New Blog: LEAF Battery / Range Issues

[tomguy]

Hi, after many attempts to have Nissan figure out the issues with my LEAF and their reluctance to do anything to solve it, I've decided to start a blog to record findings and keep track of daily drives with my 2011 Nissan Leaf.

I've had this vehicle for about 18 months with almost 23,000 miles. I've taken the vehicle in to Nissan at least 3 times already and each time diagnosing the battery/range issues. The last time I took it into the dealer, they did something to the software and I've lost one battery bar. The dealer told me this was normal and my battery was in "good" condition, whatever that means.

With a lost in one battery bar, I'm seeing my max range of only about 75 miles for a commute with no AC, ECO mode, and over 4.5 efficiency. I've actually driving my car completely down to turtle mode and died. The LEAF got 73 miles total for that trip. It gave me a low battery indication when I drove about 60 miles with 8 miles remaining. After it showed 0 miles, I was able to drive for about 5 miles. After the turtle appeared, the car would drive less than 1/2 mile and the car completely died.

My average range on the car now is about 60 miles with AC and around 4.4 miles/kwh efficiency. Before all of these battery issues, I could easily drive 80+ miles with the AC on and with that efficiency.

So check out my blog as I will try to update the blog as much as I can.

Thanks

http://leafbugs.blogspot.com

 

[Stanton]

From your MNL post count, I'm assuming you're fairly new to the forum.
From you BLOG post count, it seems like you've only had problems the last month or so.
To give readers some perspective, it would be nice to know more about the history of the car: how/when you charge, driving habits (like >60 mph), etc...and where you live.

 

[gaswalla]

my condolences.

I hope you've given your info to be added to the list of LEAF's affected by battery issues - http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

nice blog - unfortunately for everyone, there are a bunch of similar blogs with the same topic and same descriptions.

 

[thankyouOB]

it would be nice to know more about the history of the car: how/when you charge, driving habits (like >60 mph), etc...and where you live.

+1 - if you want this to be clear and effective.

 

[LEAFer]

@tomguy: I read your entire blog. Sorry about your 1-bar capacity loss. My intent is to HELP (not criticize).

The Sep 25 entry regarding the Sunday Sep 23 event is troubling (South Coast Plaza return trip, "sudden loss" of range bars).

However, your description about the "turtle event" in the OP above does not match up ... it APPEARS you are talking about a turtle event in the past without the needed data (conditions & efficiency THAT day, etc) to completely analyze it.

Your latest blog entry (today, driving 18 miles to work) again is not "troublesome".

The reason why I am ambivalent so far, is that you are using the GOM (DTE = Distance To Empty) estimates in almost every reference to "trouble", and we already KNOW the GOM is CRAP

So ... please (if you can remember) give us more info about the Turtle Event. The Sep 23 event needs more study, and comment from others.

Your dealer visits have -- unfortunately but not surprisingly -- been a waste of time. And their software "resets" have caused reserve capacity to "slip" into the bottom end of SOC. This is part of everyone's complaint with how Nissan has "re-calibrated" the GOM (and is rather impractical or worse). But there actually are more miles at the bottom end now which are being obscured by the GOM. A real range test is in order, similar to the one performed in Phoenix.

After the Range Test, please record the energy (kWh) needed to get back to full (100%) ... reference your 13-15kWh estimate to full from 1-2 bars remaining. If you can, borrow a GID meter from someone in your area. And as already requested by others, please tell us more about your charging habits. For example, have you let your battery balance recently ?

 

[tomguy]

From your MNL post count, I'm assuming you're fairly new to the forum.
From you BLOG post count, it seems like you've only had problems the last month or so.
To give readers some perspective, it would be nice to know more about the history of the car: how/when you charge, driving habits (like >60 mph), etc...and where you live.

I've been looking on this forum since even before I purchased the vehicle back in April 2011. I just haven't been very active since my car was running perfectly.

As for the blog, this is a new blog that I'm putting up, but this problem started at least 3-4 months back. I've began by documenting all the range indicator and also the electrical meter from my house. I have a separate meter to charge the leaf, so I know exactly how much is going to the car. I've taken the LEAF to the dealer and presented all the facts I had on paper documenting everything. My meter would use up around 10-12 kwh but my car would show almost empty already. But like someone else here said, the distance to empty is misleading and that's what I tried the experiment with the turtle mode.

My incident at South Coast was not the Turtle mode incident. That was a separate event. The turtle mode incident was the only time I ever go the car down to turtle mode and had to get the car towed back to my house. I wanted to see the actual range of the car and also the amount of charge it would take. After going to turtle mode and completely dying, the car was able to take 22-23 kwh.

 

[tomguy]

it would be nice to know more about the history of the car: how/when you charge, driving habits (like >60 mph), etc...and where you live.

+1 - if you want this to be clear and effective.

Yes I will definitely put more information on that. I just started this blog and haven't had time to put up all the information.

Thanks

 

[tomguy]

@tomguy: I read your entire blog. Sorry about your 1-bar capacity loss. My intent is to HELP (not criticize).

The Sep 25 entry regarding the Sunday Sep 23 event is troubling (South Coast Plaza return trip, "sudden loss" of range bars).

However, your description about the "turtle event" in the OP above does not match up ... it APPEARS you are talking about a turtle event in the past without the needed data (conditions & efficiency THAT day, etc) to completely analyze it.

Your latest blog entry (today, driving 18 miles to work) again is not "troublesome".

The reason why I am ambivalent so far, is that you are using the GOM (DTE = Distance To Empty) estimates in almost every reference to "trouble", and we already KNOW the GOM is CRAP

So ... please (if you can remember) give us more info about the Turtle Event. The Sep 23 event needs more study, and comment from others.

Your dealer visits have -- unfortunately but not surprisingly -- been a waste of time. And their software "resets" have caused reserve capacity to "slip" into the bottom end of SOC. This is part of everyone's complaint with how Nissan has "re-calibrated" the GOM (and is rather impractical or worse). But there actually are more miles at the bottom end now which are being obscured by the GOM. A real range test is in order, similar to the one performed in Phoenix.

After the Range Test, please record the energy (kWh) needed to get back to full (100%) ... reference your 13-15kWh estimate to full from 1-2 bars remaining. If you can, borrow a GID meter from someone in your area. And as already requested by others, please tell us more about your charging habits. For example, have you let your battery balance recently ?

Thank you for all the good suggestions. I have much more documentation on this and I've been keeping a small spreadsheet on how much I've driving and also the amount of energy usage each time it charges. I haven't been active much since my wife typically drives this car, but now we're switching cars so I can document this better.

I've learned not to trust the DTE and that's why I had to experiment to see how far the car will actually go before it dies. My wife is getting major range anxiety after seeing the car can go at most 50 miles or so before it will say low battery.

The South Coast incident was not the same as the Turtle Mode. I didn't even mention that part yet because I don't have many picture documentations of it. All I know is I was able to drive 73 miles and the car charged itself with around 23 kwh as shown on my electrical meter.

I agree the GOM is very poor. But I think from the latest update it seems more reasonable now for the DTE. However, it is interesting that the range drops by one bar every time I park the car and come back to it. As seen from my latest post, I've lost two bars since this morning after driving only 2 miles.

I'm going to document my day today and see by the end of the day what I have. Interesting that 5 bars gone already after only 3 bars gone this morning. At this rate, I'm hoping I have enough to get home before the car says low battery.

 

[richard]

..
I agree the GOM is very poor. But I think from the latest update it seems more reasonable now for the DTE. However, it is interesting that the range drops by one bar every time I park the car and come back to it. As seen from my latest post, I've lost two bars since this morning after driving only 2 miles.
..

When stopping the charge at 80%, which it appears you did here, you may only be partially into the highest bar. So having it drop off immediately is no cause for concern. And I also see the one bar loss per parking session. So this specific observation seems normal.

As LEAFer mentioned, reporting the GOM readings in your blog is really unscientific. We know nothing about your previous driving patterns, which affect the way the DTE is calculated.

 

[DaveEV]

The South Coast incident was not the same as the Turtle Mode. I didn't even mention that part yet because I don't have many picture documentations of it. All I know is I was able to drive 73 miles and the car charged itself with around 23 kwh as shown on my electrical meter.

23 kWh from the wall when charging from turtle to 100% is "normal" for a LEAF in your area and miles.

Check this thread: Collecting data:Off-the-wall power for turtle to 100% charge

New LEAFs in the thread were reporting 25-26 kWh. TickTock has obtained data that shows that LEAFs nearly everywhere are expected to lose about 10% capacity after one year. 26 kWh * 0.9 = 23.4 kWh - or right around what you last saw.

If you're not happy about it, check the huge Early Capacity Losses thread and make sure you report your loss of capacity bar to Nissan as suggested in the thread and get a case number.

 

[davewill]

You should read saintyohann's posts: Asking for Lemon Law protection on Monday

He reports a very similar experience with multiple battery bars suddenly dropping away.

 

[EVDrive]

Sorry to hear about your issues. As others said, you can't trust the range predicting meter. If you go up hill it will say some really short range is all you can do like 40 miles then down the other side it will say 110 miles. Showing that doesn't prove anything other than you can't trust the range predictor. You have had your car for about the same time as me and driven just a few more miles. No issues for me yet. I wonder how long I have until I start complaining. Hopefully never but you never know.