pre cooling and pre heating - impact on battery life

[nschuster]

can someone with experience pre-heating or pre-cooling the Leaf (when not connected to a charging unit) provide some details on how much it drains the battery?

i'm curious how fast pre-heating or pre-cooling drains the battery - if i pre-heat the Leaf for 10 or 15 minutes in cold weather when the car is parked outside, will this have a major impact on remaining range?

 

[Lopton]

maybe this thread can help you? http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6671

 

[nschuster]

Thank you!

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i have lost 3-4 miles of range on the GOM for about 10 mins of preheat

 

[nschuster]

losing 3-4 miles of range for 10 minutes of preheating is not bad at all; i was afraid it was going to be way more!

have to admit, i'm not sure what GOM stands for. i'm a total newbie - haven't taken delivery of my Leaf yet, so that is my excuse for being uninformed. at least until i have the car and have to learn all this stuff....

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

losing 3-4 miles of range for 10 minutes of preheating is not bad at all; i was afraid it was going to be way more!

have to admit, i'm not sure what GOM stands for. i'm a total newbie - haven't taken delivery of my Leaf yet, so that is my excuse for being uninformed. at least until i have the car and have to learn all this stuff....

GOM; guessometer aka "estimate range for entire pack based on last 1/100th of pack usage (as if that would translate correctly to total range of the car.

why its called a GOM; well, if your range is say 50 miles and you need to go 55. simply find a hill to coast down. that should boost you to 55 miles of estimated range. now will that keep you from walking?? that is a good question many are still trying to answer

 

[nschuster]

thank you! there are a lot of acronyms i will need to learn.....

i'll also have to bone up on electricity - i admit, i'm not sure what the difference is between a volt, an amp, an ohm and a watt.

i do have a driver's license, at least (bought it on ebay).

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

thank you! there are a lot of acronyms i will need to learn.....

i'll also have to bone up on electricity - i admit, i'm not sure what the difference is between a volt, an amp, an ohm and a watt.

i do have a driver's license, at least (bought it on ebay).

electrical terms can be described several different ways and i might get it wrong but generally ...umm "waterly" speaking

volt is the amount of water pressure
amp is the size of the hose
ohm measure of how much the water slows as it goes thru the hose
and watt is how much water ends up in the pool

 

[nschuster]

no one has every explained it that simply to me before - thanks!

did it take you long to get the hang of the Leaf once you took delivery? i'm wondering what the learning curve is re understanding what all the gauges really mean, how long (if at all) you experienced range anxiety, etc.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

no one has every explained it that simply to me before - thanks!

did it take you long to get the hang of the Leaf once you took delivery? i'm wondering what the learning curve is re understanding what all the gauges really mean, how long (if at all) you experienced range anxiety, etc.

no but i drove an NEV (neighborhood electric vehicle) for 3+ years. it had MAJOR battery management requirements. top speed of 35 mph (local laws prohibit it being driven on roads with posted speed limit over 40 mph) and range of 20 miles.

i also have driven Priuses for 7½ years so monitoring my driving for efficiency, distances and ranges is something i am pretty anal about. i am member of Priuschat.com and have recorded EVERY trip my household has made since my first Prius order on Thanksgiving weekend 2003 so range anxiety was never an issue for me.

i already knew about winter range reduction (same as gas car's drop in mileage btw) and was familiar with range boosting common among EV manufacturers although Nissan did a great job providing expectations with their driving scenario guide.

as far as the controls? i never got around to reading the manual so i probably still dont know every option i have. this site has been invaluable to me in learning things

 

[dgpcolorado]

electrical terms can be described several different ways and i might get it wrong but generally ...umm "waterly" speaking

volt is the amount of water pressure
amp is the size of the hose
ohm measure of how much the water slows as it goes thru the hose
and watt is how much water ends up in the pool

I don't know about those analogies. I'd say that Amp (current) is the amount of water flowing through the hose and that Ohm (resistance) is the size of the hose. So, I would revise that to:

• Volt (potential difference) is the amount of water pressure
• Amp (current) is amount of water flowing through the hose
• Ohm (resistance) is the size of the hose and measures how much the water slows as it goes through the hose [smaller hose = higher "resistance" to flow]
• Watt (power) is how fast the water fills up the pool [volume per unit time]
• Watt-second or Joule (energy) is how much water ends up in the pool in one second


It might be helpful for newcomers to electricity to be aware that:

Volts x Amps = Watts (power), for example: 120 Volts x 12 Amps = 1440 Watts = 1.44 kWatts

Watts x seconds = Joules (energy)
1 kWh [kilo Watt hour] = 3,600,000 Joules

In my experience, people have a tendency to mix up power (kilo Watts, kW) and energy (kilo Watt hours, kWh)

FWIW

 

[nschuster]

i've never heard of a neighborhood electric vehicle - sounds like a low-speed vehicle, not built to federal motor vehicle safety standards.

if i recorded every trip my wife would laugh me out of the house. she gave me my share of grief when i recorded every gasoline fillup to track my mileage (it became a great joke between us). of course, i stopped about 5 years ago (my car is 14 years old and i'm just holding on to it long enough to have the Leaf replace it - due end of December). No point in tracking mileage for a 14 year old car. Also, no point in ever washing or cleaning it either.

 

[nschuster]

if your Leaf is serving you well in Colorado, that's a good sign - that means it can make it up hills, works well at altitudes and can stand the occasional cold weather/snow you get.

 

[planet4ever]

if your Leaf is serving you well in Colorado, that's a good sign - that means it can make it up hills, works well at altitudes and can stand the occasional cold weather/snow you get.

Is Pikes Peak a hill? Does it have enough altitude to count? A Leaf made it to the top in 14:33 last summer. We'll know a lot more about cold weather behavior by the end of this winter. There was no cold weather package available last winter, and most of the (relatively few) Leafs on the road then were in warm areas.

Ray

 

[nschuster]

I heard about the Pike's Peak experience. pretty amazing. My Honda wouldn't have made it....

 

[dgpcolorado]

if your Leaf is serving you well in Colorado, that's a good sign - that means it can make it up hills, works well at altitudes and can stand the occasional cold weather/snow you get.

I don't have my LEAF yet, ETA is currently "week of December 17" and then I will be towing it home from Oregon. But I did wait for the 2012 model so that I could get the cold weather package (had I known it was available on the last few 2011 cars, I'd have ordered one of those instead).

Altitude will help the LEAF performance due to reduced drag. Cold, snow, ice, and dirt roads figure to reduce performance.

My main concern at present is that the regenerative braking may not work well in cold weather because the cold battery pack apparently can't accept charge effectively even when not full. I have a steep 1000 foot descent when going from my house on a mesa down to town, which I currently do in second gear in my ICE car. I'd rather not have to use friction brakes the whole way down, but that may be necessary. I'll know more in a couple of months.

 

[nschuster]

should be interesting to see how it handles on that huge hill....

you ARE dedicated - towing it home from oregon!

I drove an all electric Cooper Mini a few years ago at a trade show. It was VERY cool, but they only had a few hundred out on lease as a test (mostly in the NY area; i would have leased or bought one on site, i was that impressed). I met Paul Scott an EV enthusiast there while waiting to get into a Tesla (they weren't letting people drive the Tesla, only ride along, and the line was so long I gave up). Paul convinced me to go electric and I put my name on the Leaf waiting list as soon as it was operational.

The Mini had incredible pick up and power (of course, the entire back seat, already pretty small, was battery).
The engineer I was with from Cooper told me to floor it from a standstill to get the full effect of its power and torque; it was amazing (that was probably why i would have bought one on the spot! - selfishness rather than contributing to world sustainability, i admit it).

I understand the Leaf is toned down quite a bit and won't be as responsive or quick. I've driven it a few times, but never had a chance to really floor it.

The Cooper also had regenerative braking, but with a difference - when you let up on the "gas" pedal (we're going to have to rename that!), the car slowed. foot completely off the gas, the car stopped. it would have been an interesting experiment to try to get used to that (easier than it sounds, it was pretty intuitive), but then remember to go back to the brake pedal when driving my wife's car.

i wish the Leaf had that feature - sure, it made it harder to drive (you have to really concentrate as you approach red lights, but that would have made driving more of an adventure).

my delivery time is "week of december 21," but the website also notes that it could be give or take a week or so. let's hope we BOTH get them before the end of the year - what a great way to have some fun over Christmas and New Years! Just as long as we don't get snow......, I plan on running a LOT of errands the last week of December.

 

[Herm]

My main concern at present is that the regenerative braking may not work well in cold weather because the cold battery pack apparently can't accept charge effectively even when not full. I have a steep 1000 foot descent

I would not want to use friction brakes for that either, pads cant last long doing that. You an preheat the battery (to room temperature if possible 75° F) with an aftermarket device and obviously dont charge past 80%.

 

[dgpcolorado]

My main concern at present is that the regenerative braking may not work well in cold weather because the cold battery pack apparently can't accept charge effectively even when not full. I have a steep 1000 foot descent

I would not want to use friction brakes for that either, pads cant last long doing that. You an preheat the battery (to room temperature if possible 75° F) with an aftermarket device and obviously dont charge past 80%.

I do have the advantage that my garage rarely goes below freezing, so the pack won't be really cold. One possibility is that if I turn on the heater at the top of the hill, that will be enough for regen to be working somewhat (I'd have to use "D" versus "Eco" for maximum heater draw). That experiment remains to be done.

If nothing else works, some sort of battery pack heater might be worth a try if I could be sure it wouldn't overheat it. Brake shoes are cheaper than battery packs. (And automatic transmission car drivers routinely ride their brakes down that hill all the time, the concept of "lower gear" being foreign to them.)