot the 12v systems anyway.

There should be a three-finger Ctrl-Alt-Del reboot process somewhere.. anyone spot one in the Service Manual?

 

[Kelangst]

There are 2 ways you are supposed to be able to shut it off under normal circumstances- push the starter button 3 times in succession, or if that doesn't work hold the starter button down for 2-5 seconds. Neither worked. The dealer wasn't able to get it to turn off either as of the time I left.

I am realizing how specific I need to be when posting on the site or people misunderstand. While I mentioned I generally go 60-63 on the highway, this is San Diego at 3:45 in the afternoon. From the I-805 merge up past Encinitas I was doing between 18-35 on the highway. This is about 10-12 miles of the trip. I took it to 63 for about 8 miles before i saw it hit the 17 miles left and started slowing down just in case.

I was on city streets in San Diego for a good portion of the trip today. More than 1/2 of the trip this morning southbound was at 20 mph with traffic. I also didn't mention that I stopped at a Nissan Dealer in San Diego to charge for an hour before heading north.

My average is 4.1 - 4.3 on driving. So I don't typically drive 88 miles at 63 mph. I typically drive no more than 45 miles during the day on city streets.

I will be out of town for the next week, so I told the dealer to keep the car and put it through tests while I am gone. I will post if I hear anything. But have a sinking feeling the title of my post is correct... Dumb**s.

 

[DaveEV]

Sounds like a real problem with the car - not you. What dealer did you take the car to, Mossy Oceanside?

 

[mwalsh]

Yanking the Big Plug (battery disconnect) seems a bit heavy-handed, and wouldn't necessarily reboot the 12v systems anyway.

I think it might if the 12v battery was depleted. And if it didn't, it would at least shut the car off.

 

[palmermd]

My thought is a group of cells were out of balance. So in total there was 17 miles but the computer shut it down as a single group of cells was in danger of going below spec or being charged in reverse. Charging should fix that AFAIK.

I think you are on the right track, but if one of the cells had less capacity and it triggered the shutdown, then charging will not give it more capacity, Nissan will have to remove the module with the faulty/low capacity cell and he will be back on his way.

 

[mwalsh]

I think you are on the right track, but if one of the cells had less capacity and it triggered the shutdown, then charging will not give it more capacity, Nissan will have to remove the module with the faulty/low capacity cell and he will be back on his way.

But charging should re-balance cells, maybe bringing the low one(s) within tolerances again.

 

[DeaneG]

Sounds like one cell went bad. At the least, in macro terms, the battery didn't behave the way the computer expected it to.

 

[malloryk]

so sorry this happened to you, kelangst. Doesn't sound like it was your fault at all, something is definitely amiss with the car. I hope they figure out the problem and fix it!

 

[palmermd]

I think you are on the right track, but if one of the cells had less capacity and it triggered the shutdown, then charging will not give it more capacity, Nissan will have to remove the module with the faulty/low capacity cell and he will be back on his way.

But charging should re-balance cells, maybe bringing the low one(s) within tolerances again.

I'm not referring to an out of balance situation, but rather a cell that has less capacity than the others. If the cells are balanced when charging, then if you have one cell with less capacity, the car thinks it can go 100 miles and then at 94 miles...the car just stops because one cell had only 94% of the capacity of all the others. Car can only go as far as the weakest cell.

 

[TomT]

If this is in fact the case, I suspect that data will have been logged that will easily allow Nissan to find and replace the culprit. It does sound like the most likely scenario.

I'm not referring to an out of balance situation, but rather a cell that has less capacity than the others. If the cells are balanced when charging, then if you have one cell with less capacity, the car thinks it can go 100 miles and then at 94 miles...the car just stops because one cell had only 94% of the capacity of all the others. Car can only go as far as the weakest cell.

 

[garygid]

Normally, it would be easy for the dealer to extract the individual cell-voltage values, which should tell a lot. If the battery pack is the cause, least one cell-pair must have a low voltage. Of course, there needs to be enough CAN buss function still active to be able to get the data.

A Black Box function, writing debud and status data to a high-capacity SD card would give readable diagnostic data even if the car's systems were no longer operative. Perhaps 10 minutes of each-second data, 10 hours of each-minute data, and 30 days of each-hour data would be helpful.

Computer unresponsive: needed to disconnect 12v to reboot.
Sudden loss of apparent remaining range: cause & fix unknown
Cannot turn car Off: cause & fix unknown

These could all be signs of software, firmware, or OS "confusion", which could be difficult to reproduce, but might be "cured" (for now) with a full reboot.