Question about hot vs cold climate battery degradation

I've read a lot about Leaf batteries in hot climates degrading much faster than normal (pre-2015 anyway). On the flip side, a cold battery has reduced range. If I'm understanding it correctly, the cold climate range loss isn't damaging the battery? Unlike the hot climate which is actually damaging the battery.

That is correct. The reduced range in low temperature is largely due to the need for cabin heat and you get back the range in normal temperatures.

Thanks, that's good to know.

Well, cabin heating, denser air, and batteries don't hold as much charge when they're cold. They also take longer to charge. You do get the range back in warmer months. When turned in at 2 years, our '12 hadn't even degraded 10% yet. It followed Stoaty's model very well. The '15 seems to have much better range in cold so far, but then this one has the heat pump, definately better.

Most winter tires aren't LRR (Michelin xice and Nokian Hakkapellitas are a nice exception as they are not only LRR but among the lowest rolling resistance of LRR tires). Snow/ice/water that the tire has to push away takes energy. On the flip side to this when it is snowing everyone goes slower so you can take the highway and get the same or better range than you got at similar temperatures but 65+ mph. It's also very important to check your tire pressure in November/December as it can drop enough to hit range but maybe not enough to trigger the TPS warning light.

I've talked to one educated Ontario leaf owner who had one of the first leafs in Canada he's at 86% battery now and if I remember correctly about 40,000km.

On my 2015 with hakkapellita R2s (51psi) if I keep my speed below 50 mph I can easily get above 4 miles/kWh with the heat pump running at a comfortable temp. I doubt my batteries internal temp has yet to drop below freezing but I've driven in as cold as -8C outside so I haven't seen any times where the battery holds less charge because of the temp just reduced efficiencies from the cold. If I just set cruise at 75mph I'll get about 2.9 miles/kWh.

To truly damage the battery from cold you'd probably have to leave the battery at a low state of charge and off the charger with an internal battery temp -30C or lower for a while. It would probably do just as much or more damage as heat has done but there aren't many places you'd see those conditions that someone would buy a leaf (or that Nissan is trying to sell them in volume). As opposed to what we do know from heat damage there are many places in the US that got into the danger zone (key music!) daily. The normal process of using the car creates heat in the battery, driving/charging. This makes the people in hot areas at a higher risk and reduces the risk for those in the cold.

There is guidance on cold weather storage in the handbook.