"S" trim level "Very Low battery" warning?

Ok - so I ran the battery very low last weekend (poor planning on my part actually). I saw the "Low battery" warning - I think it was somewhere around 15% SOC indicated remaining (down to one bar). So I drove on (had no choice) and kept an eye on both the indicated range remaining and the % remaining indicators... after a while the GOM went to --- for miles, but the % charge was still there (I think that was around 9%?). Kept going - was getting closer to where I could charge.. After some point the % remaining went to --- as well - so now I'm driving "blind" with no useful info on remaining charge from the car. No additional warnings that I noticed.

I finally pull into my friendly (I do mean that) Nissan dealer who has a DCQC. When I plugged into this the DCQC indicated 2% remaining... Rest of story is dull - charged up for 30 mins and went on with my day...

So my question is - did I miss the "Very Low" battery warning or was that yet to come? Where does "turtle" mode kick in? at 0% charge?

Sorry - I don't have leafspy (need to buy a smart phone first, ha!) or any other way of reporting additional info. Perhaps this experience may convince me to bother with all that.... if there was/is more useful info available?

Edit to add: I googled "Very Low Battery warning" and found lots of images that appear to be warnings on the console from higher trim models...

I've done similar once. at 13% to 17% Low warning comes on asking to find nearby charging stations.

I've also been to "- - -" but I made it home as soon as that happened.

From what I read when you get to "- - -" you have 3 miles range left.

In 2.5 miles you will enter turtle mode and be governed down to 25MPH
(since I never got this low this may be incorrect)

Usually if I think I am going to get this low I will take local roads which give me 30 to 35% more range.

Sal

So then is the "---" value in both the %remaining and the GOM the "Very Low Battery Warning" then? I had expected to get a second pop-up warning on the dash saying "Very Low Battery" or somesuch... wrong expectation?

when the display changed to "---" you should have got a 'Very Low Battery" warning. I am sure you missed it.

Yes, the GOM flashing --- means you have passed Very Low Battery Warning. FYI, the last fuel bar disappears when you have about 4-5 miles left, assuming you are driving at about 30mph.

Sounds good - thanks to all for the useful information.

I figure I need to know what the key points are and how to react - i.e. if VLBW means 5 miles left @30mph that is a decent remainder for me to have so I may as well hit it once in a while eh? I certainly have not been worrying much about getting LBW, can't very well go 80+ miles on the highway without doing that. But I don't want to drive the ICE to avoid LBW if, as it seems, about 15-20% of the range remains.

Slow1 said:

Sounds good - thanks to all for the useful information.

I figure I need to know what the key points are and how to react - i.e. if VLBW means 5 miles left @30mph that is a decent remainder for me to have so I may as well hit it once in a while eh? I certainly have not been worrying much about getting LBW, can't very well go 80+ miles on the highway without doing that. But I don't want to drive the ICE to avoid LBW if, as it seems, about 15-20% of the range remains.

Click to expand...

Ooops, obviously I didn't write as clearly as I thought:

Distance to turtle from:
VLBW= start of flashing "---"= about 10-13 miles
Disappearance of the last fuel bar= 4-5 miles

You make a good point, many people needlessly restrict the use of their Leafs (not Leaves) because they fail to realize how many miles are really available.

I drive below VLBW at least once a week, and below disappearance of the last fuel bar at least once a month. Some claim that this is hard on the battery, but the Nissan owners manual has no cautions about that, and there is no even anecdotal evidence from the many Leaf owners on this forum to the effect that discharging the battery causes it to lose capacity. I've had my S for 15 months, 14k miles, and have exactly the same range as when I bought the car. GID numbers and AHr capacity, and SOH numbers are all slightly better than when I bought the car.

One of my only complaints with the Leaf. Instrumentation should be accurate. I understand the GOM going to nil as it's a calculated value that has a dynamic element, but SOC? Isn't the point of instrumentation to give the operator an accurate picture of what's going on? I understand gasers do this too with the fuel level gauge, and I have the same problem with that. I try not to run the thing down to nothing, but I use my Leaf on a 62 mile one-way commute, I could use accurate instrumentation without having to get a GID meter.

That said, I love my Leaf in all other aspects!