New Owner Questions: Data Display in a 2013 Model 'S'

[SageBrush]

My 2013 24 kWh 'S' finally made it home from California. Driving has been very limited to around the neighborhood while waiting for car registration and title (one of the quirks of buying out of state), but it has been a delightful experience thus far. Since I don't have a Nav screen my assortment of data displays are a little more limited at one glance, which brings me to my questions:

1. Is there a simple correlation between the immediate ECO driving grade and miles/kWh ?

2. Does the usable SOC bar graph take the reserve into account ?

3. Is there a simple correlation between the bars on the battery temperature meter and the battery sensors ? How are the different sensor values handled and should I rely on the meter bars when deciding when to charge ?

----
As an aside, LEAFSpy saved me from buying a '12 bar' LEAF that was on the border of losing a bar and helped me find a car with 63.8 Ah battery health. I owe the author a lot more than the price of the software he requests.

 

[cwerdna]

1) Not sure what you mean by that. Are you talking about the effect turning eco on/off has on your efficiency in miles/kWh?

2) Not sure what you're asking there. Are you talking about the thin battery capacity bars (http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery#Battery_Capacity_Behavior) of which http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/File:Scott_3_bars_s.jpg shows a 3 bar loser? Or, are you asking about the 12 wider "fuel bars" on the right? I'm not sure what you mean by "reserve".

The car will stop accelerating some time after turtle. Edmunds has a video of driving a Leaf until it stops at https://www.edmunds.com/nissan/leaf/2011/long-term-road-test/2011-nissan-leaf-driving-it-to-the-bitter-end.html. The sequence is LBW, VLBW, turtle then dead. This was before the Leaf gained a % SoC screen, which came w/model year 2013.

I did start http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=17895, I should reply, I guess. IIRC, on my current used Leaf, LBW now sounds at around 19% or 20%. I'll pay closer attention next time.

3) http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery#Battery_Temperature_Gauge - in short, that battery temp graph sucks

 

[LeftieBiker]

3. Is there a simple correlation between the bars on the battery temperature meter and the battery sensors ? How are the different sensor values handled and should I rely on the meter bars when deciding when to charge ?

It's not a simple analog relationship at all, but it's all we have unless LeafSpy is connected. I suggest not charging if you can avoid it with 6 or more temp bars, and trying harder to avoid charging with 7 or more.

 

[SageBrush]

1) Not sure what you mean by that. Are you talking about the effect turning eco on/off has on your efficiency in miles/kWh?

I don't know how to add a photo to posts in this forum, so ...
The ECO indicator I am talking about is described on page #10, section 2 of the user manual. In the car it is the left-most icon in the same display as the car speed. The icon actually has three parts: now driving, recent driving and trip overall. Trip overall is shown as 'trees', recent as part(s) of one tree, and the now grade is a half-circle bar graph.

I'm wondering if the ECO driving feedback can be translated into miles/kWh for the "now" portion of the icon

 

[SageBrush]

3. Is there a simple correlation between the bars on the battery temperature meter and the battery sensors ? How are the different sensor values handled and should I rely on the meter bars when deciding when to charge ?

It's not a simple analog relationship at all, but it's all we have unless LeafSpy is connected. I suggest not charging if you can avoid it with 6 or more temp bars, and trying harder to avoid charging with 7 or more.

Thanks for the advice, it mirrors what I gave to my wife. In general I plan to only charge during the coolest part of the early morning so I think we should be OK. It was reassuring yesterday to charge from 10% to 80% at 40F ambient and still see the battery temperature gauge at 4 bars when charging ended. I should have checked LEAFSpy then, but I only got around to it a couple hours and a short trip later and found 40 - 42F sensor readings.

 

[cwerdna]

1) Not sure what you mean by that. Are you talking about the effect turning eco on/off has on your efficiency in miles/kWh?

I don't know how to add a photo to posts in this forum, so ...
The ECO indicator I am talking about is described on page #10, section 2 of the user manual. In the car it is the left-most icon in the same display as the car speed. The icon actually has three parts: now driving, recent driving and trip overall. Trip overall is shown as 'trees', recent as part(s) of one tree, and the now grade is a half-circle bar graph.

I'm wondering if the ECO driving feedback can be translated into miles/kWh for the "now" portion of the icon

You need to be a paid member to attach pics.

There is http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=2456, but I haven't tried those recently.

Oh, you're talking about the trees and circle crap on page 2-10. Ignore it. It's crap and useless. You'll get lots of trees if the session from power on was long and esp. if you're stuck in traffic.

What you should really care about is miles/kWh, since your battery has a given capacity in kWh and the higher the miles/kWh for a given amount kWh usable, the more range autonomy you'll have.

 

[SageBrush]

What you should really care about is miles/kWh, since your battery has a given capacity in kWh and the higher the miles/kWh for a given amount kWh usable, the more range autonomy you'll have.

Agreed. Is there a way to view miles/kWh by trip ? My (bought used) leaf currently appears to show the average miles/kWh for the last 1000 miles or so but I have not find the way to zero that reading. Trip 'A' and and trip 'B' do not apparently have miles/kWh metrics, although I'd love to find out otherwise.

 

[Levenkay]

The average energy economy just keeps accumulating until you reset it by pressing and holding the "increment brightness" button (upper right-hand button of the four-button cluster), at least on all the SL LEAFs I've driven.

 

[cwerdna]

The average energy economy just keeps accumulating until you reset it by pressing and holding the "increment brightness" button (upper right-hand button of the four-button cluster), at least on all the SL LEAFs I've driven.

You mean the button above "increment brightness". OP should probably look at the manual starting on page 2-27 re: trip computer.

Nissan's been using this convention of rectangle button and circle for a long time. One button advances and the other resets when pressed and held. My 04 Nissan 350Z was like this as is my mom's 07 Altima Hybrid. My 02 Maxima's trip computer also had the exact same conventions except the buttons were on the steering wheel and labeled TRIP instead of the rectangle and MODE for the circle button that must be held down to reset.

Unfortunately, since the OP doesn't have an SV or SL, he lacks the extra independent miles/kWh counter/display that's on the nav system.

 

[SageBrush]

Thanks guys, I found the miles/kWh meter reset.
As Cwerdna says, my year and model car has only one meter.
Too bad -- I would have liked to measure miles/kWh by trip 'A' and trip 'B'

 

[powersurge]

Sagebrush, don't baby the car... It is not an infant, and don't treat it like a puppy you just brought home from the pound...

Charge it at ANYTIME you want, and charge it TO 100% (then you know you will use it that, or the next day. When you don't drive a lot, like me on the weekends, keep the battery % between 40% to 70% or so. I understand the battery likes to stay at 50% charge for long life - not like lead acid batteries that need 100%.

 

[SageBrush]

Sagebrush, don't baby the car... It is not an infant, and don't treat it like a puppy you just brought home from the pound...

Charge it at ANYTIME you want, and charge it TO 100% (then you know you will use it that, or the next day. When you don't drive a lot, like me on the weekends, keep the battery % between 40% to 70% or so. I understand the battery likes to stay at 50% charge for long life - not like lead acid batteries that need 100%.

I highly suspect that if I followed your advice I would accelerate the battery aging.

I'm in the fortunate situation of being able to avoid daily charges to 100% with only the most trivial inconvenience (if an extra plugging in a week can be called an inconvenience.) Similarly, deciding to charge during the cool hours of the early morning in the summer instead of immediately after driving the car took some thought to decide that would extend battery life, but it is no inconvenience on a daily basis.

All devices (including humans) last longer when they are well maintained and operated within some range of best conditions. I choose to own and operate my devices for long life. Moreover, I choose my devices with thought to how they will be used so that they can have a long life.