Your garage much be much cooler than mine. So by not driving your pack should stay around 70F (21C). Driving the pack will vary between 80-90F (27-32C) or about a 10C rise maximum. Factor in cycling losses and your battery probably loses capacity twice as fast by driving it as parking it.Stoaty said:Parked in the garage in the summer for a period of time, battery pack is typically at 68-70 degrees F. When I take the Leaf out on moderately hot days (max temp of 94-95 degrees), battery pack gets up to 90 degrees F. and doesn't drop below 80 by recharge the next morning. On the especially hot days it would be higher.
FWIW - My garage right now is 75-80F between morning late afternoon. Daily high upper 80s. Pack temperature is also upper 80s when I get home. By morning pack is back down to ~80F. I certainly don't get as much benefit by parking it as you do.
I'm of the opinion that one buys a car for a purpose and while it makes sense to attempt to prolong the life of it, going so far as to not drive it because it may be worse for the battery than not driving it (or more expensive for those who refuse to pay for public charging) defeats the purpose of buying the LEAF in the first place. Especially when you see news like this: MIT study says combustion emissions cause ~200,000 premature deaths/year in US; vehicles and power generation top sourcesStoaty said:That's a good point. If I had faith that the glide path would be 10 years by driving the Leaf on hot summer days (what is predicted by the model), I would certainly take it to work. My strong impression is that heat is a lot more damaging to the battery than the model suggests. Of course, I can't prove it any more than others can prove me wrong. All of the input is good food for thought.
You are correct that the real question is how much additional value are you getting out of the LEAF by parking it for 2 months of the year to extend the life of the LEAF by perhaps a few years? I figure by the time you get out to 8 years, the cost of a new pack should be substantially less - and even lower if one considers a used pack.
It seems that at the very least you could get into Nissan's battery rental program for $100/mo which would cost you $3600 for 3 years. Is that enough to make up for not-driving the LEAF 2 months out of the year for 10 years?
At least for me - the car will remain very useful for commuting basically indefinitely. The real issue is that as it ages it becomes less and less useful for weekend driving unless there is convenient charging available.