Range/Capacity loss determination debate (and more)

[nosuchthing]

DeaneG, you must be too nice to your pack and consistenly charge to 80%. My range remains unchanged at 73 freeway at 30,000, 18 months in Marin. And I will report any decrease in range should it occur.

And...wait for it...I charge 100% every night. EVERY night. No exceptions. I think Nissan's advice to do otherwise is the worst thing they put out there for all to lap up. We are charging to 87% AS IT IS already (24 vs. 21 kW).

Oh, boy... MNL forum is about to explode again.

MOD NOTE: This thread was split from Cat is out of the bag: 2013 range is out ...

 

[Stoaty]

And...wait for it...I charge 100% every night. EVERY night. No exceptions. I think Nissan's advice to do otherwise is the worst thing they put out there for all to lap up. We are charging to 87% AS IT IS already (24 vs. 21 kW).

Why are you still posting this uninformed nonsense? According to Ingineer, a full charge is 95% SOC. There is nothing that we know about Lithium batteries that would suggest this is a good idea. You happen to live in a climate where it probably doesn't make a lot of difference--that's it. Fine for you to continue doing what you are doing since it works OK in your climate, but suggesting that others do the same and that you know better than Nissan how to best treat the battery pack is ridiculous.

 

[Ingineer]

And...wait for it...I charge 100% every night. EVERY night. No exceptions. I think Nissan's advice to do otherwise is the worst thing they put out there for all to lap up. We are charging to 87% AS IT IS already (24 vs. 21 kW).

Yes, I think you are headed for a fall with this attitude. If you don't need the full range, it's not a good idea to perform full charges and let it soak. If you do need the range, it's best to finish charging right before you depart to avoid "high SoC soak" which is detrimental long-term. Just because you haven't seen much change, doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.

-Phil

 

[EVDRIVER]

It is also not a 87% charge since the bottom part is charged and is not subtracted out.

 

[nosuchthing]

21 divided by 24 times 100 is 87.5
i.e. usable 21 kWs divided by enire pack size of 24 kWs makes 87.5% in my math.

I think that charging daily to 80% creates a "memory" effect and makes the battery less prone to "stretch" itself to accept the max charge, reducing its capacity. I know they say the pack has no memory. Don't care what they say. They can say all they want. I read about Leafers who live in moderate areas like me, and have loss of range, and even lost capacity bars. WHY??? Don't tell me because of "how they drive."

I know my reasoning sounds vapid to the techies here, and I am not an electrical wizard. But 100% charging at least once a day just makes a lot of sense to me. We do partial charging all the time during the day just to put some miles in to turn the car around. But we always start in a.m. with the full pack.

I grew up in communist land, and have been trained all my life not to believe what everybody tells me to. I want proof. And so far the proof is, I'm on the upside while the others are NOT. That is why I'm throwing it on occassion into the ring.

When one doctor suggested at one medical conference decade or more ago that stomach ulcers were caused by H pylori bug they literally booted him out. Nobody really knew until then what caused the ulcers but everybody was wise as a monkey (Surfing Slovak understands this phrase). And today the doc is a hero and this is how the disease is treated -- with antibiotics. Good for him! And for us too. I've taken the course of these ABs myself. Worked like a charm.

Diabetes type 2 is caused by lack of Chromium in body. Period. No other reason. And what do they tell you? Lose weight, less sugar, and exercise. Because they have no idea what to tell you. Yeah, there may be some improvement (less body to cover with the remaining Chromium supply). What they don't know is that Chromium supplementation IS the causal treatment or better yet prevention of DM 2. Once you're diagnosed the damage is rapid and if you don't hit the Chromium bottle fast it will prove proportionally irreversible. You can be as fat as you desire or thin as paper, you'll NOT get DM 2 it you have enough Chromium in your diet (via supplementation). This country can't figure this out and what we have now is DM 2 pandemic. Literally. 10% of population has this nasty disease and it's on it's way up - and fast. Mississippi stands at 14%. The fattest state.

And let's not get into salt and high blood pressure nonsense. I'll get blisters on my fingers...

So there goes the value of your battery belief systems.

 

[TomT]

Believe what you like, but Li-Ion, unlike Ni-Cad and to a lesser extend NiMH, does not have any memory effect...

I think that charging daily to 80% creates a "memory" effect and makes the battery less prone to "stretch" itself to accept the max charge, reducing its capacity. I know they say the pack has no memory. Don't care what they say.

 

[Ingineer]

I think that charging daily to 80% creates a "memory" effect and makes the battery less prone to "stretch" itself to accept the max charge, reducing its capacity. I know they say the pack has no memory. Don't care what they say.

Of course you can ignore everything you read, your choice. I'm not sure why you bother participating in this forum is you disbelieve everything. I definitely think you are incorrect, even if I base it solely on my own direct experience with Lithium-Ion batteries over many years.

They can say all they want. I read about Leafers who live in moderate areas like me, and have loss of range, and even lost capacity bars. WHY??? Don't tell me because of "how they drive."

What, you are believing what you read?!? I too live in a moderate place not far from you, and only charge over 80% if I know I'll need the range. I still have over 99% of my original capacity, and I'm willing to bet I have better instrumentation than you. If there was a memory, I would be affected by it. I routinely drive my Leaf aggressively and demand a lot out of the pack, and it's hard to imagine someone could be driving it too much harder.

I know my reasoning sounds vapid to the techies here, and I am not an electrical wizard. But 100% charging at least once a day just makes a lot of sense to me.

Not sure how you could have arrived at this "sensibility" if all you've ever done is 100% charges? How do you know in a few years your pack will not be severely damaged? It's fine for you to invent ideas out of thin air and live you life according to those principles, but it doesn't mean you doing yourself any favors. Maybe you are simply overcompensating for something that happened a long time ago?

There is overwhelming evidence out there from reputable and independent sources that are based on good science. They prove conclusively that degradation in Lithium-Ion happens faster to cells left fully charged or empty. This is also why many laptop batteries are useless within a few years. Most laptops spend the bulk of their existence plugged in at high SoC.

-Phil

 

[Stoaty]

I know my reasoning sounds vapid to the techies here, and I am not an electrical wizard. But 100% charging at least once a day just makes a lot of sense to me.

This is certainly an anti-science sentiment if I ever heard one. Basically, you are saying it is true because you believe it.

I grew up in communist land, and have been trained all my life not to believe what everybody tells me to.

That's fine, but don't you think that in deciding what is true and what is not true it would be a good idea to read the research done in the area and come to your own conclusion based on what the science says?

Diabetes type 2 is caused by lack of Chromium in body. Period. No other reason.

So now you are a medical expert also, and figured out something that the entire medical community hasn't recognized? You must be one smart guy!

So there goes the value of your battery belief systems.

I think you have it backwards. The rest of us base our decision about how to treat the Leaf battery pack based on the science of Lithium batteries. You are the one with a "battery belief system" that depends on an experiment of one Leaf over a relatively short period of time. You don't have a control Leaf that is driven the same and in the same climate that is charged to only 80%, and you don't have a 5 year time span to see what happens to battery degradation. Add to that the fact that the measuring device in the current Leaf is not as accurate as hoped for, and it is pretty hard to know exactly how much battery capacity has been lost.

No point beating a dead horse any further, I just wanted to make sure that someone new to the forum isn't influenced by your unscientific approach to battery capacity preservation.

 

[nosuchthing]

That DM 2 caused by lack of Chromium in diet? That is my area of expertise, my friends. GOOGLE IT!

Incidentally, Costco now caries a Chromium product that has the word "Diabetes" actually printed on the box. No idea how they sneaked it past FDA and the ever watchful pharmaceutical companies. If we eradicated DM 2 they would lose billions. They obviously want none of that. Those are bestsellers, since 10% of population is afflicted and the number is rising steadily. It's a hot drug research market as well. More billions lost.

Did you know oil companies own literally dozens of high-mileage carburator patents? Drug companies and their lapdog, FDA, "owns" dissemination of Chromium information. That's why your doc is in the dark on this. And I am not the type to believe in conspiracies.

I'll be watching how long that product stays on Costco vitamin shelves before it's unceremoniously yanked.

Prevention is the key here, though. I must emphasize that. I'm 61 and my fasting blood sugar a year ago (last measurement) was 64. You're in trouble if it's 110. I'm half that. I take Chromium only every other week now. This is what I mean by PROOF.

So once you find yourself in ER with 600 sugar and Insulin drip going at 10 units an hour you pretty much blew it. Chromium will still help but you'll never be entirely DM free. And that's a shame because it does not have to happen, and all it takes is 3 cents worth of a pill daily or twice a week or once a month, or whatever.

Here is another stupidity:

Cancer from cigarettes is not caused by carcinogens or tar. Pot is a burned herbal material just like tobacco, and causes big zero of cancers. You would think it would cause at least one. Nope, none. It is because cancer from cigarettes is caused by radioactive Polonium. It is a low level radiation disease.

So you may ask, how in the world does radioactive Polonium get into a cigarette, right? It's because tobacco companies require growers to fertilize tobacco fields with a mineral Apatite, which natually contains radioactive Polinium. Apatite robs the plant of nitrogen and gives the tobacco leaf a desirable taste, which then makes you keep buying the product/brand, save for the nicotine addiction, of course.

Big tobacco knows about this, obviously. If I can Google it, so can they. Your best interest is none of theirs. Why doesn't someone stop it? Or disseminate the info? It's the same with the Chromium. Information is power and those not in the know are the suckers. It's the American way, it's all up to your wherewithal, luck and intelligence.

I don't want to be in that position. Even if it takes to get picked on by you guys. Im sure there are Leafers out there who think, hey maybe this Iletric is onto something here. I just throw it out there as food for thought.

He who laughs last, laughs best. We'll see who that who is -- in a couple of years.

 

[Stoaty]

That DM 2 caused by lack of Chromium in diet? That is my area of expertise, my friends. GOOGLE IT!

I prefer scientific evidence, so suggest searching pubmed instead. Reality is always more complicated than what you read on the sites hawking their wares. Here is what you will find in this article from 2010:

"Specifically, recent data fail to demonstrate significant improvement in carbohydrate metabolism in individuals with metabolic syndrome, impaired glucose tolerance, or consistently in individuals with type 2 diabetes. However, patient selection may be an important factor in determining clinical response, as it was concluded that a clinical response to chromium (ie, decreased glucose and improved insulin sensitivity) may be more likely in insulin-resistant individuals with type 2 diabetes who have more elevated fasting glucose and hemoglobin A(1c) levels."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20425574" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cancer from cigarettes is not caused by carcinogens or tar. Pot is a burned herbal material just like tobacco, and causes big zero of cancers. You would think it would cause at least one. Nope, none.

Also not true. Here is a case report to start with:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22545056" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here is a recent article that explores this question:

http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/32/1/238.long" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"In summary, while cannabinoids, and especially smoked inhaled cannabis, are strongly implicated in oncogenesis by several molecular pathways"

Again, one can go with the scientific evidence or ones own belief system, impervious to facts. It's up to the individual.

 

[KJD]

That DM 2 caused by lack of Chromium in diet? That is my area of expertise, my friends. GOOGLE IT!
Incidentally, Costco now caries a Chromium product that has the word "Diabetes" actually printed on the box. No idea how they sneaked it past FDA and the ever watchful pharmaceutical companies. If we eradicated DM 2 they would lose billions. They obviously want none of that. Those are bestsellers, since 10% of population is afflicted and the number is rising steadily. It's a hot drug research market as well. More billions lost.

What does this have to do with the range on the 2013 Leaf ?

 

[camasleaf]

What does this have to do with the range on the 2013 Leaf ?

The Chromium-Lithium battery :lol: ?

And the "scientific studies" paid by the Big Pharm directly or indirectly, have exactly the same value as the Leaf range determination done by Nissan.

Lots of connections

 

[nosuchthing]

camasleaf, you're ma' man (or woman)!

 

[Nubo]

I grew up in communist land, and have been trained all my life not to believe what everybody tells me to. I want proof. And so far the proof is, I'm on the upside while the others are NOT.

Why not start with measuring your SOC? So far you have assertion but without measuring with any meaningful accuracy you are not offering much useful evidence to support your claim.

 

[nosuchthing]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22545056" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ooops, one case of cannabis and lympadenoma.
Ein mal is kein mal, say German scientists. Means diddly squat. No radioactive Polonium in pot. Thank RJ Reynolds for irradiating the lungs of the hapless nic addicts. Congress, are you listening? Apatite regulation? Save a billion or ten of hundred?

The point was, you have to do due dilligence, and use your power of observation and exprapolate your previous experiences. Plus read as much as you can. It's what led me to a conclusion that Leaf battery is made to be charged properly which means it gets its due every night.

You say, Nissan recommends to charge mostly to 80% to save the battery from early degradation. Look at their tire inflation recommendation: 32 psi. Rememeber Ford and Firestone fiasco over Ford Explorer? Recommendeded tire pressure by Ford was 24 psi to stabilize that piece of crap. Firestones overheated and began to blow. Then they pointed fingers at each other and in the end parted ways. Nissan too has an agenda with the battery, thus the recommendation, and they cannot be completely trusted until they tell us what it is. The full range barely amounts to 2.5 gallons of gas. Tha's then you go to a pump to tank gas, for heaven's sake. And they want me to make it even shorter? It's completely illogical and counterintuitive.

Someone mentioned laptop battery. I don't believe in having it plugged in at all times. Of course it's bad for the battery. I would never do that. If I was not to drive the Leaf the next day, of course I'm not going to charge it up 100% and let it sit there. Not even a day. So there is a level of planning involved here. We start charging as late as 11 pm or midnight (I'm a night owl) and the car goes off the lot at 7-10 am.

I'm taking a 60 mile ride tomorrow I haven't done in a while though that nasty Sausalito hill into the city (SF) at 65 if traffic permits. I will report how my range is.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I know my reasoning sounds vapid to the techies here, and I am not an electrical wizard. But 100% charging at least once a day just makes a lot of sense to me.

No point beating a dead horse any further, I just wanted to make sure that someone new to the forum isn't influenced by your unscientific approach to battery capacity preservation.

Ditto!

 

[cwerdna]

There is overwhelming evidence out there from reputable and independent sources that are based on good science. They prove conclusively that degradation in Lithium-Ion happens faster to cells left fully charged or empty. This is also why many laptop batteries are useless within a few years. Most laptops spend the bulk of their existence plugged in at high SoC.

Re: the laptop case, yep. I went thru 4 batteries w/my old Dell Inspiron 4000 series. It was plugged in all the time. I bought it w/2 batteries and bought 2 more later.

On other hand, my over 5 year-old Lenovo Thinkpad T61p is plugged in most of the time but is still fine on the original battery because it sits usually between 35 to 65% SoC instead of always continually charging (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=225439#p225439" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. I wish more laptop vendors included a similar power management/charge utility. I just checked the utility and it says my full charge capacity is 76.29 Wh while the design capacity was 84.24 Wh, so I have a bit over 90% capacity remaining.

Pics of Lenovo's power manager (my settings were slightly different than the above values when I took these screenshots):
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/H3W7hzBkyZ9GxOxuUEH_BqKeyFui0dAu5T7DLmegRtY?feat=directlink" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GKS3lzD2H5M8Ue3JlOPRVKKeyFui0dAu5T7DLmegRtY?feat=directlink" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[surfingslovak]

Ein mal is kein mal, say German scientists.

Sorry for being a stickler for detail, but that should read: "Einmal is kein Mal". Capitalization is quite important, they really drilled that into us in school.

I'm not going to argue against your decision to charge to 100%. Please continue doing that, as it will provide an important datapoint to the Leaf owner community. There is another owner in San Jose, who follows the same protocol, and it should be interesting to see where this will lead us.

We discussed all of this already, and I believe that the relatively cool climate in Marin plays the most significant role here. And if the car was parked in San Francisco proper, the cool and often foggy weather would have helped some more. Since you appear to drive the car every day, it won't sit at 100% for very long. While I believe that optimizing the charging schedule a bit would help, just like others have said earlier, I'm not able to quantify the benefit.

There is one datapoint however, which has been ignored in this discussion so far. The Phoenix family, which charged only to 80% on level 1 with the car parked in the driveway, was last to lose a capacity bar this summer. Contrast that to Scott, who apparently charged to 100% once every day, and twice towards the end of summer to compensate for the loss of range. He put 29K miles on his Leaf, and was down four capacity bars by August.

80% charging is evidently not accelerating capacity loss. We have not heard any reports that would support this claim. If anything, it might not buy you all that much in exchange for your trouble. But then, we only had a relatively short period of time for this experiment, just like Stoaty said above. It's possible that at end of the fifth summer, the difference between 80% and 100% chargers will be significant and easily observable, even without instruments.

Is it worth the extra effort in your particular case? Well, honestly, I don't know. Everyone's situation is different, and it's up to each owner to decide. That said, 80% charging is a conservative choice, which will not harm anything, and not cause larger loss of capacity than 100% charging. You don't have to believe that, obviously, but please try to present some compelling evidence to the contrary when you bring up this argument next time.

As to the original post of this thread: the 2013 MY range is a much of a question mark as it was before. I would not expect it to be significantly different, but that's a guess, just like everything else. I honestly don't see the point of this entire thread. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday.

 

[ebill3]

As to the original post of this thread: the 2013 MY range is a much of a question mark as it was before. I would not expect it to be significantly different, but that's a guess, just like everything else. I honestly don't see the point of this entire thread. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday.

Amen to that.

Bill

 

[Stoaty]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22545056

Ooops, one case of cannabis and lympadenoma.
Ein mal is kein mal, say German scientists. Means diddly squat.

Oops again, that's one case of cannabis and small cell carcinoma of the lung, a particularly deadly form of lung cancer. Lymphadenoma is a benign tumor, not what that young man had. I guess when you move the goal posts you can believe whatever you want.

PS Here is a second case report. I didn't even have to look past the first page of abstracts on pubmed when searching under "cannabis lung cancer":

"Small cell lung cancer in a 26-year-old man with significant Cannabis exposure"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178718" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;