Latincanuck said:
I bought a used 2015 Leaf 3 weeks ago and because of the Canadian winter I'm trying to find a good way of heating the car every morning (before leaving home) without wasting my battery charge. Last night I left the charger plugged in and the battery was charged by 3 am.
This morning at 7 am I turned on the climate control for 15 min before leaving home, hoping the energy will come from the power grid. I was surprised when i get in the car and found the CC sucked 8% of the battery and never used the power grid.
What did I do wrong?? I thought the car will sense the battery charge was dropping with the CC on and charging will restart automatically.
Do you charge to 80% or 100%?
If 80%, then start charging like 30 minutes before departure and preheating 15 minutes before departure.
If 100%, then it's likely hard to prevent battery drainage. Though start charging and start preheating.
It's important to have at least the most powerful grid connection. 110V is definitely not enough. Forget it.
16A 230V connection is minimum (maximum rating for standard charger).
Depending on how cold it is, heater might draw more than grid can provide. During that time,
as less can be taken from the grid, some will be taken from the battery. Soon after, if "start charging" command
has also been given, battery should recharge again. But from 95% to 100% it takes a LOT of time, like an hour.
Also try to set lower preheating temperature. This should slow down preheating process and might help with battery drainage
problem if grid/onboard charger can't give enough. Even though Nissan does limit heater to 3000W, I've noticed that charger
can't hold battery at maximum voltage when heater is drawing power. And some juice "leaks" from battery to heater.