Post Your Battery Degradation Results

[Cinnabar]

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 1:16 pm
I lost my first bar yesterday after 28 months and 35.7k miles. Mostly charge to 80%, charge overnight and at work using L2. 32 mile one way commute.

And I lost my second bar on Monday, Aug 11, 2014. Close to 11 months after I lost the first. My mileage is now at 46.6K.

I lost my third bar yesterday, July 4, 2015. Another 11 months between bar losses. My mileage is at 59.5K.

 

[suwaneedad]

2012 SV in Atlanta since its birth. Been on the road 3.5 years as of today, garaged 100% of the time.
First bar lost 8.6.13 at 25,300 miles.
2nd bar lost 7.9.14 at 32,850 miles.
3rd bar lost 7.6.15 at 44,897 miles.
Looks like I continues to be on track for a free battery under warranty before I hit 5yrs or 60k.
In the 11 months between 1 and 2 lost, I drove little (worked from home, largely), whereas in the 12 months between 2 and 3 lost, I commuted nearly daily for an hour (30 miles) each way. At the current capacity, DOD was nearly 100% each way due to high-speed commute (ATL now has free HOT lanes for EVs .
I've recently reverted to fewer commutes, so I expect Bar 4 to disappear a year from now, after roughly another 10k miles, enabling me to attain a new battery pack under warranty at roughly Year 4.5 and with roughly 55k miles on the spinner.
Perhaps ATL heat isn't LEAF-worthy...that'd be a shame for the recent #1 LEAF market in the world.

If anyone can point me to a recently updated chart of bars lost by geography/age/mileage I'd love to see how mine is tracking relative to others in ATL/similar climes.

Also, I'm familiar with the other blog site which is tracking each instance of capacity loss (location, date, age, mileage, model year), but I can't figure out how to post to it anymore. Is it now stale?

Thanks!

 

[dhanson865]

http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss is the page with all the losses we've bothered to log. I wouldn't call it stale but it doesn't get a lot of editing in the 2 bar, 1 bar, or 0 bar lost areas.

I add 3 bar and 4 bar losers every time I see one. If you want to edit the 2 bar and 1 bar loss for your entry you are welcome to do so.

Good news for you is that when they give you that new pack next year it'll be better than the one you got in 2012 so it should hold up longer than the first one did.

 

[suwaneedad]

Thank you for updating!
Yes, looking forward to the lizard battery.
I paid full list for my Leaf, as an early adopter, so the new pack will enable me to get to 100k miles easily, which is roughly the point at which the car will have paid for itself via avoided energy cost and avoided maintenance cost.
Naturally I am very happy that Nissan improved the battery warranty.
Cheers.

 

[Evoforce]

I'm finding that with my newish Lizard battery, The car doesn't see the extra 10% that the new battery has over the old battery when it was new. I wonder if there was supposed to be some software update to see it or if they are wanting to secretly leave the headroom there. I also tried to post in the degraded battery section but was unable to. It had lost 4 bars at 22,273 miles.

 

[davsouth]

I bought my 2011 Leaf SL used for $13,900 at CarMax. It had 6 of 10 white bars capacity. Since the warranty said it should have 90% capacity at 60,000 miles, and mine had only 60% at 40,000 I took it to the dealership. The checked capacity and replaced the battery a week later under warranty, absolutely no cost to me. Now I have 100% capacity as a new Leaf. Nissan honors their warranty.

 

[Futureleafowner]

I found a 2011 Leaf SV with only 8 bars.
It has under 60k miles at a non Nissan dealer for $9k.
I want to get a deal on it and then get the battery replaced under warranty but check it with the nissan dealer before I buy.

Anyone see any any issues with this or any advice?

Seems like a good deal if I can pull it off.
Jeff

 

[dgpcolorado]

I bought my 2011 Leaf SL used for $13,900 at CarMax. It had 6 of 10 white bars capacity. Since the warranty said it should have 90% capacity at 60,000 miles, and mine had only 60% at 40,000 I took it to the dealership. The checked capacity and replaced the battery a week later under warranty, absolutely no cost to me. Now I have 100% capacity as a new Leaf. Nissan honors their warranty.

You did well to get a LEAF with a degraded battery and get it replaced under warranty for free, although $13,900 is a rather high price for a 2011 LEAF.

However, your understanding of warranty terms and capacity bars is incorrect. There are twelve capacity bars (no red/white difference). The first represents about 15% of capacity and the subsequent ones are 6.25% each. The capacity warranty applies if the car loses four capacity bars, which represents a loss of about 33.75%, or more, of the original capacity. A car with nine capacity bars doesn't have 90% of capacity, it has 66.25% to 72.5% of original capacity.

Anyway, congratulations on getting a used car with a brand new battery! I hope that it serves you well and I'm envious of your new battery range.

 

[keydiver]

I found a 2011 Leaf SV with only 8 bars.
It has under 60k miles at a non Nissan dealer for $9k.
I want to get a deal on it and then get the battery replaced under warranty but check it with the nissan dealer before I buy.

Yes, you are thinking right: get the VIN number, go to your local Nissan dealership, and have their Service Manager check to make sure there are no issues in the service report. To be REALLY safe, he should somehow check with Nissan corporate if possible, to make sure there isn't an issue with the previous owner not getting the required yearly battery tests, or anything like this that could disqualify you for a warranty replacement. I've seen at least one instance where the owner was disqualified for putting an extraordinary amount of miles on the car, or some other "severe service" that Nissan used as an excuse. (I don't know, maybe he used it as a taxi :roll: )Personally, I would see if its possible to keep the Leaf long enough to make an appointment with a dealer to have the battery test done, and get the OK for a replacement from Nissan before buying it, but that may be tough to ask for.

 

[dhanson865]

I'm finding that with my newish Lizard battery, The car doesn't see the extra 10% that the new battery has over the old battery when it was new. I wonder if there was supposed to be some software update to see it or if they are wanting to secretly leave the headroom there. I also tried to post in the degraded battery section but was unable to. It had lost 4 bars at 22,273 miles.

- style="background:#ffffff;" valign=top
| #35
| Dec 2014
| Evoforce
| Fountain Hills Arizona
| 22,273 miles
| ?? months
| unknown mfg date
| 2011 model year
| 4368
|
|
| http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13371&start=360#p430166

can you give us the manufacturing date? Having that we could calculate the age in months at the time the battery was replaced.

 

[Evoforce]

5/11 was the car manufacture date

 

[Evoforce]

I have also been looking at those low bar cars and had been thinking of doing the same as previous posters. Very tempting! I don't know if I'm going to make warranty replacement with my 10 bar car. Leafspy says it is at 71% right now. I wonder why it isn't at 9 bars?


Edit: 8/9/2015

Car went to nine bars a few days ago around 33,900 miles. Now, stats included at this date... It looks like I lost about 2% in a month. If it continues to degrade at this rate, Oct/Nov replacement.

Miles 34,090
SOH 69%
AHr 45.59
Hx 48.57%
SOC 97.9%
Volts 393.5
197 GID's


Edit: 8/25/15

Miles 34,740
SOH 68%
AHr 44.76
Hx 47.31%
SOC 97.3%
Volts 394
GID's 196

Edit: 9/1/15
Car now at 67%
Miles 35,064

Leafspy Pro
OBD 2 ordered off Amazon from China Vendor Sannysis V1.5 mini ELM 327 and has on/off button. whoohoo it works!

 

[dhanson865]

I have also been looking at those low bar cars and had been thinking of doing the same as previous posters. Very tempting! I don't know if I'm going to make warranty replacement with my 10 bar car. Leafspy says it is at 71% right now. I wonder why it isn't at 9 bars?

There is a delay, it'll drop any day now. One entry in the wiki shows the 3rd bar dropping at 71% SOH, most show 72% SOH.

 

[mwalsh]

The weather is getting hotter, and battery degradation is accelerating nicely with it - down to 44.77AHr today from 45.07AHr 9 days ago. However, all of a sudden I've found out that I no longer need to commute, so there will be very little mileage accumulated in the immediate future and far fewer full charge cycles unless I actually take the car out and drive to "nowhere" (and back) each day.

So I guess what I'm wondering out loud is how much weight should be assigned to miles driven and the resultant charge/discharge cycles as they relate to degradation.

Warmer weather prevails (though somewhat cool for mid-July) and AHr losses continue. Down pretty close to 0.70AHrs over the last 30 days, with only 300 total miles driven and 5 charge cycles. I'm at 44.19Ahr as of today.

Full data on the continuing losses is here:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=12789&start=567

It clearly isn't charge cycles that matter, and it doesn't appear to be mileage driven that matters. So that only leaves calendar losses; pack temps; and driving style (with the resultant effect on pack temps).

So my currently theory of driving hard and putting her away wet is the one I'm sticking with. Far more fun driving in D anyway, right?

 

[Lambtron]

Lost second bar 07/09/15. car built 7/11. #6799. 21580 mi.
207 gids
91.3% soc (100%)
50.82 AHr
16 kWh
77% SOH
58.62% Hx
393.81 V

 

[Dorabee]

My 2012 just lost it's first bar at 26000 miles. I don't have leafspy yet, but will come back & post all the acronym stuff when I get it (soon)

 

[goodtimessd]

Hello All,

Newbee here.. 3rd day as Leaf owner. Still trying to get up to speed on everything so apologize in advance in my post is in the wrong place or lingo is incorrect. I was hoping to get a little piece of mind/ clarification from some of you awesome Leaf experts.

I just bought ($12k) Nissan Leaf 2013 SL w/ 28,729 miles and 9 capacity bars. My GuestOmeter showed 58miles on 100% charge, which was on par with my first real world drive yesterday. I received my new "Newest Bluetooth V1.5 OBD2 OBD II" scanner this morning and installed LeafSpy Pro. My first readings were as follows:

SOC = 49.1% (I've been trickle charging for about 15.5 hours now and the battery wash't even dead when I started charging yesterday. Just put in order for EVSE upgrade advanced replacement, so hopefully that speeds charging up to 4-5hrs. It's my understanding that a 30% degraded battery would charge faster than a new battery, however would also decharge faster as well. I was playing with power breakers yesterday and cut the power on the charger at the breaker box while it was plugged in, would I need to replug the charger in order for it to resume charging? Seems like it wasn't charging all night, since the GuestOmeter was showing the same amount of miles (28miles) when I plugged it in.)

9 Capacity Bars
GIDs = 83 (29.5%)
AHr = 44.11 (Does this mean I'm very close to battery replacement 66.25%? Do I need to be at 100% charge for a accurate reading of AHr?)
SOH = 67% (Does this mean I'm very close to battery replacement 66.25%? Do I need to be at 100% charge for a accurate reading of SOH?)
377.11V
Hx = 60.75

My initial newbee thoughts are I'm very close to dropping that 9th bar? I do have another 3 days to return the car to dealer for full refund, so trying to get piece of mind for keeping it. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[lorenfb]

Hello All,

Newbee here.. 3rd day as Leaf owner. Still trying to get up to speed on everything so apologize in advance in my post is in the wrong place or lingo is incorrect. I was hoping to get a little piece of mind/ clarification from some of you awesome Leaf experts.

I just bought ($12k) Nissan Leaf 2013 SL w/ 28,729 miles and 9 capacity bars. My GuestOmeter showed 58miles on 100% charge, which was on par with my first real world drive yesterday. I received my new "Newest Bluetooth V1.5 OBD2 OBD II" scanner this morning and installed LeafSpy Pro. My first readings were as follows:

SOC = 49.1% (I've been trickle charging for about 15.5 hours now and the battery wash't even dead when I started charging yesterday. Just put in order for EVSE upgrade advanced replacement, so hopefully that speeds charging up to 4-5hrs. It's my understanding that a 30% degraded battery would charge faster than a new battery, however would also decharge faster as well. I was playing with power breakers yesterday and cut the power on the charger at the breaker box while it was plugged in, would I need to replug the charger in order for it to resume charging? Seems like it wasn't charging all night, since the GuestOmeter was showing the same amount of miles (28miles) when I plugged it in.)

9 Capacity Bars
GIDs = 83 (29.5%)
AHr = 44.11 (Does this mean I'm very close to battery replacement 66.25%? Do I need to be at 100% charge for a accurate reading of AHr?)
SOH = 67% (Does this mean I'm very close to battery replacement 66.25%? Do I need to be at 100% charge for a accurate reading of SOH?)
377.11V
Hx = 60.75

My initial newbee thoughts are I'm very close to dropping that 9th bar? I do have another 3 days to return the car to dealer for full refund, so trying to get piece of mind for keeping it. Thanks in advance for any help.

You need to fully charge your battery to 100% SOC to properly determine its true capacity.
My 2013 with ~24K miles has a capacity of about 55 Ahr (initially about 60 Ahr - 12/2013).
Based on the capacity at 100% SOC and your sales contract, you can make a decision
on whether to keep the Leaf. Your also need to review your contract to determine whether
Nissan will warranty the battery for a used Leaf.

 

[dhanson865]

Hello All,

Newbee here.. 3rd day as Leaf owner. Still trying to get up to speed on everything so apologize in advance in my post is in the wrong place or lingo is incorrect. I was hoping to get a little piece of mind/ clarification from some of you awesome Leaf experts.

I just bought ($12k) Nissan Leaf 2013 SL w/ 28,729 miles and 9 capacity bars. My GuestOmeter showed 58miles on 100% charge, which was on par with my first real world drive yesterday. I received my new "Newest Bluetooth V1.5 OBD2 OBD II" scanner this morning and installed LeafSpy Pro. My first readings were as follows:

SOC = 49.1% (I've been trickle charging for about 15.5 hours now and the battery wash't even dead when I started charging yesterday. Just put in order for EVSE upgrade advanced replacement, so hopefully that speeds charging up to 4-5hrs. It's my understanding that a 30% degraded battery would charge faster than a new battery, however would also decharge faster as well. I was playing with power breakers yesterday and cut the power on the charger at the breaker box while it was plugged in, would I need to replug the charger in order for it to resume charging? Seems like it wasn't charging all night, since the GuestOmeter was showing the same amount of miles (28miles) when I plugged it in.)

9 Capacity Bars
GIDs = 83 (29.5%)
AHr = 44.11 (Does this mean I'm very close to battery replacement 66.25%? Do I need to be at 100% charge for a accurate reading of AHr?)
SOH = 67% (Does this mean I'm very close to battery replacement 66.25%? Do I need to be at 100% charge for a accurate reading of SOH?)
377.11V
Hx = 60.75

My initial newbee thoughts are I'm very close to dropping that 9th bar? I do have another 3 days to return the car to dealer for full refund, so trying to get piece of mind for keeping it. Thanks in advance for any help.

Looks like a free battery for you if you live anywhere remotely warm. Just a matter of how long it will take.

What is the date of manufacture from the driver door jamb label?

What city, state was the car first registered in? Might have to check carfax or the dealer service records (what dealer sold or did first service?)

What city, state is the car in now assuming you keep it to 4th bar lost and get a free replacement battery?

What VIN?

If that is a 2013 with 3 bars lost it'll be the first 2013 in the 3 bar loser section of the wiki.

|- style="background:#ffffff;" valign=top
| #??
| unknown date of loss
| goodtimessd
| unknown city, state
| unknown miles at time of loss, currently 28,729 miles on odometer
| ?? months
| unknown mfg date
| 2013 model year
| unknown vin

 

[goodtimessd]

Thanks for the replies. I've included the requested info below. Currently the car won't charge.. I charged it to 100% (58miles) yesterday with no problems, drove it down to about 40% (20 miles) on the GuestOmeter and now I've been trickle charging since yesterday 18+ hours with no increase. Verified that no timers are set, trickle charge cord shows ready and clicks charging, car shows flashing green plug indicating charging, car beeps once followed by two beeps when plugging in.

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but thinking about taking it in to the dealer tomorrow morning to get it checked out and also ensure warranties are all covered/transferable. It's my understanding that all warranties transfer and also car fax warranty check states "Transferable: No cost, unlimited owners covered". I understand it still be better to confirm with dealer which I plan to do tomorrow.

| goodtimessd
| 2013 Nissan Leaf SL
| VIN: 1N4AZ0CPXDC405652
| mfg date per door jam label= 03/13
| Orignal Dealer: AutoNation Nissan Chandler, Chandler, AZ
| unknown date of loss (3 bar loss occurred during previous 2 year lease in AZ)
| Current City = San Diego (3 bar loss occurred in Gilbert, AZ. Auctioned to San Diego Dealer 5/30/2015, purchased in San Diego 7/22/2015)
| unknown miles at time of loss, currently 28,729 miles on odometer

Thanks again for the feedback..

Cheers!