Six miles, Low Battery Warning to Turtle (Sans Effect)

[TonyWilliams]

EDIT: After a 100% charge, and 3 hour cell pair balancing, my car is back to normal range.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I had to get towed, about 6 miles short of my intended charge spot in Diamond Bar, California. First, let me say what fantastic service! I called at 11:33pm, spent 8 minutes on the phone, and 15 minutes from getting off the phone, the tow truck driver called. He was there 10 minutes later, and from Turtle mode to loaded on the truck was 45 minutes.

So, the real issue for this post is that it's the first time my car went from the first battery warning to Turtle in 6 miles. Since I was counting on 12 miles, things didn't work out so well. I hope we can find a way to preclude a repeat.

Very Low Battery (the second warning) to Turtle was less than 2 miles. We've heard of this happening on at least two other occasions. While I started the day at 80%, I did one 2-ish hour charge to 100%, with plenty of cell balancing time. Then, after VLB, a 93 minute charge in Laguna Beach, and another 90 minute charge 10-ish miles later in Newport Fashion Island. I launched with 4 bars for the last 28 miles. I went 22.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Oh, I forgot. How do you put the car in neutral to get towed without turning the car on?

 

[cwerdna]

If only Nissan would allow tow charging like those Dutch guys did.

It might take a bit less time and serve 2 purposes: getting you partway to your destination and providing you a bit of juice so that they don't need to tow you all the way.

 

[Herm]

Perhaps out of balance cells?

 

[vegastar]

What was the outside temperature and battery temperature bars?

 

[Desertstraw]

If you are in the wrong place, the warnings are of little use because you will be stranded. While in such a place, actually with more than enough charge to get home, I pondered what I would do if I did have a low charge. My thought was that the thing to do is find any place with a 120 volt outlet and depend "on the kindness of strangers". Gas stations and convenience stores seemed like the best possibilities.

 

[adric22]

I prefer dealing with low batteries in an entirely different way. I like the way Robert Llewellyn put it in one of his Fully-Charged episodes.. He said "So what happens if you are driving along the motorway and you run out of power? The answer is you just don't do it." I agree 100%. There really is no excuse. I would never plan a journey that I fully knew that would put be into a low battery state and then be presumptuous enough to know how many more miles I could get after the low battery warning came on.

On a second note.. if I KNEW my battery was dangerously low and I wasn't going to make it to my intended place to charge, I would pull off the road and find a parking lot somewhere. With any luck I could find a 120V outlet somewhere to charge for an hour or two. But even if I had to call a tow truck, I'd rather be towed away from a parking lot than have the general public see a Leaf being towed from the side of the highway because it ran out of juice. That is exactly the type of thing the general non-EV accepting public is afraid of. I bet all of the Hummers and F250 dually's driving by were laughing.

 

[nogajim]

I prefer dealing with low batteries in an entirely different way. I like the way Robert Llewellyn put it in one of his Fully-Charged episodes.. He said "So what happens if you are driving along the motorway and you run out of power? The answer is you just don't do it." I agree 100%. There really is no excuse. I would never plan a journey that I fully knew that would put be into a low battery state and then be presumptuous enough to know how many more miles I could get after the low battery warning came on.

OK, I wouldn't do it either, but I'm glad that Tony and others are taking on the challenge. Sometime or other I may need to use that 12 miles of VLB and it is important to know whether it predictable or not. Thanks Tony!

 

[edatoakrun]

Unless you happen to be driving in flat terrain, gauging charge remaining by "miles" is an exercise in futility.

Every day I drive the 25 miles to Redding CA from my home, I descend 1500 ft. (net).

When starting out with 11 bars of charge or less, I get a little better than 6 m/kWh on the trip to town, and just over 2 m/kWh on the return trip, averaging about 4.2 kWh overall.

I would expect, on the final steep ascent to my home, to get only a few miles from VLB to turtle, and it would be only a few (?) hundred yards from there, until My LEAF decides that its Battery's life is more important than my need to get home, and that I need to get out to walk.

Never seen the turtle, and not planning to.

 

[TonyWilliams]

If only Nissan would allow tow charging like those Dutch guys did.

It might take a bit less time and serve 2 purposes: getting you partway to your destination and providing you a bit of juice so that they don't need to tow you all the way.

Where do they prohibit that? They don't. If the truck had a portable DC quick charger, like AAA is supposed to have, the car would have plenty of miles in the time it took to load it up.

Actually, I doubt AAA will have QC, and if you let the car automatically shut down in Turtle, it takes a LONG time charging on L2 before it will restart.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Perhaps out of balance cells?

Of course, the only logical answer if the car will "go the distance" after this charge.

 

[Volusiano]

Tony, did you use the free towing service that Nissan offers? If so, were you able to get them to tow your Leaf back to your house (only a few miles away), or did they insist that it must be towed to the nearest Nissan dealership only?

 

[evnow]

So, the real issue for this post is that it's the first time my car went from the first battery warning to Turtle in 6 miles. Since I was counting on 12 miles, things didn't work out so well. I hope we can find a way to preclude a repeat.

Do you have the SOC meter ? Would be interesting to see what it showed ...

BTW, did you get VLB in between ?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Tony, did you use the free towing service that Nissan offers? If so, were you able to get them to tow your Leaf back to your house (only a few miles away), or did they insist that it must be towed to the nearest Nissan dealership only?

Yes, I called the Nissan number 1-877-664-2738, and they asked for the last 8 digits of the VIN. It should be BT000001 format (not sure if the BT is different in other countries or years, and the last six are the serial number).

I wasn't going home, so they towed me the six miles to the charger in Diamond Bar. Anybody in the Chargepoint region should breath a sigh of relief that you don't have Blinks. I used three separate Chargepoints, and they all worked perfect (and expertly).

I'm over 100 miles from home, and not going back until Sunday.

 

[TonyWilliams]

So, the real issue for this post is that it's the first time my car went from the first battery warning to Turtle in 6 miles. Since I was counting on 12 miles, things didn't work out so well. I hope we can find a way to preclude a repeat.

Do you have the SOC meter ? Would be interesting to see what it showed ...

BTW, did you get VLB in between ?

4.x miles from Low Battery Warning to VLB, then less than two miles to Turtle. About 6 miles total.

Interesting tid-bit. I restarted the car and drove it to the back of the truck. Car did not show Turtle mode anymore. Started it again and drove it into the charging spot; again, no Turtle.

I would have loved to see how far it would go, but it was late. This, by the way, is the first time in my entire life that a commercial tow service has moved my car.

SOC meter was not in the car (neither was spare tire and extension cords, etc).

Another tid-bit. Had I spent 45 more minutes charging, I would have likely arrived at my destination at the same time.

 

[ttweed]

Very Low Battery (the second warning) to Turtle was less than 2 miles.

Dang, Tony, I have never even flirted with the VLB warning, much less turtle mode, but I'm a little disappointed to hear that the performance at those levels isn't very predictable. I have always thought that if I did get to that point and had only 5-6 miles to get home or so that I would make it. Now I'm not so sure. I'd like to hear what you figure out about why it would go further sometimes and then not at another. I guess I will just continue my conservative ways and not push the limit, but I'm glad someone else is so I know what to expect (or not) if I ever get into that position.

TT

 

[surfingslovak]

SOC meter was not in the car (neither was spare tire and extension cords, etc).

Another tid-bit. Had I spent 45 more minutes charging, I would have likely arrived at my destination at the same time.

Tony, any idea what the charging time display was showing at the end of your trip? It would be an interesting data point. Sorry to hear that the Leaf didn't go as far as planned.

 

[gbarry42]

Also wondering if the charge-time or kWh applied at those two stops jives with the number of miles you actually got.

I, too am the sort never to try this stuff, but am glad someone is daring (dumb?) enough to BTW, they will flame you six ways from Sunday on Prius Chat if you ever run your Prius out of gas--especially on purpose.

I don't see very much that would explain what happened this time. The 100% charge at the start should have balanced the cells and "calibrated" the gauges. There is some low-battery behavior that I'll discuss later but I think your on-the-road recharges kept you out of that territory. Cell imbalance should only happen gradually, and is generally not expected at all if the factory matched the cells to start with. I expect Nissan in their first production year to have done that, and more.

I think it pays to heed the advice Kadota-san gave you guys. Something like, "This stuff is not obvious, and it is not easy". Still, the renowned Williams Experiments will benefit all as proof of this

 

[vegastar]

Maybe the low temperature voltage sag confused the BMS into thinking the SOC was lower than the actual SOC. This would explain why after some time off the estimated SOC was higher so no turtle mode to enter the tow truck.

 

[smkettner]

Four bars and 28 miles would seem easy. I would have done the same. I would have had the climate control off.

I think the mixed charging confuses the GOM and range bars. One of the first posts of getting towed that I read seemed to go to turtle very quickly and he also had a bunch of mixed partial charging that day.