Interesting LeafSpy Results from a 2013 SL

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R

RLewisCA

Active member
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
32
Location
SoCal
I leased my SL back at the end of March 2013, and now have about 14,350 miles on it. I live in a part of S. California that can get hot, although not all of the time - San Dimas - right on the border of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties (on the LA side). We got probably around 30 - 35 days in the last 12 months that were over 90, maybe about 10 - 15 of which were over 100. The car is either kept in my non-insulated garage or in an outdoor parking lot during the day, and is pretty much always in my garage overnight. Since the climate here is a bit warm (certainly not as warm as some places, but warm enough), I thought it might be a good idea to see how my battery is faring, and ordered and OBD II device and downloaded LeafSpy light.

I thought by now, after about 14 1/2 months and 14,350 miles, I would probably be at somewhere around 88% - 90% SOH and Hx. I have not noticed any reduction in range, but I don't tend to push it, so I thought it was probably there, I just hadn't noticed because I'm not driving the car to it's max range a lot. I charge to 80% most days, but have no problem charging to 100% when needed, and I tend to let it sit at 100% for several hours before driving to take best advantage of the TOU rate from SoCal Edison. I am maintaining a lifetime mi/kwh average of 4.5, according to the dash.

What I got surprised me a bit, in a good way. Based on all of the capacity loss talk, I'm just not sure if it's unusual, or better than average. Screenshot attached.

 
RlewisCA: WOW! I'm really impressed with you driving over 14K miles in 15+ months in your area of relatively high temps, and having such a small % of degradation. My 2011, domiciled much closer to the beach than yours, had a lot more degradation at that stage. I guess the 2013 battery capacity is much more robust than earlier models??
 
derkraut said:
RlewisCA: WOW! I'm really impressed with you driving over 14K miles in 15+ months in your area of relatively high temps, and having such a small % of degradation. My 2011, domiciled much closer to the beach than yours, had a lot more degradation at that stage. I guess the 2013 battery capacity is much more robust than earlier models??
Click to expand...


I am in Maryland, had the car for 7 months, 11,000 miles 2013 SV built in September. No summers yet, and am still at 101% / 66 amps. It will be interesting to see what I have by end of summer here. I also tend to charge to 100% about a third of the time.
 
RLewisCA said:
I thought by now, after about 14 1/2 months and 14,350 miles, I would probably be at somewhere around 88% - 90% SOH and Hx. I have not noticed any reduction in range, but I don't tend to push it, so I thought it was probably there, I just hadn't noticed because I'm not driving the car to it's max range a lot. I charge to 80% most days, but have no problem charging to 100% when needed, and I tend to let it sit at 100% for several hours before driving to take best advantage of the TOU rate from SoCal Edison. I am maintaining a lifetime mi/kwh average of 4.5, according to the dash.
Click to expand...
Wow! I plugged your numbers into the Battery Aging Model, got predicted loss of 11.2% (and that was assuming NO days parked in the sun) and actual loss of 4.1%. That is amazing to me, and suggests significant improvements in heat tolerance for your battery (or you are one lucky SOB ;) ). After one year of driving my 2011 Leaf there was a noticeable loss of capacity, although I didn't have any means of measuring capacity loss at that time. I am currently running about 0.5% better than the Battery Aging Model; my Leaf had it's 3rd birthday today. :D
 
nice results and surprising for an early 2013. I "personally" expected improvement later in the MY but you have one of the first builds. how are other faring? I know that AZ'ers (well at least one) have degradation and only got theirs only a month or so before yours.

would love to see some data from various owners in known degradation areas in 3 month blocks by build date to see if there is a trend?
 
2013 SL, no QC.

13,100 miles, Ahr 58.45, SOH 89%. Just got Leafspy a month ago.

Delivery 3/7/13

Our climate ranks a 1.00 on the climate model. I park in a garage most of the time and am rarely out in the sun for long periods. My garage moderates temps a lot but doesn't cool off at night as much (probably like most). It is generally 80 when it is 95 out but doesn't cool to 70 in the morning. I did a lot of venting when it made sense and opening the garage doors at 5AM. I mostly don't do 100% - maybe once a month, twice in the winter. Always for a few hours or less. Always store (ie out of town) at less than 50%.

But I certainly don't sense any degradation. Last night I drove 33 miles and the SOC went from 59 to 24. A/C was on and there was some 65mph driving. For what it is worth, generally the GOM gives me about a mile per % SOC.

I need to do a range test but life is busy of course. I'd be pretty disappointed with 11% degradation but not surprised. What is frustrating is that level makes the whole EV business not very practical yet.

Isn't the whole leafspy business a little off with 2013's? Would I need to 100% charge to get a reliable SOH? I can't remember the last time I got to 100% - I'll set it to go above 80 but usually not get to 100%. This morning I went to 88% for example.

ADD:
I scanned again this morning. My SOH is 90% at 13,761 miles. What impresses me is that the GOM has me at 80 miles while the spy says I only have 15.3 kwh available. Maybe I was running 5.6 miles/kwh this morning - I'm not sure but with a/c and I was on the highway at 65 some. You guys have probably all done these calcs but I am at 77.2% SOC so the spy says I have 19.8 kwh available. That would imply 22 kwh when new. I guess that sounds about right.
 
davidcary said:
2013 SL, no QC.

13,100 miles, Ahr 58.45, SOH 89%. Just got Leafspy a month ago.

Delivery 3/7/13

Our climate ranks a 1.00 on the climate model. I park in a garage most of the time and am rarely out in the sun for long periods. My garage moderates temps a lot but doesn't cool off at night as much (probably like most). It is generally 80 when it is 95 out but doesn't cool to 70 in the morning. I did a lot of venting when it made sense and opening the garage doors at 5AM. I mostly don't do 100% - maybe once a month, twice in the winter. Always for a few hours or less. Always store (ie out of town) at less than 50%.

But I certainly don't sense any degradation. Last night I drove 33 miles and the SOC went from 59 to 24. A/C was on and there was some 65mph driving. For what it is worth, generally the GOM gives me about a mile per % SOC.

I need to do a range test but life is busy of course. I'd be pretty disappointed with 11% degradation but not surprised. What is frustrating is that level makes the whole EV business not very practical yet.

Isn't the whole leafspy business a little off with 2013's? Would I need to 100% charge to get a reliable SOH? I can't remember the last time I got to 100% - I'll set it to go above 80 but usually not get to 100%. This morning I went to 88% for example.

ADD:
I scanned again this morning. My SOH is 90% at 13,761 miles. What impresses me is that the GOM has me at 80 miles while the spy says I only have 15.3 kwh available. Maybe I was running 5.6 miles/kwh this morning - I'm not sure but with a/c and I was on the highway at 65 some. You guys have probably all done these calcs but I am at 77.2% SOC so the spy says I have 19.8 kwh available. That would imply 22 kwh when new. I guess that sounds about right.
Click to expand...


thanks for posting details!!! you have potentially provided VERY valuable data. I hit about 22.7 kwh available most of the time. I truly believe your low numbers are directly related to your lack of charging to full. with your mileage being not that low, it would be great if you could charge to 100% every day for say 7-10 days and see what your batt stats are then. my numbers drop when i dont fully charge my LEAF either. check out my stats in blog.

as far as "dangers" of charging to full, keep in mind, full is only 94% SOC. drive at least 20 or so miles a day during your charging experiment. I think you will see you have nowhere near 11% loss

http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2014/06/exercise-your-leaf.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
You have to be very careful with drawing conclusions from limited data sets such as this... For example, a co-worker has a April 2013 and it is showing battery degradation that nearly matches Stoaty's model. He lives and works in the valley, so it is warm... The car has 17,000 miles on it.
 
TomT said:
You have to be very careful with drawing conclusions from limited data sets such as this... For example, a co-worker has a April 2013 and it is showing battery degradation that nearly matches Stoaty's model. He lives and works in the valley, so it is warm...
Click to expand...


which is the reason why I asked for others to post data. could be an adjustment to degradation which simply moved the critical heat level higher. so very hot might only see slight improvement where medium hot like the OP sees a higher level of improvement.
 
Which is why it would be nice if Nissan would actually say something for once... You would think that if the "lizard battery" was actually in production and being fitted to vehicles, they would want to sing that fact to the rafters! The fact that they are not and have said virtually nothing makes me very suspicious! The don't have a lot of creditability these days...

DaveinOlyWA said:
TomT said:
You have to be very careful with drawing conclusions from limited data sets such as this... For example, a co-worker has a April 2013 and it is showing battery degradation that nearly matches Stoaty's model. He lives and works in the valley, so it is warm...
Click to expand...
which is the reason why I asked for others to post data. could be an adjustment to degradation which simply moved the critical heat level higher. so very hot might only see slight improvement where medium hot like the OP sees a higher level of improvement.
Click to expand...
 
TomT said:
You would think that if the "lizard battery" was actually in production and being fitted to vehicles, they would want to sing that fact to the rafters! The fact that they are not and have said virtually nothing makes me very suspicious! The don't have a lot of creditability these days...
Click to expand...
From a marketing perspective, they're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't.

If they admit that their newest battery is significantly more heat tolerant, that admits that the original battery is not as good as they claim which opens them up to liability claims.

For sure, it doesn't seem to make much sense to admit anything until they are are ready to do anything.

It draws a similar parallel to the recent MPG fiasco Ford is facing with their hybrids. Until Nissan is ready to present a program to make customers whole, it doesn't necessarily make for them sense to make any "hot" battery announcement.
 
TomT said:
Which is why it would be nice if Nissan would actually say something for once... You would think that if the "lizard battery" was actually in production and being fitted to vehicles, they would want to sing that fact to the rafters! The fact that they are not and have said virtually nothing makes me very suspicious! The don't have a lot of creditability these days...

DaveinOlyWA said:
TomT said:
You have to be very careful with drawing conclusions from limited data sets such as this... For example, a co-worker has a April 2013 and it is showing battery degradation that nearly matches Stoaty's model. He lives and works in the valley, so it is warm...
Click to expand...
which is the reason why I asked for others to post data. could be an adjustment to degradation which simply moved the critical heat level higher. so very hot might only see slight improvement where medium hot like the OP sees a higher level of improvement.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

well, there is two issues at play here. one is ongoing improvement and in an emerging tech like batteries, how much of an improvement warrants an announcement and what does that do to the value of say a car manufactured a week before the improvement because every time there is such an announcement, there is also immediate concerns over "which side of the line" the car is on.


the other thing is that the "real" announcement most are looking for is the lizard battery for the 2011/12's which is really a completely different thing. it is this we were told a timeline for this year. as far as 2013's and 14's, we were told nothing...right? at least I don't remember that part...

to be honest with ya, all the threads concerning the issues quickly became circle jerks so I stopped following most of them. I glanced at them occasionally but that is about it so I, for one cannot say I am familiar with all Nissan has had to say on the issues.

what i suspect is that there is continuous tweaking of the pack and this is something we won't really hear about. there is a level of concern Nissan should have because what is to stop another manufacturer from taking a "before" car and a "after" car, reverse engineering them to see if they can gather clues as to where Nissan is heading. its pretty obvious that a battery with minimal overhead for TMS is where everyone wants to be.

**edit** to clarify and I had to go back to the original announcement; Nissan did say it improved their batteries for 2013 so that part should not be a surprise
 
But they also said that it was mostly to lower costs and improve manufacturing... Nothing was said about it improving capacity or temperature degradation...

And to say that they open themselves up to liability on older cars by announcing battery improvements is simply silly since that have already effectively made themselves liable, if you will, with the class action lawsuit settlement and capacity warranty...

DaveinOlyWA said:
**edit** to clarify and I had to go back to the original announcement; Nissan did say it improved their batteries for 2013 so that part should not be a surprise
Click to expand...
 
TomT said:
But they also said that it was mostly to lower costs and improve manufacturing... Nothing was said about it improving capacity or temperature degradation...
Click to expand...
Exactly. IIRC they also mentioned a slight electrolyte tweak and also said it shouldn't significantly affect the performance of the pack.
 
TomT said:
You have to be very careful with drawing conclusions from limited data sets such as this... For example, a co-worker has a April 2013 and it is showing battery degradation that nearly matches Stoaty's model. He lives and works in the valley, so it is warm...
Click to expand...
April purchased or April manufactured? What matters more is date of manufacture. You could buy in June but was made in December.
 
Yes, I know. Bought April, manufactured March. I don't know the exact day...

DanCar said:
TomT said:
You have to be very careful with drawing conclusions from limited data sets such as this... For example, a co-worker has a April 2013 and it is showing battery degradation that nearly matches Stoaty's model. He lives and works in the valley, so it is warm...
Click to expand...
April purchased or April manufactured? What matters more is date of manufacture. You could buy in June but was made in December.
Click to expand...
 
TomT said:
Yes, I know. Bought April, manufactured March. I don't know the exact day...
Click to expand...
I asked a co-worker mailing list if any had noticed battery degradation for 2013 model. More than a dozen 2013 leafs there. None had noticed degradation. On the 2012 side, just bought a few months earlier there were plenty of complaints about severe battery degradation, in the bay area.
 
DanCar said:
I asked a co-worker mailing list if any had noticed battery degradation for 2013 model. More than a dozen 2013 leafs there. None had noticed degradation. On the 2012 side, just bought a few months earlier there were plenty of complaints about severe battery degradation, in the bay area.
Click to expand...
Sounds like we need to get some real data on '13 LEAFs. Preferably as old as possible and compare to the newest '12 LEAFs.

Two possible tests:

1. 100 km/h (62 mph) ground speed range test (Tony's favorite)

2. Drain to turtle and charge to 100% measuring energy from the wall to recharge using a Blink or Chargepoint.

Unfortunately test #2 may not correlate exactly between '11-12 and '13+ LEAFs since the OBC changed and 3.3 vs 6.6 kW charging on '13+ LEAFs. If charging back up in public you'll also want to note grid voltage (208 or 240V).
 
Just to add another data point, my 2014 that was manufactured in mid January has no shown degradation in 5 months and 8500 miles. Temps have been unseasonably cool here and have hit the high 80s and low 90s only in the last week or so. But I do charge to 100% twice every work day, not out of necessity but because 2014s do not have 80% limit anymore. So it charges to 100% overnight in my house and then after driving 36 miles, it again charges to 100% in my office.

One thing though I always park the car outside overnight to cool it down to ambient temps of low to mid 70s, and i also park at a shaded multi-level garage at office.

All the details are here at: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15837&start=60" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2014 Leaf battery monthly capacity values
 
like any new car announcements, the details are either vague or presented from a point of view, few of us can understand that usually portrays changes as being more than they really are.

the understated nature suggests that Nissan wants to let people know things have changed but are unwilling to quantify them. maybe they are no longer willing to relay info from accelerated aging tests since the last attempt did not go well.

but lets just get some numbers in here to see if the degradation curve is being beat. we have one but that could simply be fluke. we need a lot more and there are plenty out there. So lets get on social media and get people posting their numbers
 

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