Update on Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement

[GRA]

Thanks for including the references; btw, I'm in the Sierra Foothills and am dependent on my EV for travel between towns; else, I too would follow your transportation plan; bikes are wonderful devices that are underutilized in our country.

You're welcome. Things are changing for the better in the U.S. with bikes in urban areas, although we've got a long way to go improving the infrastructure so that we can equal European levels of ridership. For utilitarian trips of .5 to 3 miles 1-way (< 5 to 6 miles for 1-way commutes), unless you've got physical limitations, the weather's really inclement or the route's really hilly (e-bikes take care of that if you can't), bikes are pretty much the ideal choice for urban areas. Once you get beyond those radii, unless you're a committed rider out for the exercise/enjoyment, the extra travel time tends to be too high compared to other modes. I've known or know of serious riders who have daily 18, 20 or more mile 1-way commutes, or do so in heavy rain/snow (one guy rides year-round in Saskatoon), but those are way beyond reasonable for the typical utilitarian cyclist. Two or three miles each way is the bread and butter.

 

[bruceme]

I thought I'd add my numbers to the thread. I purchased my Leaf late 2012 as a pre-owned 2011 SL trim with ChADemo (rental car from California) had 5,000mi and 12 bars. Until mid-2014 it had 12 bars. I now have 48,000mi on the odometer of daily commuting (50mi round trip) and 10 bars. Zero mechanical issue, no issue found at regular scheduled maintenance cycles.

I have a feeling the recent ChaDemo charging I do about twice a month while running errands may play a part, especially in the summer, but obviously no proof there.

I will likely replace the battery (or trade-up for leather, 30kw and seat warmers) at 8 or 7 bars and keep driving as I love this thing... I factored all this into the ownership equation early on and not the least caught-off-guard. All in the price of clean quiet commute. I have to applaud Nissan for having the vision to do it in the first place and fortitude to persist through all nay-saying and even to continue to innovate. Our best support is to buy another one and convince our neighbors, friends and family to do the same.

 

[nerys]

I finally lost a bar 11 bars now at 31,000 miles. (I was on the verge of losing a bar when I bought the car sep 2014) took 26,000 more miles of me driving it to finally drop the bar.

the KWh reading from the dash is FINALLY accurate with my paper numbers now.!!

it typically now charges to 17.2KWh as per leaf spy. which finally jives with the m/kwh reading from the car's readout and my paper figures. though sometimes it will still charge to a fictional 17.5 to 18.0 kwh and "rapidly" drop the first few miles until it settles down to reality.

interesting is that I did not lose my 1st bar till 17.2kwh. I thought it was 15% ? I did not lose my first bar until the battery hit 80% which is a 20% loss. 20% "exactly" on the dot.

 

[Marktm]

... ONE MORE THING: The last consumer affairs person I talked to actually told me FLAT OUT that if I wanted to get the warranty replacement, GO QUICK CHARGE A LOT! ...

Some of the most honest customer relations feedback I have ever heard :shock:
Impressive
But it is a lot easier for you to do that in Nashville where there are many more LEAF and many more functioning DCQC.
In Chattanooga within range of my home they are all dead in the water.
Murphy Express and Cracker Barrel will not spend any $ to repair.
The Nissan defective design at Mountain View, dealer expects Nissan to step up and fix it. Hell may freeze over first.
Sears supposedly has parts on order and supposedly will repair.
But for the time being Chattanooga that got the first DCQC in Tennessee is dead in the water.
Only L2 for the time being.
And a lot of them are out of service too.

Wow I didn't know that the DCFC scene was that bleak in Chattanooga.

So much for simply using DCFC more as your battery degrades to get around.

Sorry to hear your plight and I now feel privileged to live somewhere where I have multiple DCFC choices which are generally reliable enough to get me around

SUBJECT: DCQC PROBLEMS
Update from Sugar Land (Houston, TX area) as of Jan 2016;
After a couple of weeks of calling/complaining to EVGO about their DCQC not working, it was fixed. It is the ONLY DCQC in Sugar Land - luckily only a few miles from my house (and at a Whole Foods - gaining weight!). I had no idea that this "charging - NOT" problem existed - great forum. Ordered a OpenESVE 30 amp charger and will experiment to get the full use of my 3.3KW charger - at both 120 and 240 volts.

Mark - 2012 SL - 9 bars - Dec. 2015 purchase date. Fun, great car!

 

[futureal]

DCQC does not decrease battery life - this is all misinformation from self interested parties.

I am an owner of a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with 45,000 miles on it and 0 QC on it until it hit 8 bars.
How do you ask I got to 8 bars so quick? 110v volt charge to 100% all the time and 240 volt / L2 / regular charge to 100% all the time anytime anywhere all the time. Key? Drive it like you stole it - I am in left/ HOV lane doing 80-85. Heats up battery like crazy I deplete battery at least once a day to 5 miles or so.

DO NOT BELEVIVE DCQC bull - it actually raises your Ahr's temporarily.......a fact you know when you use LeafSpy app with a Bluetooth port.
LEaf drivers in Europe use DCQC all the time and do not lose capacity as we do here..... however they don't get the heat we do here.

Good Luck!!!

 

[davewill]

DCQC does not decrease battery life - this is all misinformation from self interested parties.

I am an owner of a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with 45,000 miles on it and 0 QC on it until it hit 8 bars. ...

Then how the hell would you know? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[nerys]

read his post again. Carefully.

 

[DaveEV]

DCQC does not decrease battery life - this is all misinformation from self interested parties.

You can believe that if you want, but you contradict yourself.

QC will elevate the temperature of the pack - typically 10-20F per QC. And as even you acknowledge - heat kills batteries.

Ignore the fact that the capacity reading temporarily goes up. The reading is just an imperfect estimation of the capacity of the pack and should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[tattoogunman]

Does the Nissan Leaf not have battery cooling? I'm only asking because I am also looking at a Volt and they have a cooling system for the batteries.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

Does the Nissan Leaf not have battery cooling? I'm only asking because I am also looking at a Volt and they have a cooling system for the batteries.

Nope. It's the most controversial design decision that Nissan made. The fact that it doesn't have any TMS is OK (not great) in many parts of the world, and just plain negligent in others. All depends on your climate.

 

[Jedlacks]

Does the Nissan Leaf not have battery cooling? I'm only asking because I am also looking at a Volt and they have a cooling system for the batteries.

I think they could have put in active cooling, but they underestimated the market. Most of us do not drive more than 50-60 miles a day (Nissan figured that right), so that system may have appeared to be an unnecessary expense. Nevertheless, they did not do enough testing in the heat and cold to see what the effects would be. We have all see videos of car makers baking freezing their cars, so why Nissan did not do that to the Leaf is beyond me. Maybe it was a calculated gamble by Ghosn to bring the car to market and dominate the EV market share. The jury is still out in some of our minds if that was a good thing.

 

[WetEV]

Does the Nissan Leaf not have battery cooling? I'm only asking because I am also looking at a Volt and they have a cooling system for the batteries.

Nope. It's the most controversial design decision that Nissan made. The fact that it doesn't have any TMS is OK (not great) in many parts of the world, and just plain negligent in others. All depends on your climate.

Mostly agree. If my Leaf had Volt style battery cooling (aka TMS "Thermal Management System"), the TMS would have actually cooled the battery by a few degrees on a few days per year over the past four years. On the other hand, a TMS would have used energy every day of the year, and would have made the Leaf more expensive and heavier, and might have increased average battery temperature causing slightly shorter battery life. I'm happy the Leaf doesn't have a TMS. Not everyone agrees (to say the least) because they have different climates.

If you are in a cool place, having no TMS is great. Most places it is OK. Hot places it is a bad idea to have no TMS with the battery chemistry used in the older Leafs.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

Does the Nissan Leaf not have battery cooling? I'm only asking because I am also looking at a Volt and they have a cooling system for the batteries.

Nope. It's the most controversial design decision that Nissan made. The fact that it doesn't have any TMS is OK (not great) in many parts of the world, and just plain negligent in others. All depends on your climate.

Mostly agree. If my Leaf had Volt style battery cooling (aka TMS "Thermal Management System"), the TMS would have actually cooled the battery by a few degrees on a few days per year over the past four years. On the other hand, a TMS would have used energy every day of the year, and would have made the Leaf more expensive and heavier, and might have increased average battery temperature causing slightly shorter battery life. I'm happy the Leaf doesn't have a TMS. Not everyone agrees (to say the least) because they have different climates.

If you are in a cool place, having no TMS is great. Most places it is OK. Hot places it is a bad idea to have no TMS with the battery chemistry used in the older Leafs.

FWIW, if given the option to pay an extra $2k for a Volt-style TMS on my 2012 Leaf, I would not have ponied up the money. Upstate NY may be on average colder than Seattle, but I'm pretty sure our summers get hotter. I've seen the loss of 1 capacity bar in 4 years (happened at about 3.5 years). That has not yet interfered with the car's utility to me. Meanwhile, running a TMS would have cost me more upfront, and more over time since it actively uses energy. But it may have preserved a little of my capacity.

So yeah, I'm happy without it too. It's OK for the battery in my climate, and better overall for the car, because it keeps costs down.

 

[JPWhite]

DCQC does not decrease battery life - this is all misinformation from self interested parties.

You can believe that if you want, but you contradict yourself.

QC will elevate the temperature of the pack - typically 10-20F per QC. And as even you acknowledge - heat kills batteries.

Ignore the fact that the capacity reading temporarily goes up. The reading is just an imperfect estimation of the capacity of the pack and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I've found the temperature increase from DCFC to be about the same as L2 charging for the same amount of energy input.

The issue with DCFC is that it enables more miles to be driven and for multiple DCFC charges in one day. Serial use of DCFC in one day will elevate temperatures well above what you could accomplish with L2 only. So DCFC *could* impact the battery more but typically it doesn't.

I don't believe DCFC has a significant impact on battery degradation if performed just once in a day per Nissan guidance.

 

[fotajoye]

Nissan's first mistake: not improving their battery along the way and offering upgrades. 60 miles sounds good for a new battery; but, over time the battery loses range and if you are running near the max, you are charging all the time. They wasted 6 years of range improvements to the car
Nissan's second mistake: not offering updated batteries for their older model years. This limits the range on these cars, depressed their resale value to the lowest resale value in the market and in effect created 220,000 boat anchors...a sad decision by Nissan management that leaves their EV supporters who bought the car and their line of BS feeling like suckers...no repeat customers here.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

FWIW, if given the option to pay an extra $2k for a Volt-style TMS on my 2012 Leaf, I would not have ponied up the money. Upstate NY may be on average colder than Seattle, but I'm pretty sure our summers get hotter. I've seen the loss of 1 capacity bar in 4 years (happened at about 3.5 years). That has not yet interfered with the car's utility to me. Meanwhile, running a TMS would have cost me more upfront, and more over time since it actively uses energy. But it may have preserved a little of my capacity.

So yeah, I'm happy without it too. It's OK for the battery in my climate, and better overall for the car, because it keeps costs down.

+1 on that and that is only part of the problem I have with TMS. Even if it was offered free, I would decline simply because there is no free lunch. The system will take range from me and for what return? I am at 38,000 miles and maybe halfway to losing bar #1...maybe. So would it be worth the extra longevity in sacrifice of a few miles?

to me the answer is no but that is me. Keep in mind, I pulled into my garage over the past 2½ years with MUCH less than a few miles to spare dozens of times...

 

[davewill]

read his post again. Carefully.

I did. He never QC'd, but is sure it does no harm or even improves capacity. All his experience says is that you can have bad battery degradation without QCing, but we all knew that.

 

[nerys]

I don't think you did

let me quote

"I am an owner of a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with 45,000 miles on it and 0 QC on it until it hit 8 bars."

that pretty clearly says he used DCQC once he hit 8 bars.

not trying to be mean or pick a fight but he did say he used QC

the implication I got is that people using QC are seeing a similar loss as he did without QC (which he does not use)

at least that is how I Read it.

 

[davewill]

I don't think you did

let me quote

"I am an owner of a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with 45,000 miles on it and 0 QC on it until it hit 8 bars."

that pretty clearly says he used DCQC once he hit 8 bars.

not trying to be mean or pick a fight but he did say he used QC

the implication I got is that people using QC are seeing a similar loss as he did without QC (which he does not use)

at least that is how I Read it.

I read it the same way, I just don't accept the reasoning. To me that means he has no clue what effect QC might have had on his battery.

 

[nerys]

well ASSUMING my understanding is sound and assuming we are understanding him correctly and assuming any of this matches reality here is the implication I got.

a QC user goes x miles has x degredation.

a non qc user (him) goes x miles has similar x degredation.

qc does not adversely effect the battery.

the logic is sound. if it matches results. I tend to agree with him from personal non electric car battery experience. (my 12 leaf has no qc port)

fast charging does not necessarily damage a battery. HEAT damages a battery.

if you QC a lot but don't overheat the battery your probably not going to see dramatic losses from the QC process

BUT if you QC and this results in a frequent hot battery you will see losses but its not the qc doing this its the HOT battery doing this.

of course if your qc causes the hot battery.....

at least THAT is how I understand it.