The unofficial Leaf dropout thread

[ebill3]

Now that it's been in the mid-40s in Chicago, I'm getting 30 miles to a charge. (That's if, and only if, I set the car to blow cold air at me while I drive. Thank you, sir. May I have another?*)

Wow, I can't believe this. It was 40F yesterday here. I had an extra errand and drove about 20 miles on 4 battery bars, while blasting the heat at 85F. This was after not charging for 2 days and having the car at 6 battery bars. I wasn't even worried cause I knew I would have plenty for another 15-20 miles if I needed it since the last bar gives twice the distance.

Something isn't right in Chicago.

I just returned with 46 miles on the clock - about 1/3 freeway at 60 mph, the remainder 35 to 55. Started with 95% charge, ended with five bars showing. A bit over 40F at the start, and returned at about 46F. Had CC on for about a haf an hour, set to 69F.

 

[Valdemar]

Same 73 milies today on a full charge. 9 miles/1 bar left in the end, LBW ~1 mile prior to that. 5.4m/kwh according to dashboard. It was windy in the morning, so less efficient than last week and LBW as a result. What does this tell about remaining capacity?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Same 73 miles today on a full charge. 9 miles/1 bar left in the end, LBW ~1 mile prior to that. 5.4m/kwh according to dashboard. It was windy in the morning, so less efficient than last week and LBW as a result. What does this tell about remaining capacity?

Ok, so it's 72 miles to LBW. What was the battery temperature? We can't really get accurate data from the fuel bars, and the 9 miles on the GOM is completely worthless. I'll make my calculations "the long way", just so you can see the factors.

5.4 * 21 (assuming new 70F or warmer battery) = 113.4 miles range.

LBW = 17.4% of a new 70F battery (and a much larger percentage of a degraded one) = 0.174 * 21 = 3.654kWh left in the battery.

3.6kWh * 5.4 = 19.5 miles additional that could have been driven + 72 miles = 91.5 miles range with your current battery at its then current battery temperature (remember, heater and air conditioning is factored into the miles/kWh).

91.5 / 113.4 = 80.6% battery capacity, which includes both permanent battery degradation and temporary temperature related degradation.

Here's simpler way to factor it:

72 / 5.4 = 13.33 kWh burned. There was 3.6kWh left in the battery.

13.33 + 3.6 = 16.93 total kWh available this day (at this temperature and degradation level).

16.93 / 21 = 80.6% battery capacity


Keep in mind that in all these fantastic calculations that the bottom 2% of the battery is not useable, and turtle mode can come on as high as 3%, so 17.4% - 3% = 14.4% useable is 0.144 * 21 = 3kWh useable remaining at LBW.

Finally, we know from the Phoenix LEAF test that the miles per kWh car vary quite substantially (0.7 miles kWh variation) at the same speed, course, weather, wind, etc.

LEAF --- CapBars- miles-M/kWh-Volts ---GOM
Red429 --- 10 --- 71.8 - 4.3 - ----------74
Blue494 ---- 8 --- 59.3 - 3.7 - ----------56
Blue534 --- 10 --- 75.7* - --- - 315.5----74 (ECO=84) (*Data edit 75.7 for typo)
White530 -- 10 --- 69.7 - 4.0 - ----------73
White272 -- 10 --- 66.1 - 4.4 - ----------68
Red500 ---- 9 ----73.3*- 4.4 - -342.5*---66 (*No turtle; 2 miles >VLB: Added 4 miles)
White626 --12 ----73.5 - 4.3 - -317.5----73 (CapBars were 10, reset 12, now 11)
Blue842 ---12 ----79.6 - 4.1 - --------- 76
Silver679-- 10 ----71.8 - 4.2 - -303.5--- 75 (18.2 miles after LBW)
Blue917--- 10 ----72.5 - 4.1 - -310.5 ---67
Black782-- 12 ----76.6 - 3.9 - -295.0 ---88ECO (Out4.0/In3.8; LBW 6.9, VLB 6.5)
Blue744 ---9 -----72.3*- 4.4 - -352.0*-- 63 (*No Turtle; 1 mile after VLB; added 5 miles)
Red065 ---12-----83.2 - 4.3 - -317.5 -- 103 (tested Nov 4, 2012)

 

[Valdemar]

Thanks for this. However I would think 19.4% loss would manifest itself as a missing bar, and I still have all capacity bars. How much does the battery temperature affect these calculations? It was about 55F outside when I left in the morning, but the battery was likely warmer than that as the car was garaged and also charging up until 1hr prior departure. In any case it sounds like I'm just about to lose a capacity bar. Still I think your estimate is somewhat pessimistic. My commute to work and back is about 46 miles, and I usually leave on a 80% charge. While GOM is not a very good indicator of anything I'm now consistently getting 19-22 miles remaining when I get home in the evening and 2-3 bars. The commute itself is the same with consistent traffic and cruising speed patterns. I'm positive these numbers have not been much better 12 months ago, maybe I was getting at most 3-4 miles more on average. With close to 20% loss I should be just around LBW whenI get home but this never happens on those days.

 

[surfingslovak]

Valdemar, I believe that you could be between 236 and 247 Gid. The best way to determine that is to get a Gid reading. Also, if you were to run the battery down to turtle, and recharge it on a level 2 station, the wall energy draw combined with a consistent charging efficiency would give us a better idea of your battery's usable capacity. You could conceivably do this after your commute by running the heather in the Leaf on high until turtle mode is reached.

Either way we cut it, there appears to be significant loss. Wether that's expected is difficult to say without better data. I would recommend running Stoaty's battery aging model to get an idea of what Nissan might consider Normal(TM) for your geographic location, annual mileage, and age of the vehicle.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Thanks for this. However I would think 19.4% loss would manifest itself as a missing bar, and I still have all capacity bars. How much does the battery temperature affect these calculations? It was about 55F outside when I left in the morning, but the battery was likely warmer than that as the car was garaged and also charging up until 1hr prior departure. In any case it sounds like I'm just about to lose a capacity bar. Still I think your estimate is somewhat pessimistic.

My estimate of your loss is only as good as the data you give me.

55F battery temp could account for 70F - 55F = 15F / 4 = 4% loss.

So, I estimate 15.4% permanent loss, plus or minus a few percentage points.

 

[redLEAF]

Now that it's been in the mid-40s in Chicago, I'm getting 30 miles to a charge. (That's if, and only if, I set the car to blow cold air at me while I drive. Thank you, sir. May I have another?*)

Wow, I can't believe this. It was 40F yesterday here. I had an extra errand and drove about 20 miles on 4 battery bars, while blasting the heat at 85F. This was after not charging for 2 days and having the car at 6 battery bars. I wasn't even worried cause I knew I would have plenty for another 15-20 miles if I needed it since the last bar gives twice the distance.

Something isn't right in Chicago.

I just returned with 46 miles on the clock - about 1/3 freeway at 60 mph, the remainder 35 to 55. Started with 95% charge, ended with five bars showing. A bit over 40F at the start, and returned at about 46F. Had CC on for about a haf an hour, set to 69F.

I went out of town for a long weekend so am just now getting into some of these newer threads otherwise would have definitely commented earlier ... with about 11 months and a little over 8K miles on our '12 SL we're simply not seeing this poster's reduction in range reduction around Chicago; we do have an L2 (Schneider) 'charger' at home and a semi-heated garage but otherwise the car sits out all day in cold parking lots, have noticed the battery temp bars are down to 4 now with the colder air temps but still getting 60 to 70 on a full (100%) charge even with the latest temp drop, when it's warmer we've seen close to 90 but we don't hyper-mile so we think that's pretty good. On the L2 at home -- IL Dept of Commerce still offers a 50% rebate on the equip + install as long as you used a licensed electrician so at that rate it makes sense to do it, unless you live somewhere where its prohibited or otherwise a major issue to put one in -- I would have thought twice about any plug-in that requires more than overnight at 120V for a full charge; it just further reduces the viability especially if its your only car. Lastly, on the '30 miles to a charge' comment -- what's you miles per kWh rate?, has to be extremely low and is this with 100% charge showing? Lastly, over on the Chicagoland thread, we had one owner who traded his LEAF in for a Volt so you may want to compare experiences but by and large the majority of us have done pretty well ... regardless, if the car simply doesn't suit you I'd try to work something out with Nissan as the car is leased and get a PHEV (C-Max Energi, PiP, etc.) if you're stuck with only being able to charge 120V.

 

[dfriedla]

As an update, I got my Leaf back from the dealership today after their regional tech guy had a look at it. The dealership either won't or (more likely) can't tell me much, but they did mention that my battery passed a bunch of tests with flying colors. So, um, yay? I asked her why I was getting 30 miles to a charge if that was the case, and she said I would hear more from consumer affairs in "a few weeks." So I'm thinking that by the time Nissan sorts this out, I'll probably be at 12 months and eligible to buy out the lease (boy, I hope not...that'd be a looooooong 8 months).

In fact, the only test on which my battery scored four stars out of five was the use of quick charging test. Very interesting, as someone at Nissan corporate along the way told us that quick charging wasn't really an issue (see also: I don't have a home charger and would rather not wait around for a level 2 whenever I have a choice).

In response to redLEAF, I had been averaging 3.5ish miles per kWh—which is crap, and I know it, but driving conservatively never seemed to improve that. I did notice when I got it back tonight that it is now at 5.0. I'd love to know what they did to coax 5.0 out of my car.

Test drove the Volt again this weekend, and I really like it.

Something tells me getting out of this lease is going to be a long hard slog. I have to say, though, that after driving an Altima for 2 days, I was really happy to see my Leaf again. That thing is a boat.

 

[kubel]

I left home with a 100% charge, drove 25 miles on the highway at 70MPH, arrived at the dealer, they took it out on a test drive (and didn't bother to charge it), then I drove it another 40 miles on the highway, arrived at work just before LBW, recharged for 3 hours at work at L1, drive a few miles and recharged for 45 minutes at L2 while eating lunch, then drive a few more miles and recharged for another 4 hours at L1, drove 30 miles home (45-55MPH), then got LBW and pulled in the driveway 2 miles later. All in the 30's, and with oversized inefficient snow tires installed on oversized steel wheels.

The LEAF is taking everything I can throw at it.

 

[mkjayakumar]

The LEAF is taking everything I can throw at it.

Only because you had all the opportunity charging. Perhaps that is the key..

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I left home with a 100% charge, drove 25 miles on the highway at 70MPH, arrived at the dealer, they took it out on a test drive (and didn't bother to charge it), then I drove it another 40 miles on the highway, arrived at work just before LBW, recharged for 3 hours at work at L1, drive a few miles and recharged for 45 minutes at L2 while eating lunch, then drive a few more miles and recharged for another 4 hours at L1, drove 30 miles home (45-55MPH), then got LBW and pulled in the driveway 2 miles later. All in the 30's, and with oversized inefficient snow tires installed on oversized steel wheels.

The LEAF is taking everything I can throw at it.

This is how the LEAF will be used effectively. Problem is that most people dont have the chunks during the day to charge and that can be fixed by putting charging stations in the right place.

right now, there are too many conflicting laws governing sales of various items like electricity, where they can be sold (specific state owned areas) and if they can be sold. All these laws were written to stop other things from happening and are having the effect of stopping EVs from happening.

http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2012/11/charging-for-charging-cheaper-than-free.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

now a lot of people will elect to pay more money and continue burning gas, but eventually EV exposure will start eating away at their resolve. We still have a ways to go but public charging needs to happen

 

[edatoakrun]

Same 73 milies today on a full charge. 9 miles/1 bar left in the end, LBW ~1 mile prior to that. 5.4m/kwh according to dashboard. It was windy in the morning, so less efficient than last week and LBW as a result. What does this tell about remaining capacity?

I don't think it tells very much, since you are relying on dash m/kWh reports as and indication of kWh use. Since I first noticed it last August, my own LEAF has seemed to continue to under-report kWh use (and thus continue to report inflated m/kWh) as verified by both range tests and recharging monitoring:

Ever since TickTock fist suggested the topic of gid variability, the implications of his observations have been setting in.

Quote:
TickTock

1 gid *mostly* equals 80Wh


viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9689

If “gids” do reflect a variable amount of Wh, and they are the values used by the LEAF to calculate kWh use, then the capacity bar displays, dash and nav screen displays of m/kWh, as well as the Carwings calculations based on these same “gid” values, might be expected to be incorrect as well.

I now believe that this quite possibly could be be the case.

I have been noticing an unexplained increase in my dash, nav Screen, and Carwings m/kWh results for a few months now, not only on this test trip, but on other trips, and my long term m/kWh averages.

Before I questioned the accuracies both of the screens and of Carwings, I thought the likely explanations for increased efficiency results, were increased efficiency, in either the driver or vehicle.

I am skeptical of any significant increase in my own driving efficiency, other than that resulting from driving more slowly.

I considered the possibility of increasing vehicle efficiency, and I would not be surprised if drivetrain friction is reduced a bit due to “break-in” of the drivetrain.

But if either of these efficiency factors were improving, I would expect them both to be relatively minor, and self limiting.

This does not seem to be what I am seeing.

I think that my range tests may indicate that whatever method my LEAF uses to calculate kWh, is variable, and has been significantly understating the recent amounts of kWh use, and has probably increasingly inflated all my m/kWh reports, from the dash, nav screen, and CW.

And of course, this could reflect with Tick Tocks observations of variable “gid” Wh values. Gids with higher Wh content could lower the calculated kWh numbers, and raise all the m/kWh results.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=9064&start=20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TonyWilliams:...we know from the Phoenix LEAF test that the miles per kWh car vary quite substantially (0.7 miles kWh variation) at the same speed, course, weather, wind, etc...

I think that Tony is probably misstating the results of his own test. I think the test LEAFs probably achieved very similar m/kWh results, and that erroneous dash reports misstated kWh use, causing the great majority of this 0.7 miles kWh variation.

Unfortunately, no effort was made to monitor the recharge kWh of the Phoenix test cars, so we will probably never know how inaccurate the dash m/kWh displays were that day, and don't yet know what the actual average m/kWh for a LEAF under the Arizona test conditions is, as the 4.0 m/kWh often stated is actually only speculative.

 

[DaveEV]

Unfortunately, no effort was made to monitor the recharge kWh of the Phoenix test cars, so we will probably never know how inaccurate the dash m/kWh displays were that day, and don't yet know what the actual average m/kWh for a LEAF under the Arizona test conditions is, as the 4.0 m/kWh often stated is actually only speculative.

Since you apparently are the greatest armchair quarterback and posses insights that no-one else has ever conjured up, I welcome you to reproduce Tony's test including an effort to measure energy from the wall after draining each car.

Let me just say - doing so may sound easy, but actually doing so with ~10 cars is practice is extremely time consuming - just finding the infrastructure to do so would be very difficult - are there any sites with 10 accurately metered L2 chargers? What guarantees that the meter on each L2 charger is accurate?

Anyway - if you decide to follow up - may I suggest you do so in the appropriate thread - this thread has drifted far enough off-topic.

 

[surfingslovak]

While I agree that Valdemar's data does not give us much to go on, despite best efforts, I have to disagree with most of what was said in Ed's post above. While he raises good points, I don't agree with many of the conclusions. Even if you disregard the energy economy gauge, the efficiency of the drivetrain is not increasing over time or after a break-in period. It's important to be clear about that. Another thing worth noting is that the instrumentation in the car has proven to be less accurate than many of us have hoped for. Whether this is due to the type of sensors used, changes in battery discharge characteristics over time, increased internal resistance, a software problem, or a combination of these factors, we cannot be sure. That said, and with healthy skepticism of gauge readouts in mind, there are certain things that are true for all EVs, and an increasing battery and drivetrain efficiency is not one of them. If that's what your gauges would indicate, then there is even more reason to be skeptical.

I'm disappointed that Ed continues to be inappropriately critical of the Phoenix range test. Yes, the energy needed to recharge the cars was not measured, and it there was time, it should have been attempted. Waiting another 6 or 7 hours for a complete charge on level 2 would not have been practical. Not everyone would allow a quick charge, and there were only three tow dollies present. Yes, a lot more data could have been collected, and it wasn't. Unfortunately, most of us as drivers only have a finite amount of time and resources at our disposal. The execution of the test already took inordinate amount of effort on the part of the organizer and participating owners. If you cannot accept that, whatever the reason, perhaps you can help organize a test of similar nature or some other event, which will provide more lab-grade results, in the future. If you had additional thoughts about the matter, it would be good to take it to a different thread, as was suggested above.

 

[xtremeflyer]

Trying to decide if I am going to be on this list. Nissan has offered to buy the car back at the payoff quote on my lease, but I would still owe $2500 back of the $5000 rebate from the State of California. CARB is not waiving any exceptions, so I'm stuck. I can barely make it to and from work, so that means no heater when it gets cold and I don't know if next summer is going to degrade the car even more, but at the same time, if I turn it in, I'm out $2500 and an HOV sticker. I was willing to lease a new one for 2 years, since this one made it through two summers and it would get me to the (current) end of the sticker program, but CARB won't give me any credits for that either.

Still trying to decide, but I don't know what I would get next. We have two ICE cars, so I can just drive one of those, but then I'm paying for gas again and I'm out of the HOV which saves me about 20-30 min/day. The RAV4 EV is soooo tempting, but I don't want to buy and not offering the full $7500 in the lease just rubs me the wrong way. .. sigh..

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
Well, you've still got other choices for HOV stickers (e.g. Volt, PiP, CNG Civic).

But, you don't want to lease a PiP for the same reason you don't want to lease a Rav4 EV.

 

[Valdemar]

...I can barely make it to and from work...

Sorry for asking, but I saw your post where you mentioned your commute was 72-76 miles including freeway, that is already pretty close to Leaf's limits even when new. Did you have the same job/commute when you leased? If so, given you expected at least some amount of degradation, what was you plan to compensate for it when you leased?

 

[DaveEV]

Still trying to decide, but I don't know what I would get next.

What keeps you from plugging in at work? If you're driving 70+ miles/day on a single charge now, plugging in at work even on L1 should let you drive your commute for quite a long time. Certainly until something with 100 mi real world range is able to be leased at a reasonable price.

 

[xtremeflyer]

Sorry for asking, but I saw your post where you mentioned your commute was 72-76 miles including freeway, that is already pretty close to Leaf's limits even when new. Did you have the same job/commute when you leased? If so, given you expected at least some amount of degradation, what was you plan to compensate for it when you leased?

Yes.. I had the same job/commute.. Until this summer I regularly got home with 8-10 miles left with an efficiency of 4.2 mi/kw. Now I get home with VLBW at 4.8 mi/kw. At the end of the day, I guess I didn't fully understand that the 100 miles was a figment and that the degradation would be so high so quickly. I used to be able to drive 65 mph to and from work and get home with 8-10 miles on the GOM, just hitting LBW. Now I have to drive 58 mph and I get VLBW. How was I to expect that in Southern California. On top of that, Nissan's website told me my commute was the perfect candidate.

What keeps you from plugging in at work? If you're driving 70+ miles/day on a single charge now, plugging in at work even on L1 should let you drive your commute for quite a long time. Certainly until something with 100 mi real world range is able to be leased at a reasonable price.

No electricity in the parking lot. I have repeatedly asked for a charging station, even willing to help pay for it. I pointed them to the free charging station for workplaces from Chargepoint. The property management company is just not interested and my own management has told me that I'm no longer allowed to ask, even though my company is supportive. Yes, if there was an outlet or an EVSE, this would be a non-issue.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Sorry for asking, but I saw your post where you mentioned your commute was 72-76 miles including freeway, that is already pretty close to Leaf's limits even when new. Did you have the same job/commute when you leased? If so, given you expected at least some amount of degradation, what was you plan to compensate for it when you leased?

Yes.. I had the same job/commute.. Until this summer I regularly got home with 8-10 miles left with an efficiency of 4.2 mi/kw. Now I get home with VLBW at 4.8 mi/kw. At the end of the day, I guess I didn't fully understand that the 100 miles was a figment and that the degradation would be so high so quickly. I used to be able to drive 65 mph to and from work and get home with 8-10 miles on the GOM, just hitting LBW. Now I have to drive 58 mph and I get VLBW. How was I to expect that in Southern California. On top of that, Nissan's website told me my commute was the perfect candidate.

What keeps you from plugging in at work? If you're driving 70+ miles/day on a single charge now, plugging in at work even on L1 should let you drive your commute for quite a long time. Certainly until something with 100 mi real world range is able to be leased at a reasonable price.

No electricity in the parking lot. I have repeatedly asked for a charging station, even willing to help pay for it. I pointed them to the free charging station for workplaces from Chargepoint. The property management company is just not interested and my own management has told me that I'm no longer allowed to ask, even though my company is supportive. Yes, if there was an outlet or an EVSE, this would be a non-issue.

it sucks that quick charge is such a slow rollout. i know it sucks to have to stop even for a few minutes when commuting home but 10 minutes would be way more than enough to give you the additional range and allow for errands as well. if you had something convenient enough to charge up during your lunch hour something along those lines.

afraid its all still brand new for most areas but for CA? they should be way farther ahead of this game