RedMapleLeaf
Active member
Hello everyone,
Massive amount of info here. Wow. My experience so far is very similar to many on the forum. Early euphoria, settling into good commute routine, now very afraid of battery capacity issues and vanishing resale value and/or a car that cannot be used if the battery degrades beyond 70%.
My situation summary:
Signed up on web site Aug 27, 2011 for my early adopter LEAF in southern Ontario. Needed a new car badly after my 14 year old Ford Taurus was rusting out from under me.
Got disgusted with A/V over charging install quotes, went with local electrician and Schneider dock.
Received delivery of slightly used demo Ignition Red LEAF (200 kms), SL, Fast Charge Port. (Thinking I maybe should have waited for a brand new one an extra 3 months, as who knows what may have transpired with the battery during the month or two previous to receipt...)
Cost to drive it away: $49,500.00 then the $8,500.00 rebate from Ontario Govt. Figuring I'd make up the $8,000.00 premium over a $33,000.00 ICE comparison car (e.g. Ford Focus ICE) within 3 years; anything after that is gravy. Gas @ US$5.00/gallon, electricity at 6 cents/kwh, 20K mi/year so my savings is approx. $4,000/yr on fuel + maintenance.
Bit of a wake up call the first weekend doing some "real world" range tests checking out my 120 km (75 mi) RT highway commute. Must charge at work...
License Plate "GAS LOL", extolling the virtues of no oil, cheap to run, etc, etc, making everyone around me roll their eyeballs. Wife thinks I'm crazy. Did some research on the car (way more informed than Nissan people) but still unaware of any battery capacity issues, thinking that after 5 years I might see *some* degradation, but hey, batteries will come down in price, right? :-\
First winter driving with the LEAF heater (2011/12). Need to buy long underwear. Good thing I live in a warmer part of Canada where it only gets to -15 deg. C (-25 F) only a few days of the winter! Fun trying to outsmart the CC functions -- you can't. (What do you mean, there is no "fan only"??!!) Car is garaged overnight where temp rarely goes below freezing (and is usually 15 deg F above outdoor temp).
Initially charging to 100% nightly, driving slowly to work (50 mph, 40% non-highway, hogging slow lane, 1 hour one way) and using trickle charging at work. Lots of 12 hour days :-[
Got L2 charging at work (240V outlet, EVSE Upgrade) which changed everything, charging to 100% overnight, blasting to work, charging to 100% at work, blasting home. With hot 2012 summer weather (nowhere close to AZ temps, mind you) and just some A/C, no range worries, and back to a 35 minute commute. Life was good.
Started to get concerned about battery life, and recently started charging at 80% overnight and at work. Currently have two bars left after the 36 mile one way trip (GOM says ~16 mi). Averaging about 3.9 mi/kWh annually according to CW.
Had I read the capacity concerns earlier on MNL, I would have been charging to 80% as much as possible and on the weekends (which I now do as well), and airing out the warm garage in the evening on the hotter days of summer (never more than 85 F).
Driving much slower these days (esp. now it's colder). I've done 19.5K miles in just under one year and still have all 12 capacity bars. Reading all the posts on MNL about capacity and freaking out just a bit. All my friends telling me I was nuts may actually turn out to be correct.
Being in a cooler climate (on average; we go from 0 to 95 deg F in Toronto) I hope to hang on to 12 capacity bars a little longer. However, given the experiences of those on the forum, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost a bar soon. I'm just hoping that my drop to 10 bars will be several years away, because at that point the commute becomes difficult unless I charge to 100%, which would further accelerate the decline. I would also put myself in the high-mileage category at ~20K mi/yr. Did I understand correctly that Ingineer's LeafScan tool might allow a charge point of something other than 80%? Sign me up!
If you're still with me, here are a few questions I tried searching for on MNL and Wiki; apologies if these are basic knowledge and have been answered elsewhere:
1. I've noticed that, now that I charge to 80% as much as possible, using climate control timers or on demand from the iPhone causes the SOC to drop. (I didn't notice this when charging to 100% but it didn't matter as much either.) This is all with 240V, 16A (Schneider or EVSE Upgrade) charging. If I run CC for 15 to 30 minutes or so, when I get in the car I see the "time to charge to 80%" display telling me 20 minutes at L2, and I have lost the 10th (really only 1/2) bar! I'm sure I've also seen that with CC the SOC actually *increased*. This is very troubling. I thought the whole idea of CC while plugged in is to not use the battery. Further, I'm vexed by the idea that I only got 4 out of 5 stars on my 24 K km battery check for charging while not going below 80% -- having seen that warning from Nissan I had rarely done this. I'm now wondering if the daily CC timer on the winter mornings (plus manually turning on CC via iPhone when I was running a bit late) was actually charging the battery after 20 or 30 min on CC. (I got 5/5 stars on everything else. Does using the CC (timer or on demand) while plugged in affect the SOC, either increase or decrease???
2. I'm finding the car's ability to estimate when to begin charging after I've set an End Time via the charging timer is really poor. The car routinely has the battery charged 3 1/2 hours before the set End Time. In terms of percent error, this is the same order of magnitude as the entire charging time! I could see giving a 1/2 hour of leeway, but to charge for less than four hours to 80% only to be finished over 3 hours early is crazy, especially when we are trying so hard to minimize the time the car sits with a high SOC. Do I really need to compensate for this early charging start by offsetting my End Time by 3 hours?
3. When charged at home to 80% using the L2 Schneider dock, my iPhone tells me 1.5 hours to a full charge, and shows 10 of 12 bars. When charged at work using my EVSE Upgrade (super thing!) at 240V/16A to 80%, my iPhone tells me 2 hours to a full charge with the same 10 of 12 bars. Surely the difference in the chargers cannot be the reason, as the car's own charging circuitry is determining when 80% is reached, no? Can it be the difference in ambient temperatures at the two locations (currently outside @ work is 40 F, inside garage @ home is 55 to 60 F)? When I get in the car after charging, the "time to 80% charge" says 0 minutes in either scenario. Any ideas as to what's going on?
4. Did anyone have their clock NOT show the correct time after the daylight savings time change this past (Nov 4) weekend? I had to disable DST to show the correct time. I'm having the 1-877-NOGASEV people look in to it...
Thanks for any advice anyone can give. I'll let you know when I drop my first bar of capacity.
One last note: My 16 year old son learned to drive in my LEAF and is now in the first classroom-only stages of proper drivers' ed. I can't wait to get his reaction to driving an ICEV for the first time when they begin in-car lessons, having logged dozens of hours in my LEAF as his only driving experience thus far.
Massive amount of info here. Wow. My experience so far is very similar to many on the forum. Early euphoria, settling into good commute routine, now very afraid of battery capacity issues and vanishing resale value and/or a car that cannot be used if the battery degrades beyond 70%.
My situation summary:
Signed up on web site Aug 27, 2011 for my early adopter LEAF in southern Ontario. Needed a new car badly after my 14 year old Ford Taurus was rusting out from under me.
Got disgusted with A/V over charging install quotes, went with local electrician and Schneider dock.
Received delivery of slightly used demo Ignition Red LEAF (200 kms), SL, Fast Charge Port. (Thinking I maybe should have waited for a brand new one an extra 3 months, as who knows what may have transpired with the battery during the month or two previous to receipt...)
Cost to drive it away: $49,500.00 then the $8,500.00 rebate from Ontario Govt. Figuring I'd make up the $8,000.00 premium over a $33,000.00 ICE comparison car (e.g. Ford Focus ICE) within 3 years; anything after that is gravy. Gas @ US$5.00/gallon, electricity at 6 cents/kwh, 20K mi/year so my savings is approx. $4,000/yr on fuel + maintenance.
Bit of a wake up call the first weekend doing some "real world" range tests checking out my 120 km (75 mi) RT highway commute. Must charge at work...
License Plate "GAS LOL", extolling the virtues of no oil, cheap to run, etc, etc, making everyone around me roll their eyeballs. Wife thinks I'm crazy. Did some research on the car (way more informed than Nissan people) but still unaware of any battery capacity issues, thinking that after 5 years I might see *some* degradation, but hey, batteries will come down in price, right? :-\
First winter driving with the LEAF heater (2011/12). Need to buy long underwear. Good thing I live in a warmer part of Canada where it only gets to -15 deg. C (-25 F) only a few days of the winter! Fun trying to outsmart the CC functions -- you can't. (What do you mean, there is no "fan only"??!!) Car is garaged overnight where temp rarely goes below freezing (and is usually 15 deg F above outdoor temp).
Initially charging to 100% nightly, driving slowly to work (50 mph, 40% non-highway, hogging slow lane, 1 hour one way) and using trickle charging at work. Lots of 12 hour days :-[
Got L2 charging at work (240V outlet, EVSE Upgrade) which changed everything, charging to 100% overnight, blasting to work, charging to 100% at work, blasting home. With hot 2012 summer weather (nowhere close to AZ temps, mind you) and just some A/C, no range worries, and back to a 35 minute commute. Life was good.
Started to get concerned about battery life, and recently started charging at 80% overnight and at work. Currently have two bars left after the 36 mile one way trip (GOM says ~16 mi). Averaging about 3.9 mi/kWh annually according to CW.
Had I read the capacity concerns earlier on MNL, I would have been charging to 80% as much as possible and on the weekends (which I now do as well), and airing out the warm garage in the evening on the hotter days of summer (never more than 85 F).
Driving much slower these days (esp. now it's colder). I've done 19.5K miles in just under one year and still have all 12 capacity bars. Reading all the posts on MNL about capacity and freaking out just a bit. All my friends telling me I was nuts may actually turn out to be correct.
Being in a cooler climate (on average; we go from 0 to 95 deg F in Toronto) I hope to hang on to 12 capacity bars a little longer. However, given the experiences of those on the forum, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost a bar soon. I'm just hoping that my drop to 10 bars will be several years away, because at that point the commute becomes difficult unless I charge to 100%, which would further accelerate the decline. I would also put myself in the high-mileage category at ~20K mi/yr. Did I understand correctly that Ingineer's LeafScan tool might allow a charge point of something other than 80%? Sign me up!
If you're still with me, here are a few questions I tried searching for on MNL and Wiki; apologies if these are basic knowledge and have been answered elsewhere:
1. I've noticed that, now that I charge to 80% as much as possible, using climate control timers or on demand from the iPhone causes the SOC to drop. (I didn't notice this when charging to 100% but it didn't matter as much either.) This is all with 240V, 16A (Schneider or EVSE Upgrade) charging. If I run CC for 15 to 30 minutes or so, when I get in the car I see the "time to charge to 80%" display telling me 20 minutes at L2, and I have lost the 10th (really only 1/2) bar! I'm sure I've also seen that with CC the SOC actually *increased*. This is very troubling. I thought the whole idea of CC while plugged in is to not use the battery. Further, I'm vexed by the idea that I only got 4 out of 5 stars on my 24 K km battery check for charging while not going below 80% -- having seen that warning from Nissan I had rarely done this. I'm now wondering if the daily CC timer on the winter mornings (plus manually turning on CC via iPhone when I was running a bit late) was actually charging the battery after 20 or 30 min on CC. (I got 5/5 stars on everything else. Does using the CC (timer or on demand) while plugged in affect the SOC, either increase or decrease???
2. I'm finding the car's ability to estimate when to begin charging after I've set an End Time via the charging timer is really poor. The car routinely has the battery charged 3 1/2 hours before the set End Time. In terms of percent error, this is the same order of magnitude as the entire charging time! I could see giving a 1/2 hour of leeway, but to charge for less than four hours to 80% only to be finished over 3 hours early is crazy, especially when we are trying so hard to minimize the time the car sits with a high SOC. Do I really need to compensate for this early charging start by offsetting my End Time by 3 hours?
3. When charged at home to 80% using the L2 Schneider dock, my iPhone tells me 1.5 hours to a full charge, and shows 10 of 12 bars. When charged at work using my EVSE Upgrade (super thing!) at 240V/16A to 80%, my iPhone tells me 2 hours to a full charge with the same 10 of 12 bars. Surely the difference in the chargers cannot be the reason, as the car's own charging circuitry is determining when 80% is reached, no? Can it be the difference in ambient temperatures at the two locations (currently outside @ work is 40 F, inside garage @ home is 55 to 60 F)? When I get in the car after charging, the "time to 80% charge" says 0 minutes in either scenario. Any ideas as to what's going on?
4. Did anyone have their clock NOT show the correct time after the daylight savings time change this past (Nov 4) weekend? I had to disable DST to show the correct time. I'm having the 1-877-NOGASEV people look in to it...
Thanks for any advice anyone can give. I'll let you know when I drop my first bar of capacity.
One last note: My 16 year old son learned to drive in my LEAF and is now in the first classroom-only stages of proper drivers' ed. I can't wait to get his reaction to driving an ICEV for the first time when they begin in-car lessons, having logged dozens of hours in my LEAF as his only driving experience thus far.