Estimated Range Dropped to Zero All of a Sudden

I'm a new Leaf owner. I was cruising along on the freeway on flat terrain at around 65 mph on my way to a charging station about five miles away and the estimated range was at eight miles. All of a sudden the estimate displayed --- or zero miles. I starting to freak out with range anxiety. Luckily I made it with 3% charge according to the charging equipment. Is it a normal circumstance and when does the "turtle mode" in relation to the amount of charge?

Yup, normal. It's called Very Low Battery Warning (VLBW), and yes, you have a few miles left depending upon temps, speed, rain, etc. I see about 10 mi after LBW and then another 10 mi after VLBW until Turtle while driving in town, not at 65 mph (although this is an older 2011 model and it's different on the new ones). Bottom line: test it for yourself while near a safe location and SLOW DOWN if you need to stretch it.

On October 12th I was driving from Pendleton, OR to Arlington, OR ( total 73.2 miles on the odometer)at 55 mph facing a very mild headwind .

At 64 miles the low battery warning came on and 5 miles later (69miles) the very low battery warning came on. The Leaf never went into turtle mode, but the last 3/4 mile or so was downhill on the off ramp into town. I didn't write it down by my charge level was similar or the same as your 3%.

From 64 miles to about 72 miles there were hilly conditions on I 84, but I kept it at 55 mph. My understanding is there is about 12 miles left when you hit the very low battery condition. So far the most I've gone was about 10 miles at that point, but at about 35 mph - not 55 as on 10/12.

For the 2011-12 model years, there are approximately 3.5 kWhs left at Low Battery Warning and approximately 2 kWhs left at Very Low Battery Warning. Multiply that by the miles/kW you expect to get to determine your remaining range. I believe this is also true for the 2013-15 model years. Be aware that an unbalanced pack will shut down sooner than a balanced one after Turtle!

Be careful kids. My understanding is that they went back to the fuel bar mapping in place before the "hidden bars" remap was made stock on the 2012 and part of an update package for the 2011 (P1273). What you have left in a 2012* or a remapped 2011 will probably not compare to what you have left in a 2013-2015.

*Could be it's only some 2012s - I never did find out when they switched back to the way it was mapped originally:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=16909&p=369190&hilit=old+bars#p369190" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

8 to --- directly does seem odd. Mine would always take closer to 1.5 miles to drop each mile and usually see a 3 before ---.
That was a 2011. Have the newer models changed? Still seems odd unless going from steep down to steep climb.

OP's behavior sounds about right for a newer Leaf. I don't pay much attention to the GOM and rarely run the battery that low...

What truly is scary is when the '13+ Leaf's % SoC gauge goes from say 5 or 6% (forget the value) to --- % SoC while still about 2 miles from home. :shock: The typical LBW and VLBW thresholds are at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=17895" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I posted my --- % scare at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=388984#p388984" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

I'd read earlier here on MNL is that turtle triggers at 1 or 2% SoC (per the display) but with the above, I'd have never known how close I was.

I've never tried it, but someone told me the mobile app will still provide an estimated range when the dash has gone to "---".

gshoq said:

I'm a new Leaf owner. I was cruising along on the freeway on flat terrain at around 65 mph on my way to a charging station about five miles away and the estimated range was at eight miles. All of a sudden the estimate displayed --- or zero miles. I starting to freak out with range anxiety. Luckily I made it with 3% charge according to the charging equipment. Is it a normal circumstance and when does the "turtle mode" in relation to the amount of charge?

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Normal behavior, but the numbers seem strange.

In my 2012, I go from 2 to -- on city streets. In that case, LeafSpy on my Android phone still indicates the number of GIDs remaining (GIDs are a measure of energy in the battery. The dash usually goes from 2 to -- at about 25 GIDs. A new battery charges to about 285 GIDs. My old battery was charging to 175 GIDs - the hot Phoenix weather was apparently hard on the first generation batteries.)

Once you get to --, turtle mode is imminent. Be prepared to stop (and be stranded) at any time.

Since your Leaf is new, the battery may not be fully equalized, and is not capable of delivering the full charge. Charging to 100% (no charge timers) for a few days to a week helps develop the full capacity of the battery.

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I had a loaner 2014 Leaf while the battery in my 2012 was being changed out last week (warranty). At 1100 miles, the battery was apparently still not fully equalized (all 96 cells not fully charged at the end of a 100% charge). Charging stops when the first cell reaches 100% - other cells may still be at 80% or lower. Discharge stops (end of turtle mode) when the first cell reaches (10%?) - others may be at 20% or more. In this state, the on-board battery charger slowly discharges the most charged cells by turning on a shunt at each cell to bring everything to the same level. Once equalized, all cells will be very close to 100% charged at the end of a 100% charge, and close to 10% at the end of discharge. This is why you see the vehicle range increase during the first couple weeks of operation.

The loaner had turned on 95 of 96 shunts the first day (all day), and 85 for about half the next day. After that, it turned off all the shunts (the battery had been equalized). This occurs during the life of the battery and driver is unaware of it. Generally fewer than about 16 shunts are operated at at once. On any given day, you're likely to see 0-5 shunts turned on.

I haven't had the new battery long enough to see this happen yet (I've only put 5 miles on it since I picked it up last night.)

Since posting, I've had three other instances when it dropped from 8 miles of range to --- at moderate highway cruising speeds. All three times I observed the battery charge to be around 8%. Perhaps it's 2015 models that are doing this or it may be particular to my vehicle. I purchased in August 2014 and have 3,400 miles on the odometer and the battery spends most of its charge between 40% and 100% on a daily basis with one to two quick charges each week.

gshoq said:

Since posting, I've had three other instances when it dropped from 8 miles of range to --- at moderate highway cruising speeds. All three times I observed the battery charge to be around 8%. Perhaps it's 2015 models that are doing this or it may be particular to my vehicle.

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I'm not sure why you place so much value or care much about the (stupid) GOM (guess-o-meter). See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=271853#p271853" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. You're better off looking at % SoC... but as I found out, that can suddenly turn to --- % from 5 or 6%. :shock:

It's been reported that the GOM on '13 Leafs is improved over the crappy '11-'12 Leafs, so the algorithm or at least the history by which it bases its values has changed. Not sure if it's changed any more since the '13.

I'm not too surprised about your GOM behavior due highway speeds. Power consumption is much higher at highway speeds than city speeds.

Can you update your location info via User Control Panel (near top) > Profile (left side)? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it. I gathered you live in So Cal, but I had to look thru old posts. What do you define as "moderate highway cruising speeds"? In LA, people drive quite fast compared to Nor Cal folks and REALLY fast compared to folks in/around Seattle.

If you need to frequently ride around at that low a state of charge, you really should get LeafSpy, an OBD 2 dongle and an Android device to connect to it in order to monitor battery gids (as http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=389047#p389047" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; suggested to me). The author of LeafSpy (Turbo3) actually lives a few miles from me. If you're hitting this when starting out w/100% state of charge and have no means to opportunity charge before such trips, you will be in for a world of hurt once winter hits and once you're in winter after your battery starts hitting significant degradation, by your 2nd winter. And, you will likely need to drive slower and/or take steps to reduce power consumption.

Not sure if you've seen this chart: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. It was created before the '13 Leaf came out, which is the 1st year to have a % SoC display. Pre-13 Leafs only had the crap GOM and the not very granular 12 fuel bars on the right. So, people used battery gids as a proxy for % SoC.

gshoq said:

Since posting, I've had three other instances when it dropped from 8 miles of range to --- at moderate highway cruising speeds. All three times I observed the battery charge to be around 8%. Perhaps it's 2015 models that are doing this or it may be particular to my vehicle. I purchased in August 2014 and have 3,400 miles on the odometer and the battery spends most of its charge between 40% and 100% on a daily basis with one to two quick charges each week.

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This is not a problem but, rather, just how the low battery warning system is set up to display.

Since I've seen no evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that the 2015 LEAFs use the same limits for Low Battery Warning (LBW: warning light comes on and GOM flashes) and Very Low Battery Warning (VLBW: GOM and %SOC go to ---) that the earlier LEAFs did. If so, LBW happens when the Gids* drop to 49 and VLBW happens when Gids drop to 24.

With regard to the GOM of 8 going to ---, if you are driving efficiently you might very well have an estimated 8 miles left when you get to 24 Gids. I've seen numbers like this and it isn't the least bit unusual.

With regard to the %SOC going from ~8% to ---, that is even easier to explain: the %SOC meter measures "100%" as a full charge, which on a new 2015 LEAF has been reported to be approximately 292 Gids. 8% of 292 is ~23 Gids. When you get to 24 Gids and the car displays VLBW, it makes sense that the %SOC would display about 8% just before that happened. As the battery ages and the total charge it can handle declines (yes, it will happen eventually even on the 2015 "lizard" battery) the number of Gids represented by "100%" will also decline. That will mean that LBW and VLBW will happen at gradually increasing %SOC levels because they are fixed at 49 and 24 Gids.

What the numbers you are seeing suggest is that your battery is in excellent, like-new, condition.

FWIW, on older LEAFs the "rule of thumb" is that you can drive about half the number of miles from VLBW to turtle than you did from LBW to VLBW, assuming same speeds and conditions. I don't know if that remains true on the 2015 but it seems like a good place to start. So, when you hit LBW, set a trip meter and note the miles when you hit VLBW. Then you have about half that number of miles to find a place to charge before hitting turtle.

It would be helpful for every new LEAF owner to take the car down to at least below VLBW just to see that the car still works fine and that the range below LBW can easily be used.

For those of us with aftermarket Gid meters, we can comfortably go below VLBW because we can see how many Gids we have left AND we can see the voltage of the battery cells. As long as all 96 cell-pairs remain above 3.0 Volts we are good-to-go.


* A "Gid", named for an MNL forum member, Gary Giddings, who built an early meter to measure them, is nominally 80 watt•hours. On older LEAFs the maximum Gid level seen when new was about 281 (22.48 kWh). On newer LEAFs some have reported numbers around 292 (23.36 kWh). Not all of that charge is usable since turtle happens somewhere in the 4-7 Gid range, perhaps higher if the battery is unbalanced or if speed/power levels being used are high. This is for older LEAF batteries; I don't know if anyone has made detailed measurements on the new LEAF battery.